1177. This fable, in this particular form, is not in any of the usual collections; but it is, practically, the same as that called 'The Lion, the Tiger, and the Fox' in Croxall's Æsop. Sometimes it is 'the Lion, the Bear, and the Fox'; the Fox subtracts the prey for which the others fight. It is no. 247 in Halm's edition of the 'Fabulae Æsopicae,' Lips., Teubner, 1852, with the moral:--[Greek: ho muthos dêloi, hoti allôn kopiôntôn alloi kerdainousin.] In La Fontaine's Fables, it appears as Les Voleurs et l'Âne. Thynne coolly altered _kyte_ to _cur_, and then had to insert _so_ after _were_ to fill up the line. 1186. _everich of us_, each of us, every one of us. 1189. _to theffect_, to the result, or end. 1196. From the Legend of Good Women, 2282. 1200. _in helle._ An allusion to Theseus accompanying Pirithous in his expedition to carry off Proserpina, daughter of Aidoneus, king of the Molossians, when both were taken prisoner, and Pirithous torn in pieces by the dog Cerberus. At least, such is the story in Plutarch; see Shakespeare's Plutarch, ed. Skeat, p. 289. Chaucer found the mention of Pirithous' visit to Athens in Boccaccio's Teseide, iii. 47-51. The rest he found in Le Roman de la Rose, 8186-- 'Si cum vesquist, ce dist l'istoire, Pyrithous apres sa mort, Que Theseus tant ama mort. Tant le queroit, tant le sivoit ... Que vis en enfer l'ala querre.' [68] 1201. Observe the expression _to wryte_, which shews that this story was not originally meant to be _told_. (Anglia, viii. 453.) 1212. Most MSS. read _or stounde_, i. e. or at any hour. MS. Dd. has _o stound_, one moment, any short interval of time. 'The storme sesed within a stounde.' Ywaine and Gawin, l. 384. On this slight authority, Tyrwhitt altered the reading, and is followed by Wright and Bell, though MS. Hl. really has _or_ like the rest, and the black-letter editions have the same. 1218. _his nekke lyth to wedde_, his neck is in jeopardy; lit. lies in pledge or in pawn. 1222. _To sleen himself he wayteth prively_, he watches for an opportunity to slay himself unperceived. 1223. This line, slightly altered, occurs also in the Legend of Good Women, 658. 1225. _Now is me shape_, now I am destined; literally, now is it _shapen_ (or appointed) for me. 1247. It was supposed that all things were made of the four elements mentioned in l. 1246. 'Does not our life consist of the four elements?'--Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, ii. 3. 10. 1255. Cf. P. Plowman, C. xiii. 236. 1257. 'And another man would fain (get) out of his prison.' 1259. _matere_; in the _matter_ of thinking to excel God's providence. 1260. 'We never know what thing it is that we pray for here below.' See Romans viii. 26. 1261. _dronke is as a mous._ This phrase seems to have given way to 'drunk as a rat.' 'Thus satte they swilling and carousyng, one to another, till they were both _as dronke as rattes_.'--Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses; ed. Furnivall, p. 113.