12. To die in the pain was a proverbial expression in the French, used as an alternative to enforce a resolution or a promise. Edward III., according to Froissart, declared that he would either succeed in the war against France or die in the pain — “Ou il mourroit en la peine.” It was the fashion in those times to swear oaths of friendship and brotherhood; and hence, though the fashion has long died out, we still speak of “sworn friends.” 13. The saying of the old scholar Boethius, in his treatise “De Consolatione Philosophiae”, which Chaucer translated, and from which he has freely borrowed in his poetry. The words are “Quis legem det amantibus? Major lex amor est sibi.” (“Who can give law to lovers? Love is a law unto himself, and greater”) 14. “Perithous” and “Theseus” must, for the metre, be pronounced as words of four and three syllables respectively — the vowels at the end not being diphthongated, but enunciated separately, as if the words were printed Pe-ri-tho-us, The-se-us. The same rule applies in such words as “creature” and “conscience,” which are trisyllables. 15. Stound: moment, short space of time; from Anglo-Saxon, “stund;” akin to which is German, “Stunde,” an hour. 16. Meinie: servants, or menials, &c., dwelling together in a house; from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning a crowd. Compare German, “Menge,” multitude. 17. The pure fetters: the very fetters. The Greeks used “katharos”, the Romans “purus,” in the same sense. 18. In the medieval courts of Love, to which allusion is probably made forty lines before, in the word “parlement,” or “parliament,” questions like that here proposed were seriously discussed. 19. Gear: behaviour, fashion, dress; but, by another reading, the word is “gyre,” and means fit, trance — from the Latin, “gyro,” I turn round. 20. Before his head in his cell fantastic: in front of his head in his cell of fantasy. “The division of the brain into cells, according to the different sensitive faculties,” says Mr Wright, “is very ancient, and is found depicted in mediaeval manuscripts.” In a manuscript in the Harleian Library, it is stated, “Certum est in prora cerebri esse fantasiam, in medio rationem discretionis, in puppi memoriam” (it is certain that in the front of the brain is imagination, in the middle reason, in the back memory) — a classification not materially differing from that of modern phrenologists. 21. Dan: Lord; Latin, “Dominus;” Spanish, “Don.” 22. The “caduceus.” 23. Argus was employed by Juno to watch Io with his hundred eyes but he was sent to sleep by the flute of Mercury, who then cut off his head. 24. Next: nearest; German, “naechste”. 25. Clary: hippocras, wine made with spices. 26. Warray: make war; French “guerroyer”, to molest; hence, perhaps, “to worry.” 27. All day meeten men at unset steven: every day men meet at unexpected time. “To set a steven,” is to fix a time, make an appointment. 28. Roundelay: song coming round again to the words with which it opened.