Nevertheless, upon further thoughts, I accept Tyrwhitt's view, with some modification. We find that Chaucer actually uses Kentish forms (with _e_ for A. S. _y_) elsewhere, for the sake of a rime. A clear case is that of _fulfelle_, in Troil. iii. 510. This justifies the dat. form _selle_ (A. S. _sylle_). But we must take _selle_ to mean 'flooring' or 'boarding,' and _floor_ to mean the ground beneath it; just as we find, in Widegren's Swedish Dictionary, that _syll_ means 'the timber next the ground.' I would therefore read _selle_, with the sense of 'flooring'; and I explain _floor_ by 'flat earth.' In the allit. Morte Arthure, 3249, _flores_ signifies 'plains.' In Gawayn and the Grene Knyght, 55, _sille_ means 'floor.' 3841. Observe the form _cape_, as a variant of _gape_, both here and in l. 3444 (see footnotes); and in Troil. v. 1133. THE REVE'S PROLOGUE. 3855. For _laughen_, Tyrwhitt has _laughed_, and in l. 3858 has the extraordinary form _lought_, but he corrects the former of these in his [113] Notes. The verb was originally strong; see examples in Stratmann, s. v. _hlahhen_. 3857. Repeated, nearly, in F. 202; see note. 3864. _so theek_, for _so thee ik_, so may I thrive, as I hope to thrive. The Reve came from Norfolk, and Chaucer makes him use the Northern _ik_ for _I_ in this expression, and again in l. 3867 (in the phrase _ik am_), and in l. 3888 (in the phrase _ik have_), but not elsewhere; whence it would seem that _ik_ for _I_ was then dying out in Norfolk; it has now died out even in the North. Both the Host and the Canon's Yeoman use the Southern form _so theech_; see C. 947, G. 929. Cf. _so the ik_, P. Pl., B. v. 228. 3865. To _blear_ (lit. to dim) _one's eye_ was to delude, hoodwink, or cheat a man. So also _blered is thyn yë_, H. 252. 3868. _gras-time_, the time when a horse feeds himself in the fields. _My fodder is now forage_, my food is now such as is provided for me; I am like a horse in winter, whose food is hay in a stable. Thynne animadverts upon this passage (Animadversions, p. 39), and says that _forage_ means 'such harde and olde prouisione as ys made for horses and cattle in winter.' He remarks, justly, that _forage_ is but loosely used in Sir Thopas, B. 1973. 3869. I take this to mean--'my old years write (mark upon me) this white head,' i. e. turn me grey. 3870. 'My heart is as old (lit. mouldy) as my hairs are.' _Mouled_ is the old pp. out of which we have made the mod. E. _mould-y_, adding _-y_ by confusion with the adj. formed from _mould_, the ground. It is fully explained in the Addenda to my Etym. Dict. 2nd ed. p. 818; and the verb _moulen_, to grow mouldy, occurs in B. 32. 3871. 'Unless I grow like a medlar, which gets worse all the while, till it be quite rotten, when laid up in a heap of rubbish or straw.' 3876. _hoppen_, dance; alluding to Luke vii. 32, where Wyclif has: 'we han sungun to you with pipis, and ye han not daunsid.'