_a_ 48. Cp. _Form of Perfect Living_, ed. Horstmann, vol. i, pp. 39-40: _For luf es stalworth als þe dede, þat slaes al lyuand thyng in erth; and hard als hell, þat spares noght till þam þat er dede._ In _The Commandment of Love_ Rolle explains: _For als dede slas al lyuand thyng in þis worlde, sa perfite lufe slas in a mans sawle all fleschly desyres and erthly couaytise. And als hell spares noght til dede men, bot tormentes al þat commes bartill, alswa a man þat es in þis_ [sc. the third, called 'Singular'] _degré of lufe noght anly he forsakes þe wretched solace of þis lyf, bot alswa he couaytes to sofer pynes for Goddes lufe._ (Ibid. p. 63.) _b_ 4. _scho takes erthe_: From the _Historia Animalium_ attributed to Aristotle, Bk. ix, c. 21. This is the authority referred to at l. 18, and at l. 33 (Bk. ix, c. 9); but the citations seem to be second hand, as they do not agree closely with the text of the _Historia Animalium_. _b_ 21-2. 'For there are many who never can keep the rule of love towards their friends, whether kinsmen or not.' MS. _ynesche_ has been variously interpreted; but it must be corrected to _ynence_. _b_ 47. _strucyo or storke_: the ostrich, not the stork, is meant. Latin _struthio_ has both meanings. On the whole, fourteenth-century translators show a fair knowledge of Latin, but the average of scholarship, even among the clergy, was never high in the Middle Ages. In the magnificent Eadwine Psalter, written at Canterbury Cathedral in the twelfth century, Ps. ci. 7 _similis factus sum pellicano_ is rendered by 'I am become like to the skin of a dog' (= _pelli canis_), though an ecclesiastic would recite this psalm in Latin at least once every week. The records of some thirteenth-century examinations of English clergy may be found in G. G. Coulton, _A Medieval Garner_ (London 1910), pp. 270 ff. They include the classic answer of Simon, the curate of Sonning, who, being examined on the Canon of the Mass, and pressed to say what governed _Te_ in _Te igitur, clementissime Pater,... supplices rogamus_, replied '_Pater_, for He governeth all things'. As for French, Michael of Northgate, a shaky translator, is fortunate in escaping gross blunders in the specimen chosen (III); but the English rendering of Mandeville's _Travels_ is full of errors; see the notes to IX. _b_ 60. _teches_: better _toches_, according to the foot-note. V #Alliterative Verse.# The long lines in _Gawayne_, with _The Destruction of Troy_, _Piers Plowman_, and _The Blacksmiths_ (XV _h_), are specimens of alliterative verse unmixed with rime, a form strictly comparable with Old English verse, from which it must derive through an unbroken oral tradition. While the detailed analysis of the Middle English alliterative line is complex and controversial, its general framework is describable in simple terms. It will be convenient to take examples from _Gawayne_, which shows most of the developments characteristic of Middle English.