1782. As the word _oughte_ is never followed by _to_ with a following gerund, it is certain that _to-hangen_ is all one word, the prefix _to-_ being intensive. MSS. F. and B. omit _to_, but the rest have it, and the syllable is wanted. I know of no other example of _to-hangen_, to hang thoroughly, but this is of little moment. The prefix _to-_ was freely added to all sorts of verbs expressing strong action; Stratmann gives _more than a hundred_ examples. Cf. note to l. 1598. 1783. We must read _sweynte_, the form preserved in MS. B, where the final _e_ is added to the pp. _sweynt_, as if it were an adjective used in the definite form. The reading _swynt_ is false, being an error for _sweynte_. The reading _slepy_ is a mere gloss upon this rare word, but fairly expresses the meaning. Bell's Chaucer has _swynt_, which the editor supposes to be put for _swinkt_ = _swinked_, pp. of _swinken_, to toil, as in Milton's 'swinkd hedger'; Comus, 293. He is, however, entirely wrong, for Milton's _swink'd_ is quite a late form; in Chaucer's time the verb _swinken_ was strong, and the pp. was _swunken_! Chaucer has _queynt_ as the pp. of _quenchen_, Kn. Tale, A 2321; and _dreynt_ as the pp. of _drenchen_, Non. Prest. Tale, B 4272. Similarly _sweynt_ is the pp. of _swenchen_, to cause to toil, to fatigue, tire out, the causal verb formed from the aforesaid strong intransitive verb _swinken_, to toil. For examples, see _swenchen_ in Stratmann; I may instance, 'Euwer feond eou ne scal ... _swenchen_,' your enemies shall not harass you, Old Eng. Homilies, ed. Morris, i. 13; and 'hi _swencten_ swiðe heom-seolfe,' they sore afflicted themselves, id. 101. Hence, 'the sweynte cat' means the over-toiled or tired-out cat; or, secondarily, a cat that will take no trouble, a slothful or _sleepy_ cat, as the gloss says. Compare Gower, Conf. Amant. ed. Pauli, ii. 39, where the same cat is brought forward as an example of the deadly sin of _Sloth_:-- 'For he [a knight] ne wol no travail take To ride for his ladies sake, But liveth al upon his wisshes, And--as a cat wolde ete fisshes Withoute weting of his clees-- So wolde he do, but netheles He faileth ofte of that he wolde.' The 'adage' is referred to in Macbeth, i. 7. 45. It occurs in MS. Harl. 2321, fol. 146, printed in Reliq. Antiquæ, i. 207, in the form: 'The cat doth love the fishe, she will not wett her foote.' In Heywood's Proverbs, 1562 (p. 28, ed. Spenser Soc.): 'The cat would eate fyshe, and would not wet her feete.' So also in Camden's Remains, 1614, p. 312. Hazlitt gives a rimed version:-- 'Fain would the cat fish eat, But she's loth to wet her feet.' In Piers the Plowman's Crede, 405, is the allusion:-- 'Thou woldest not weten thy fote, and woldest fich cacchen.'