474. _to-tere_, tear in pieces, dismember. Cf. _to-rente_ in B. 3215; see note on p. 229. Chaucer elsewhere says--'For Cristes sake ne swereth nat so sinfully, in _dismembringe_ of Crist, by soule, herte, bones, and body; for certes it semeth, that ye thinke that the cursede Iewes ne dismembred nat ynough the preciouse persone of Crist, but ye dismembre him more'; Persones Tale (_De Ira_), I. 591. And see ll. 629-659 below. 'And than Seint Johan seid--"These [who are thus tormented in [276] hell] ben thei that sweren bi Goddes membris, as bi his nayles and other his membris, and thei thus dismembrid God in horrible swerynge bi his limmes"'; Vision of Wm. Staunton (A. D. 1409), quoted in Wright's St. Patrick's Purgatory, p. 146. In the Plowman's Tale (Chaucer, ed. 1561, fol. xci) we have-- 'And Cristes membres al to-tere On roode as he were newe yrent.' Barclay, in his Ship of Fools (ed. Jamieson, i. 97), says-- 'Some sweryth armes, naylys, herte, and body, Terynge our Lord worse than the Jowes hym arayed.' And again (ii. 130) he complains of swearers who crucify Christ afresh, swearing by 'his holy membres,' by his 'blode,' by 'his face, his herte, or by his croune of thorne,' &c. See also the Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 64; Political, &c., Poems, ed. Furnivall, p. 193; Wyclif's Works, ed. Matthew, pp. 60, 278, 499. Todd, in his Illustrations of Chaucer, p. 264, quotes (from an old MS.) the old second commandment in the following form:-- 'II. Thi goddes name and b[e]autte Thou shalt not take for wel nor wo; Dismembre hym not that on rode-tre For the was mad boyth blak and blo.' 477. _tombesteres_, female dancers. 'Sir Perdicas, whom that kinge Alysandre made to been his heire in Grece, was of no ki_n_ges blod; his dame [_mother_] was a to_m_bystere'; Testament of Love, Book ii. ed. 1561, fol. ccxcvi b. _Tombestere_ is the feminine form; the A. S. spelling would be _tumbestre_; the masc. form is the A. S. _tumbere_, which is glossed by _saltator_, i. e. a dancer; the verb is _tumbian_, to dance, used of Herodias' daughter in the A. S. version of Mark, vi. 22. The medieval idea of _tumbling_ was, that the lady stood on her hands with her heels in the air; see Strutt, Sports, &c. bk. iii. c. 5.