39. For _ich_, Tyrwhitt reads _jeo_ = _je_, though found in none of our seven MSS. This makes the whole phrase French--_de par dieux jeo assente_. Mr. Jephson suggests that this is a clever hit of Chaucer's, because he makes the Man of Lawe talk in French, with which, as a lawyer, he was very familiar. However, we find elsewhere-- 'Quod Troilus, "_depardieux I assente_";'-- and again-- '"_Depardieux_," quod she, "god leve al be wel";' Troilus and Cres. ii. 1058 and 1212; and in the Freres Tale, D. 1395-- '"_Depardieux_," quod this yeman, "dere brother."' [136] It is much more to the point to observe that the Man of Lawe talks about _law_ in l. 43. Cotgrave, in his French Dictionary, under _par_, gives--'_De par Dieu soit_, a [i. e. in] God's name be it. _De par moy_, by my means. _De par le roy_, by the king's appointment.' _De par_ is a corruption of O.Fr. _de part_, on the part or side of; so that _de par le roy_ means literally, 'as for the king,' i. e. 'in the king's name.' Similarly, _de par Dieu_ is 'in God's name.' See Burguy, Grammaire de la Langue D'oil, ii. 359. The form _dieux_ is a _nominative_, from the Latin _deus_; thus exhibiting an exception to the almost universal law in French, that the modern F. substantives answer to the _accusative_ cases of Latin substantives, as _fleur_ to _florem_, &c. Other exceptions may be found in some proper names, as _Charles_, _Jacques_, from _Carolus_, _Jacobus_, and in _fils_, from _filius_. 41. In the Morality entitled Everyman, in Hazlitt's Old Eng. Plays, i. 137, is the proverb--'Yet promise is debt.' Mr. Hazlitt wrongly considers that as the earliest instance of the phrase.--M. Cf. Hoccleve, De Regim. Principum, p. 64:--'And of a trewe man _beheest is dette_.' _holde fayn_, &c.; gladly perform all my promise. 43. _man ... another_ = one ... another. The Cambridge MS. is right.--M. 'For whatever law a man imposes on others, he should in justice consider as binding on himself.' This is obviously a _quotation_, as appears from l. 45. The expression referred to was probably proverbial. An English proverb says--'They that make the laws must not break them'; a Spanish one--'El que ley establece, guardarla debe,' he who makes a law ought to keep it; and a Latin one--'Patere legem quam ipse tulisti,' abide by the law which you made yourself. The idea is expanded in the following passage from Claudian's Panegyric on the 4th consulship of Honorius, carm. viii., l. 296.-- 'In commune iubes si quid censesue tenendum, Primus iussa subi; tunc obseruantior aequi Fit populus, nec ferre negat cum uiderit ipsum Auctorem parere sibi.' 45. _text_, quotation from an author, precept, saying. _Thus wol our text_, i. e. such is what the expression implies.