4027. _boës_, contracted from _behoves_, a form peculiar to Chaucer. In northern poems, the word is invariably a monosyllable, spelt _bos_, or more commonly _bus_; and the pt. t. is likewise a monosyllable, viz. _bud_ or _bood_, short for _behoved_. In Cursor Mundi, l. 9870, we have: 'Of a woman _bos him_ be born; and in l. 10639: 'Than _bus_ this may be clene and bright.' In M. E., it is always used impersonally; _him boes_ or _him bos_ means 'it behoves him,' or 'he must.' See _Bus_ in the New E. Dictionary. Chaucer here evidently alludes to some such proverb as 'He who has no servant must serve himself,' but I do not know the precise form of it. The expression 'as clerkes sayn' hints that it is a Latin one. 4029. _hope_, expect, fear. Cf. P. Plowman, C. x. 275, and see _Hope_ in Nares, who cites the story of the tanner of Tamworth (from Puttenham's Arte of Poesie, bk. iii. c. 22) who said--'I _hope_ I shall be hanged to-morrow.' Cf. also Thomas of Erceldoun, ed. Murray, l. 78:-- 'But-if I speke with yone lady bryghte, I _hope_ myne herte will bryste in three!' 4030. 'So ache his molar teeth.' _Wark_, to ache, is common in Yorkshire: 'My back _warks_ while I can hardly bide,' my back aches so that I can hardly endure; Mid. Yks. Gloss. (E. D. S.). 4032. _ham_, i. e. _h[=a]m_, _haam_, home. 4033. _hethen_, hence, is very characteristic of a Northern dialect; it occurs in Hampole, Havelok, Morris's Allit. Poems, Gawain, Robert of Brunne, the Ormulum, &c.; see examples in Mätzner. 4037. One clerk wants to watch above, and the other below, to prevent cheating. This incident is not in the French fabliaux. On the other hand, it occurs in the Jest of the Mylner of Abyngton, which is plainly copied from Chaucer. 4049. _blere hir yë_, blear their eyes, cheat them, as in l. 3865. 4055. 'The fable of the Wolf and the Mare is found in the Latin Esopean collections, and in the early French poem of _Renard le Contrefait_, from whence it appears to have been taken into the English _Reynard the Fox_'; Wright. Tyrwhitt observes that the same story is told of a mule in Cento Novelle Antiche, no. 91. See Caxton's Reynard, ch. 27, ed. Arber, p. 62, where the wolf wants to buy a mare's foal, who said that the price of the foal was written on her hinder foot; 'yf ye conne rede and be a clerk, ye may come see and rede it.' And when [123] the wolf said, 'late me rede it,' the mare gave him so violent a kick that 'a man shold wel haue ryden a myle er he aroos.' The Fox, who had brought it all about, hypocritically condoles with the Wolf, and observes--'Now I here wel it is true that I long syth haue redde and herde, that _the beste clerkes ben not the wysest men_.'