1 Lines 49–52: Tell us . . . what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the consummation of the world? And Jesus answering, said to them: Take heed that no man seduce you; For many will come in my name saying, I am et cetera. Matthew 24:3–5, but the following lines (down to 68) paraphrase to verse 12. See explanatory note.

2 Lines 187–88: Let Dan be a snake in the way, a serpent in the path, that biteth the horse’s heels that his rider may fall backward. Genesis 49:17

3 Lines 372–73: And his feet like unto fine brass, as in a burning furnace. Apocalypse 1:15

4 Lines 422–23: And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. Apocalypse 12:4. See explanatory note.

5 He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children. Malachi 4:6; compare Luke 1:17 [that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children]

6 Lines 572–73: And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved. Matthew 24:22

7 There shall be one fold and one shepherd. John 10:16

8 Lines 653–54: It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power. Acts 1:7

9 Lines 685–92: And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves; Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of heaven shall be moved; And then they shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with great power and majesty. Luke 21:25–27, a section from the “synoptic apocalypse” also found in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.

10 Lines 713–16: And I will shew wonders in heaven; and in earth, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood: before the great and dreadful day of the Lord doth come. Joel 2:30–31, with “horribilis” for “manifestus”

11 Lines 813–24: And as it came to pass in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat and drink, they married wives, and were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark: and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it came to pass, in the days of Lot: they did eat and drink, they bought and sold, they planted and built. And in the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstome from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man shall be revealed. Luke 17:26–30. For Noah’s flood see Genesis 6; for Lot and Sodom see Genesis 19.

12 Lines 899–900: A fire shall go before him, and shall burn his enemies round about. Psalm 96:3

13 Lines 917–18: A fire shall burn before him: and a mighty tempest shall be round about him. Psalm 49:3

14 But a hair of your head shall not perish. Luke 21:18

15 Lines 1006–10: For the Lord himself shall come down from heaven with commandment, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead who are in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air, and so shall we be always with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:15–16

16 Lines 1032–38: And the kings of the earth, and the princes, and tribunes, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of mountains: And they say to the mountains and the rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. Apocalypse 6:15–16

17 Who will grant me this, that thou mayst protect me in hell? Job 14:13

18 Lines 1084–85: For as lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Matthew 24:27 (with the addition of the last four words)

19 Lines 1098–99: This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven. Acts 1:11

20 Lines 1112–13: I will gather together all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat. Joel 3:2. By tradition the Vale of Josaphat was associated with the Kidron valley near Jerusalem.

21 Lines 1118–19: Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about. Joel 3:12

22 Behold a white cloud; and upon the cloud one sitting like to the Son of man. Apocalypse 14:14

23 Lines 1197–99: For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son. That all men may honour the Son, as they honour the Father. John 5:22–23

24 Lines 1340–41: And if the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? 1 Peter 4:18; see also Proverbs 11:31

25 The judgment sat, and the books were opened. Daniel 7:10

26 For thou writest bitter things against me. Job 13:26

27 Lines 1473–74: How long, O Lord (holy and true) dost thou not judge and revenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? Apocalypse 6:10, which reads “non iudicas et vindicas . . .”

28 Lines 1493–94: The children will complain of an ungodly father, because for his sake they are in reproach. Ecclesiasticus 41:10

29 Lines 1563–64: He shall call heaven from above, and the earth, to judge his people. Psalm 49:4

30 Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it. Matthew 12:36 (not exact)

31 Lines 1607–08: But I know their works, and their thoughts: I come that I may gather them together with all nations. Isaias 66:18 (not exact)

32 Lines 1630–34: Rejoice therefore, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart be in that which is good in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thy eyes: and know that for all these God will bring thee into judgment. Ecclesiastes 11:9

33 [Thou] wilt consume me for the sins of my youth. Job 13:26

34 Lines 1654–55: And all things that are done, God will bring into judgment for every error, whether it be good or evil. Ecclesiastes 12:14

35 My ignorances do not remember[. According to thy mercy remember thou me: for thy goodness' sake,] O Lord. Psalm 24:7

36 When I shall take a time, I will judge justices. Psalm 74:3

37 Lines 1688–89: For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink. Matthew 25:42. Feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty are two of the Seven Works of Bodily Mercy.

