Act ii. sc. 2. [sc. 3.],—

a passage which the modern editors have most absurdly altered: _Olyuere_ was one of the twelve peers of France.

v. 23. _Priamus_] Perhaps the personage so named, who fought with Gawayne, and was afterwards made a knight of the Round Table; see _Morte d’Arthur_, B. v. ch. x. xii. vol. i. 148 sqq. ed. Southey.

v. 24. _Arturys auncyent actys_] An allusion, perhaps, more particularly to the _Morte d’Arthur_; see its other title in note, p. 137. v. 634.

v. 25. _fysnamy_] i. e. physiognomy. So in _The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy_ (see note, p. 177. v. 4.)

“—— thy frawart phisnomy.”

Dunbar’s _Poems_, ii. 68. ed. Laing.

v. 26. _to hawte_] i. e. too haughty.

—— _I wys_] i. e. truly, certainly (_i-wis_, adv.).

v. 29. _Godfrey_] See note on title of this poem, p. 180.

—— _gargons_] i. e. Gorgon’s.

v. 30. _Syr Olifranke_] Qy. a mistake of the transcriber for _Syr Olifaunte_, the giant mentioned in Chaucer’s _Sire Thopas_?

—— _splay_] i. e. display.

v. 31. _Baile_] Seems to mean—howl, cry. “I _Balle_ as a curre dogge doth, _Ie hurle_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. clvii. (Table of Verbes).

—— _folys_] i. e. fools.

v. 32. _ȝe_] i. e. ye.

Page 119. v. 36. _Gup_] See note, p. 99. v. 17.

—— _gorbellyd_] i. e. big-bellied.

v. 37. _turney_] i. e. tourney, contend.

—— _to fare to seke_] i. e. too far at a loss, inexperienced,—unable.

v. 38. _whypslovens_] A term which I do not understand.

—— _a coke stole_] i. e. a cucking-stool, a chair or stool fixed at the end of a long pole, used for the punishment of scolds and brawlers by plunging them in the water.

v. 39. _mantycore_] See note, p. 127. v. 294.

—— _marmoset_] A kind of ape, or monkey.

Page 120.—— _lusty Garnyche welle be seyn Crysteouyr_] Both these epithets allude to his dress: “_Lusty_ or fresshe in apparayle _frisque_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. xci. (Table of Adiect.): _welle be seyn_; see note, p. 112. v. 283.—Compare Dunbar;

“Gife I be _lusty in array_, Than luve I paramouris thay say ... Gife I be nocht _weill als besene_,” &c.

_Poems_, i. 185. ed. Laing.

v. 1. _lewde_] i. e. ignorant, vile.

v. 3. _skrybe_] Printed by mistake in the text “skryke”—means Godfrey; see note on title of the preceding poem, p. 180, and compare v. 90 of the present.

v. 6. _I caste me_] i. e. I project, design.

v. 9. _fauyr_] i. e. appearance, look.

v. 11. _cousshons_] i. e. cushions.

v. 12. _condycyonns_] i. e. qualities, dispositions, habits. “_Condycions_ maners _meurs_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, fol. xxv. (Table of Subst.). “Whan a man is set in autoryte, than shall his _condycyons_ be spyed ... _Mores_ deprehenduntur.” “Thy _good condycyons_ ... _virtutes_ tuas.” Hormanni _Vulgaria_, sig. N i. ed. 1530.

v. 13. _Gup, marmeset, jast ye, morelle_] See notes, p. 93. v. 11. p. 99. v. 17, and this page, v. 39.

v. 14. _lorelle_] i. e. good-for-nothing fellow (see Tyrwhitt’s _Gloss._ to Chaucer’s _Cant. Tales_).

v. 15. _Lewdely_] i. e. Badly, (as in v. 18 _lewdnes_, i. e. badness); but in v. 19 it is to be understood in its more original meaning—ignorantly.

v. 18. _awne_] i. e. own.

v. 20. _ȝe_] i. e. ye.

v. 21. to _wyde_] i. e. too wide.

Page 120. v. 26. _dryvyll_] See note, p. 113. v. 337.

v. 27. _your nose dedde sneuylle_] So in _The Flytyng of Dunbar and Kennedy_ (see note, p. 177. v. 4);

“Out! out! I schowt, upon _that snout that snevillis_.”

Dunbar’s _Poems_, ii. 86. ed. Laing.

v. 30. _fonne_] i. e. fool.

v. 31. _A gose with the fete vponne_] i. e. a goose with its feet on.

Page 121. v. 32. _slvfferd vp_] i. e. slabbered up.

—— _sowse_] “Succiduum. anglice. _sowce_.” _Ortus Vocab._ fol. ed. W. de Worde, n. d. (and so _Prompt. Parv._ ed. 1499). “_Souce trippes._” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. lxv. (Table of Subst.). And see Todd’s _Johnson’s Dict._ and Richardson’s _Dict._ in v.

v. 34. _xulde_] i. e. should: a provincialism (see, for instance, the _Coventry Mysteries_ passim), to be attributed not to Skelton, but to the transcriber.

v. 36. _bawdy_] i. e. foul; see note, p. 161. v. 90.

v. 38. _haftynge_] See note, p. 107. v. 138.

—— _polleynge_] i. e. plundering.

v. 40. _Gynys_] i. e. Guines.

v. 41. _spere_] i. e. spire, shoot,—stripling.

v. 42. _lewdly_] i. e. vilely, meanly.

