10. _open ye_, open eye. Cf. the modern expression 'with one eye open.' This line is copied in the Sowdone of Babylon, ll. 41-46. 11. 'So nature excites them, in their feelings (instincts).' _hir_, their; A. S. _hira_, lit. 'of them,' gen. pl. of _h[=e]_, he. _corage_ (kuraa·j[*e]); mod. E. courage; see l. 22. 12, 13. According to ordinary English construction, the verb _longen_ must be supplied after _palmers_. In fact, l. 13 is parenthetical. Note that _Than_, in l. 12, answers to _Whan_ in l. 1. 13. _palmer_, originally, one who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and brought home a _palm_-branch as a token. Chaucer, says Tyrwhitt, seems to consider all pilgrims to foreign parts as palmers. The essential difference between the two classes of persons here mentioned, the palmer and the pilgrim, was, that the latter had 'some dwelling-place, a palmer had none; the pilgrim travelled to some certain place, the palmer to all, and not to any one in particular; the pilgrim might go at his own charge, the palmer must profess wilful poverty; the pilgrim might give over his profession, the palmer must be constant'; Blount's Glossographia (taken from Speght). See note to P. Plowman, B. v. 523. The fact is, that palmers did not always reach the Holy Land. They commonly went to Rome first, where not unfrequently the Pope 'allowed them to wear the palm as if they had visited Palestine'; Rock, Church of our Fathers, vol. iii. pt. 1. p. 439. _to seken_, to seek; the A. S. gerund, _t[=o] s[=e]canne_; expressive of purpose. _strondes_, strands, shores. 14. _ferne halwes_, distant saints, i. e. shrines. Here _ferne_ = _ferrene_ = distant, foreign. 'To _ferne_ poeples'; Chaucer's Boethius, bk. ii. met. 7. See Mätzner's M. E. Dict. _Ferne_ also means 'ancient,' but not here. _halwes_, saints; cf. Scotch _Hallow-e'en_, the eve of All Hallows, or All Saints; the word is here applied to their shrines. Chaucer has, 'to go seken _halwes_,' to go (on a pilgrimage) to seek [4] saints' shrines; D. 657. _couthe_ (kuudh'), well known; A. S. _c[=u]ð_, known, pp. of _cunnan_, to know. _sondry_ (sun·dri), various. 16. _wende_, go; pret. _wente_, Eng. _went_. The use of the present tense in modern English is usually restricted to the phrase 'he _wends_ his way.' 17. _The holy blisful martir_, Thomas à Becket. On pilgrimages, see Saunders, Chaucer, p. 10; and Erasmus, _Peregrinatio religionis ergo_. There were numerous places in England sought by pilgrims, as Durham, St. Alban's, Bury, St. David's, Glastonbury, Lincoln, York, Peterborough, Winchester, Holywell, &c.; but the chief were Canterbury and Walsingham. 18. _holpen_, pp. of _helpen_. The older preterites of this verb are _heolp_, _help_, _halp_. _seke_, sick, rimes to _seke_, seek; this apparent repetition is only allowed when the repeated word is used in two different senses. _seke_, pl. of _seek_, A. S. _s[=e]oc_, sick, ill. For _hem_, see n. to l. 175.