2754. The Lat. text has _mater criminum_, and the Fr. text, _mere des crimes_. It is clear that Chaucer has misread _ruines_ for _crimes_, or his MS. was corrupt; and he has attempted an explanation by subjoining a gloss of his own--'that is to seyn ... overthrowinge or fallinge doun.' The reference is to Cassiodorus, Variarum lib. ix. epist. 13:--'Ut dum _mater criminum_ necessitas tollitur, peccandi ambitus auferatur.' 2756. 'Est una de aduersitatibus huius saeculi grauioribus libero homini, quod necessitate cogitur, ut sibi subueniat, requirere inimicum'; Petrus Alfonsi, Disciplina Clericalis, iv. 4. 2758. Lat. text:--'O miserabilis mendicantis conditio! Nam, si petit, pudore confunditur; et si non petit, egestate consumitur; sed ut [220] mendicet necessitate compellitur'; Innocentius III (Papa), De Contemptu Mundi, lib. i. c. 16. See note to B. 99, at p. 142. 2761. 'Melius est enim mori quam indigere'; Ecclus. xl. 29; cf. A. V., Ecclus. xl. 28. See note to B. 114, at p. 142. 2762. 'Melior est mors quam uita amara'; Ecclus. xxx. 17. The Fr. text has:--'Mieulx vault la mort amere que telle vie'; where, as in Chaucer, the adjective is shifted. 2765. _How ye shul have yow_, how you ought to behave yourself. In fact, _behave_ is merely a compound of _be-_ and _have_. 2766. _Sokingly_, gradually. In the Prompt. Parv. we find 'Esyly, or _sokyngly_, Sensim, paulatim.' And compare the following:--'Domitius Corbulo vsed muche to saie, that a mannes enemies in battaill are to be ouercomed (_sic_) with a carpenters squaring-axe, that is to saie, _sokingly_, one pece after another. A common axe cutteth through at the first choppe; a squaring-axe, by a little and a little, werketh the same effecte.'--Udall, tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, Julius Caesar, § 32. 2768. From Prov. xxviii. 20. 2769. From Prov. xiii. 11. 2773. Not in the Latin text. 2775. 'Detrahere igitur alteri aliquid, et hominem hominis incommodo suum augere commodum, magis est contra naturam, quam mors, quam paupertas, quam dolor, quam cetera, quae possunt aut corpori accidere aut rebus externis'; Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 5. 2779. 'For idleness teacheth much evil'; Ecclus. xxxiii. 27. 2780. From Prov. xxviii. 19; cf. xii. 11. 2783. Cf. Prov. xx. 4. 2784. From Dionysius Cato, Distich. i. 2:-- 'Plus uigila semper, nec somno deditus esto; Nam diuturna quies uitiis alimenta ministrat.' 2785. Quoted again in G. 6, 7; see note to G. 7. 2789. _Fool-large_, foolishly liberal; Fr. text, 'fol larges.' Cf. 2810. 2790. _Chincherye_, miserliness, parsimony; from the adj. _chinche_, which occurs in 2793. _Chinche_, parsimonious, miserly, is the nasalised form of _chiche_; see Havelok, 1763, 2941; and see _Chinch_ in the New E. Dictionary. To the examples there given add:--'A Chinche, _tenax_: Chinchery, _tenacitas_'; Catholicon Anglicum. 'But such an other _chinche_ as he Men wisten nought in all the londe.' Gower, Conf. Amant. ii. 288.