“Now, sirs,” quoth then this Osewold the Reeve, I pray you all that none of you do grieve, Though I answer, and somewhat set his hove*, *hood <11> For lawful is *force off with force to shove.* *to repel force This drunken miller hath y-told us here by force* How that beguiled was a carpentere, Paraventure* in scorn, for I am one: *perhaps And, by your leave, I shall him quite anon. Right in his churlish termes will I speak, I pray to God his necke might to-break. He can well in mine eye see a stalk, But in his own he cannot see a balk.”<12> Notes to the Prologue to the Reeves Tale. 1. “With blearing of a proude miller’s eye”: dimming his eye; playing off a joke on him. 2. “Me list not play for age”: age takes away my zest for drollery. 3. The medlar, the fruit of the mespilus tree, is only edible when rotten. 4. Yet in our ashes cold does fire reek: “ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires.” 5. A colt’s tooth; a wanton humour, a relish for pleasure. 6. Chimb: The rim of a barrel where the staves project beyond the head. 7. With olde folk, save dotage, is no more: Dotage is all that is left them; that is, they can only dwell fondly, dote, on the past. 8. Souter: cobbler; Scottice, “sutor;”’ from Latin, “suere,” to sew. 9. “Ex sutore medicus” (a surgeon from a cobbler) and “ex sutore nauclerus” (a seaman or pilot from a cobbler) were both proverbial expressions in the Middle Ages. 10. Half past prime: half-way between prime and tierce; about half-past seven in the morning. 11. Set his hove; like “set their caps;” as in the description of the Manciple in the Prologue, who “set their aller cap”. “Hove” or “houfe,” means “hood;” and the phrase signifies to be even with, outwit. 12. The illustration of the mote and the beam, from Matthew. THE TALE.<1>