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68
NOTES TO THE KINGIS QUAIR (37-44).
37. Eft, again. The idea is more or less copied from Chaucer,
C. T. 1171, &c. :—
A man most nedes lone, maugre his heed.
Compare also ‘the Song of Troilus,’ in Chaucer, Trail, bk. i.
38. Cf. Who hath thee doon offence ? Ch. C. T. 1085.
40. Imitated from Chaucer, C. T. 1079 :—
He cast his eyen vpon Emilia;
Also from 1. 1063 :—
Ther as Emilia had hire pleying;
And from 11. 1037-9 :—
That Emelie, that fayrer was to sene
Than is the lilie vpon hire stalke grene,
And fressher than the May with floures newe.
And further, compare 11. 1080, 1081 :—
And therwithal he blente, and cried a !
As though he stongen were vnto the herte.
Pleyne is for -pley)i, i.e., play, amuse herself. It is Chaucer’s very
word, and Tytler is quite wrong in supposing it to mean ‘complain’
in this passage; though of course it often bears that meaning. In
Chaucer’s Troil. ii. 812, it is said of Cressid
She rist her up, and wente her for to ■pleye ;
And, five lines below, To pi eyen.
41. For-quhy, because, since.
Of free wyll, of my own free will; for there was no token (or sign)
of menace (or threatening) in her sweet face.
42. The last two lines are due to Chaucer, C. T. 1103 :—
I not wher [know not whether^ she be womman or goddesse.
And again, in Chaucer, Troil. i. 425:—
But whether goddesse or womman, iwis,
She be, I not [know not\. ,
43. Nature the goddesse. Chaucer, in his Assembly of Foules, intro¬
duces Nature as a goddess, and assigns her a garden ; 1. 302 :—
And in a launde, vpon an hille of floures,
Was set this noble goddesse Nature.
Minister. This is obviously the word meant, though written ‘ mis¬
ter’in the MS. A trisyllabic word is required. Tytler wrongly prints
tnester, but suggests ‘administer’ as the sense of it.
E. Thomson (p. xiii.) notes another instance where the word minister
is written as ‘ mister’ in a MS.—viz., in the Acts of James I. 1432, c. 4,
where we find : ‘ Jugis sal mister the law.’
44. / may It noght astert, I cannot escape it. Cf. Chaucer, C. T.
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