1132. 'It was a common practice in the middle ages for persons to take formal oaths of fraternity and friendship; and a breach of the oath was considered something worse than perjury. This incident enters into the plots of some of the medieval romances. A curious example will be found in the Romance of Athelston; Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii. 85.'--Wright. A note in Bell's Chaucer reminds us that instances occur also in the old heroic times; as in the cases of Theseus and Peirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Pylades and Orestes, Nysus and Euryalus. See _Sworn Brothers_ in Nares' Glossary; Rom. of the Rose, 2884. 1133. 'That never, even though it cost us a miserable death, a death by torture.' So in Troilus, i. 674: 'That certayn, for to deyen in the peyne.' Also in the E. version of The Romaunt of the Rose, 3326. 1134. 'Till that death shall part us two.' Cf. the ingenious alteration in the Marriage Service, where the phrase 'till death us depart' was altered into 'do part' in 1661. 1136. _cas_, case. It properly means event, hap. See l. 1074. _my leve brother_, my dear brother. 1141. _out of doute_, without doubt, doubtless. 1147. _to my counseil_, to my adviser. See l. 1161. 1151. _I dar wel seyn_, I dare maintain. [67] 1153. _Thou shalt be._ Chaucer occasionally uses _shall_ in the sense of _owe_, so that the true sense of _I shall_ is _I owe_ (Lat. _debeo_); it expresses a strong obligation. So here it is not so much the sign of a future tense as a separate verb, and the sense is 'Thou art sure to be false sooner than I am.' 1155. _par amour_, with love, in the way of love. To love _par amour_ is an old phrase for to love excessively. Cf. Bruce, xiii. 485; and see A. 2112, below; Troil. v. 158, 332. 1158. _affeccioun of holinesse_, a sacred affection, or aspiration after. 1162. _I pose_, I put the case, I will suppose. 1163. 'Knowest thou not well the old writer's saying?' The _olde clerk_ is Boethius, from whose book, De Consolatione Philosophiae, Chaucer has borrowed largely in many places. The passage alluded to is in lib. iii. met. 12:-- 'Quis legem det amantibus? Maior lex amor est sibi.' Chaucer's translation (vol. ii. p. 92, l. 37) has--'But what is he that may yive a lawe to loveres? Love is a gretter lawe ... than any lawe that men may yeven.' And see Troil. iv. 618. 1167. _and swich decree_, and (all) such ordinances. 1168. _in ech degree_, in every rank of life. 1172. _And eek it is_, &c., 'and moreover it is not likely that ever in all thy life thou wilt stand in her favour.'