120. Cf. Prov. xiv. 20--'the poor is hated even of his neighbour'; or, in the Vulgate, 'Etiam proximo suo pauper odiosus erit.' Also Prov. xix. 7--'all the brethren of the poor do hate him; how much more do his friends go far from him'; or, in the Vulgate, 'Fratres hominis pauperis oderunt eum; insuper et amici procul recesserunt ab eo.' So too Ovid, Trist. i. 9. 5:-- 'Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos, Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.' Chaucer has the same thought again in his Tale of Melibeus (p. 227, B. 2749)--'and if thy fortune change, that thou wexe povre, farewel freendshipe and felaweshipe!' See also note to B. 3436. 123. _as in this cas_, as relates to this condition or lot in life. In Chaucer, _cas_ often means _chance_, _hap_. 124. _ambes as_, double aces, two aces, in throwing dice. _Ambes_ is Old French for _both_, from Lat. _ambo_. The line in the Monkes Tale--'Thy _sys_ fortune hath turned into _as_' (B. 3851)--helps us out here in some measure, as it proves that a six was reckoned as a good throw, but an ace as a bad one. So in Shakespeare, Mids. Nt. Dream, v. 1. 314, we find _less than an ace_ explained as equivalent to _nothing_. In the next line, _sis cink_ means _a six and a five_, which was often a winning throw. The allusion is probably, however, not to the mere attempt as to which of two players could throw the highest, but to the particular game called _hazard_, in which the word _chance_ (here used) has a special sense. There is a good description of it in the Supplemental volume to the English Cyclopaedia, div. Arts and Sciences. The whole description has to be read, but it may suffice to say here that, when the caster is going to throw, he _calls a main_, or names one of the numbers five, six, seven, eight, or nine; most often, he calls seven. If he then throws either seven or eleven (Chaucer's _sis cink_), he wins; if he throws aces (Chaucer's _ambes as_) or deuce-ace (two and one), or double sixes, he loses. If he throws some other number, that number is called the caster's _chance_, and he goes on playing till either the main or the chance turns up. In the first case he loses, in the second, he wins. If he calls some other number, the winning and losing throws are somewhat varied; but in all cases, the double ace is a losing throw. [144] Similarly, in The Pardoneres Tale, where _hazard_ is mentioned by name (C. 591), we find, at l. 653--'Seven is my chaunce, and thyn is cinq and treye,' i. e. eight. In Lydgate's Order of Fools, printed in Queen Elizabeth's Academy, ed. Furnivall, p. 81, one fool is described-- 'Whos chaunce gothe nether yn _synke or syse_; With _ambes ase_ encressithe hys dispence.' And in a ballad printed in Chaucer's Works, ed. 1561, folio 340, back, we have-- 'So wel fortuned is their chaunce The dice to turne[n] vppe-so-doune, With _sise and sincke_ they can auaunce.'