1938. Compare--'So hyt be-felle upon a day'; Erle of Tolous, Ritson's Met. Rom. iii. 134. Of course it is a common phrase in these romances. 1941. _worth_, lit. became; _worth upon_ = became upon, got upon. It is a common phrase; compare-- 'Ipomydon sterte vp that tyde; Anon he _worthyd vppon_ his stede'; Weber, Met. Rom. ii. 334. 1942. _launcegay_, a sort of lance. Gower has the word, Conf. Amant. bk. viii. (ed. Pauli, iii. 369). Cowel says its use was prohibited by the statute of 7 Rich. II, cap. 13. Camden mentions it in his Remaines, p. 209. Tyrwhitt quotes, from Rot. Parl. 29 Hen. VI, n. 8, the following--'And the said Evan then and there with a _launcegaye_ smote the said William Tresham throughe the body a foote and more, wherof he died.' Sir Walter Raleigh (quoted by Richardson) [188] says--'These carried a kind of _lance de gay_, sharp at both ends, which they held in the midst of the staff.' But this is certainly a corrupt form. It is no doubt a corruption of _lancezagay_, from the Spanish _azagaya_, a word of Moorish origin. Cotgrave gives--'_Zagaye_, a fashion of slender, long, and long-headed pike, used by the Moorish horsemen.' It seems originally to have been rather a short weapon, a kind of half-pike or dart. The Spanish word is well discussed in Dozy, Glossaire des mots Espagnols et Portugais dérivés de l'Arabe, 2nd ed. p. 225. The Spanish _azagaya_ is for _az-zagaya_, where _az_ is for the definite article _al_, and _zagaya_ is a Berber or Algerian word, not given in the Arabic dictionaries. It is found in Old Spanish of the fourteenth century. Dozy quotes from a writer who explains it as a Moorish half-pike, and also gives the following passage from Laugier de Tassy, Hist. du royaume d'Alger, p. 58--'Leurs armes sont _l'azagaye_, qui est une espéce de _lance courte_, qu'ils portent toujours à la main.' The Caffre word _assagai_, in the sense of javelin, was simply borrowed from the Portuguese _azagaia_. 1949. _a sory care_, a grievous misfortune. Chaucer does not say what this was, but a passage in Amis and Amiloun (ed. Weber, ii. 410) makes it probable that Sir Thopas nearly killed his horse, which would have been grievous indeed; see l. 1965 below. The passage I allude to is as follows:-- 'So long he priked, withouten abod, The stede that he on rode, In a fer cuntray, Was ouercomen and fel doun ded; Tho couthe he no better red [_counsel_]; His song was "waileway!"' Readers of Scott will remember Fitz-James's lament over his 'gallant grey.' 1950. This can hardly be other than a burlesque upon the Squire of Low Degree (ed. Ritson, iii. 146), where a long list of _trees_ is followed up, as here, by a list of _singing-birds_. Compare also the Romaunt of the Rose, l. 1367:-- 'There was eek wexing many a spyce, As _clow-gelofre_ and _licoryce_, Gingere, and greyn de paradys, Canelle, and _setewale_ of prys,' &c. Observe the mention of _notemigges_ in the same, l. 1361.