—— _gere_] i. e. apparel.

v. 46. _dud frese_] i. e. coarse frieze.

v. 52. _ȝe_] i. e. ye.

v. 53. _warde_] i. e. wardrobe.

v. 54. _kyst a shepys ie_] i. e. cast a sheep’s eye.

v. 56. _gonge_] i. e. privy.

v. 62. _bassyd_] i. e. kissed.

Page 122. v. 68. _pyllyd garleke hed_] Palsgrave has both “_Pylled_, as one that wanteth heare,” and “_Pylled_ scalled.” _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. xciii. (Table of Adiect.). Compare the next poem _Against Garnesche_;

“Thow callyst me _scallyd_, thou callyst me mad: Thow thou be _pyllyd_, thow ar nat sade.”

v. 116. vol. i. 130.

_Pilled-garlick_ was a term applied to a person whose hair had fallen off by disease; see Todd’s _Johnson’s Dict._ in v.

v. 69. _hocupy there no stede_] i. e. occupy there no place, stand in no stead,—avail nothing.

v. 70. _Syr Gy of Gaunt_] So our author again, in his _Colyn Cloute_;

“Auaunt, _syr Guy of Gaunt_.”

v. 1157. vol. i. 355.

In _The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy_ (which, as already shewn, strongly resembles the present pieces _Against Garnesche_ in several minute particulars) we find—

“thow _spreit of Gy_.”

Dunbar’s _Poems_, ii. 72. ed. Laing.

and at p. 37 of the same vol., in _The Droichis Part of the Play_, attributed to Dunbar,—

“I wait I am _the spreit of Gy_.”

So too Sir D. Lyndsay in his _Epistill to the Kingis Grace_ before his _Dreme_,—

“And sumtyme, lyke _the grislie gaist of Gy_.”

Works, i. 187. ed. Chalmers,—

who explains it “the well-known Sir Guy of romance.” But both Dunbar and Lyndsay allude to a story concerning the ghost of a person called Guy, an inhabitant of Alost. There is a Latin tract on the subject, entitled _De spiritu Guuidonis_, of which various translations into English are extant in MS. One of these is now before me, in verse, and consisting of 16 closely written 4to pages: _Here begynnyth a notabyll matere and a gret myracule don be oure lord ihesus cryst and shewyd In the ȝeer of his incarnacion MCCCXXIII._ [printed Latin tract now before me has MCCCXXIIII.] _and in the xvi day of decembyr in the Cete of Aleste. Whiche myracule ys of a certeyn man that was callyd Gy. and deyde and aftyr viii days he apperyd to his wyf aftyr the comaundment of god. of whiche apperyng she was aferd and oftyn tyme rauysshid. Than she toke conseyl and went to the ffreris of the same cete and tolde the Pryor ffrere Iohnn goly of this mater, &c._ As _Gaunt_ is the old name of Ghent, and as Alost is about thirteen miles from that city, perhaps the reader may be inclined to think,—what I should greatly doubt,—that Skelton also alludes to the same story.

Page 122. v. 71. _olyfaunt_] i. e. elephant.

v. 72. _pykes_] i. e. pickaxe. “_Pykeys._ Ligo. Marra.” _Prompt. Parv._ ed. 1499.

—— _twybyll_] “_Twybyll_ writis instrument. Bisacuta. Biceps.” _Prompt. Parv._ ed. 1499. “Twybill or mactok. Marra. Ligo.” _Ibid._ “Bipennis ... a _twyble_ or axe, a twall.” _Ortus Vocab._ ed. 1514. (in the earlier ed. fol. n. d. W. de Worde, the English explanation is less full). “_Twyble_ an instrument for carpentars _bernago_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. lxxi. (Table of Subst.).

Page 122. v. 75. _wary_] Is frequently found in the sense of curse,—

(“Who so the _waris wared_ be he.”

_Isaac_,—_Towneley Mysteries_, p. 43)—

but here, I apprehend, it means—war, contend.

v. 79. _eldyr steke_] i. e. elder-stick.

v. 87. _sowtters_] i. e. shoemakers, cobblers.

v. 88. _seche a nody polle_] i. e. such a silly head, ninny.

v. 89. _pryste_] i. e. priest.

v. 90. _your scrybys nolle_] i. e. your scribe’s head,—Godfrey’s; see note on title of the preceding poem, p. 180.

v. 91. _fonde_] i. e. foolish.

v. 93. _make_] i. e. compose verses.

v. 94. _dawpate_] i. e. simple pate, simpleton; see note, p. 113. v. 301.

Page 123. v. 101. _Bolde bayarde_] The proverbial expression, “as bold as blind bayard,”—(_bayard_, properly a bay horse, but used for a horse in general),—is very ancient, and of very frequent occurrence in our early literature; its origin is not known:

“For _blynde bayarde_ caste peryll of nothynge, Tyll that he stumblyng fall amydde the lake.”

Lydgate’s _Warres of Troy_, B. v. sig. E e ii. ed. 1555.

v. 102. _kynde_] i. e. nature.

v. 108.

_Ye wolde be callyd a maker,_ _And make moche lyke Jake Raker_]

i. e. You would be called a composer of verses, or poet, and you compose much in the style of Jack Raker. So again our author;

“Set _sophia_ asyde, for euery _Jack Raker_ And euery mad medler must now be a maker.”

_Speke, Parrot_, v. 165. vol. ii. 8.

“He maketh vs _Jacke Rakers_; He sayes we ar but crakers,” &c.

_Why come ye nat to Courte_, v. 270. vol. ii. 35.

So too in the comedy by Nicholas Udall, entitled _Ralph Royster Doyster_;

“Of Songs and Balades also he is a maker, And that can he as finely doe as _Jacke Raker_.”