The original text preserved final _-e_ better than the extant MSS., e.g. _And seyd<ė> þus þe king<ė> to_ 119. _Þat noþing help<ė> þe no schal_ 172. _Al þe vt<ė>mast<ė> wal_ 357. _So, sir, as ȝe seyd<ė> nouþė_ 466. #Sounds#: _ǭ_ for OE. _ā_ is proved in rime: _biholde_ (OE. _beháldan_): _gold_ (OE. _góld_) 367-8 (cp. 467-8); and _yhote_ (OE. _gehāten_): _note_ (OFr. _note_) 601-2. The rime _frut_: _lite_ 257-8 points to original _frut_: _lut_ (OE. _lȳt_), with Western _ǖ_, from OE. _ȳ_, riming with OFr. _ǖ_. * * * * * 1-22. These lines, found also in _Lai le Freine_, would serve as preface to any of the Breton lays, with the couplet ll. 23-4 as the special connecting link. In the Auchinleck MS., _Orfeo_ begins on a fresh leaf at l. 25, without heading or capitals to indicate that it is a new poem. The leaf preceding has been lost. There is good reason to suppose that it contained the lines supplied in the text from the Harleian MS. 4. _frely_, 'goodly': _Lai le Freine_ has _ferly_ 'wondrous'. 12. MS. _moost to lowe_: means 'most (worthy) to be praised', and there are two or three recorded examples of _to lowe_ = _to alowe_ in this sense. But MS. Ashmole and the corresponding lines in _Lai le Freine_ point to _most o loue_ 'mostly of love' as the common reading. The typical 'lay' is a poem of moderate length, telling a story of love, usually with some supernatural element, in a refined and courtly style. 13. _Brytayn_, 'Brittany': so _Brytouns_ 16 = 'Bretons'. Cp. Chaucer, _Franklin's Tale, Prologue_, beginning _Thise olde gentil Britons in hir dayes Of diverse aventures maden layes Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge, Whiche layes with hir instrumentz they songe_, &c. 20. The curious use of _it_ after the plural _layes_ is perhaps not original. _Lai le Freine_ has: _And maked a lay and yaf it name_. 26. _In Inglond_: an alteration of the original text to give local colour. Cp. ll. 49-50 and l. 478. 29-30. _Pluto_: the King of Hades came to be regarded as the King of Fairyland; cp. Chaucer, _Merchant's Tale_, l. 983 _Pluto that is the kyng of fairye_. The blunder by which Juno is made a king is apparently peculiar to the Auchinleck copy. 33-46. These lines are not in the Auchinleck MS., but are probably authentic. Otherwise little prominence would be given to Orfeo's skill as a harper. 41 ff. A confused construction: _In þe world was neuer man born_ should be followed by _<þat> he <ne> schulde þinke_; but the writer goes on as if he had begun with 'every man in the world'. _And_ = 'if'. 46. _ioy and_ overload the verse, and are probably an unskilful addition to the text. 49-50. These lines are peculiar to the Auchinleck MS., and are clearly interpolated; cp. l. 26 and l. 478. Winchester was the old capital of England, and therefore the conventional seat of an English king.