38 Lines 1784–85: Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction shall drive it away. Proverbs 22:15 (not exact)

39 Behold I myself come upon the shepherds, I will require my flock at their hand. Ezechiel 34:10 (not exact)

40 So we being many, are one body [in Christ]. Romans 12:5

41 Lines 1858–59: As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to another. 1 Peter 4:10

42 Freely have you received, freely give. Matthew 10:8

43 Lines 1937–38: You, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Matthew 19:28 (not exact)

44 For whosoever have sinned without the law, shall perish without the law. Romans 2:12

45 Lines 2028–29: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Matthew 25:34. Six of the Seven Works of Bodily Mercy follow.

46 Compare Matthew 25:40: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.” See also lines 2092–95 below.

47 Lines 2066–67: Depart from, me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:41

48 Lines 2150-51: For he spoke, and they were made: he commanded, and they were created. Psalm 148:5

49 The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord. Psalm 32:5

Abbreviations: CT: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; MED: Middle English Dictionary; OED: Oxford English Dictionary; PL: Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne.



14 propur persoune. His “own person,” a phrase that differentiates Christ from other members of the Trinity (see the opening lines of the Entre), emphasizing the personal and immediate quality of Christ’s role at Doomsday. See 5.933–36.

52 Cotton Galba E.ix includes the Latin verses that this poet omits.

83–84 The first line comes from 2 Thessalonians 2:3, and the second line paraphrases the marginal gloss from the Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria. Cotton Galba E.ix reads "Quoniam nisi venerit dissencio primum etc., id est, nisi prius dissenserint omnia regna a Romano Imperio, que prius erant subdita, non antea veniet antichristus" (ed. Morris, lines 4057–60). The lines down to 124 contain a fascinating triple focus on the Imperial Rome of the past, the Christian Rome of the present, and the Antichristian Rome of the apocalyptic future.

117 mount of Olyveete. A hill to the east of Jerusalem with eschatological associations. The scene in 5.49–52 takes place on the Mount of Olives, and Jesus goes on to describe signs of the last times. Zacharias 14:4 associates the Mount with the second coming, and it is where Christ ascended to heaven (Acts 1:12; see below, line 598).

140 Apollo and Hercules are not construed as planets but as pagan gods above whom Antichrist sets himself.

169–227 These lines are roughly paralleled in the Cursor Mundi, lines 22005–116.

173–77 The Devil cannot create life (see below, at 337-41), only enter a fetus that has already been conceived.

182 Corozaym. Corozain. See 5.217. The “great clerk” of line 178 is not identified.

187–88 Because Dan is not mentioned among the tribes in Apocalypse 7:5-8, he was further identified with the Antichrist (though the enumeration of the twelve tribes of Israel is not consistent).

200 “Ysed” is the past participle of the verb isen, “to see” (n.b., what Antichrist fails to see in line 202). Circumcision was a Jewish rite that established a covenant with God (see Genesis 17:10–14, Exodus 12:48). Paul interprets the practice spiritually (Romans 3:30, Ephesians 2:11). Cotton Galba E.ix gives the opposite sense: “Yhit sal he be circumcid / And thurgh þat his malice a whyle sal hid” (ed. Morris, lines 4187–88). Either way, the lines display Antichrist’s malice in the form of hypocrisy (“seeing” the outrageous appropriation of normative practice) and deception (“hiding” behind normative practice).

217 Matthew 11:21: "Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida," 23: "And thou Capharnaum"; Luke 10:13: "Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida," 15: "And thou, Capharnaum."

248–49 From Hugo Ripelin de Argentina, Compendium theologicae veritatis 7.6, an account of the coming of Antichrist based on Daniel 7. See Gow, Red Jews, p. 357.

291 See Apocalypse 20:8.

303–04 As happened at Pentecost, Acts 2.

320-21 As a “counterfeit” Christ, Antichrist engages in a perverse form of “imitatio Christi,” an otherwise pious practice wherein one replicates the life and actions of Christ. “Great earth” should be construed in the sense of being more important and consequential than the world of Antichrist. An analogous but nonpejorative logic governs the naming of “Great Britain” and “Brittany” (lesser Britain).

330–41 The Devil can assume any shape he pleases (“fygures seere”) but actually raising the dead is a power reserved to God alone. Whereas the Devil can only conjure “deed ymages” and animate “deed bodyse,” real human beings, created by God, are “parfyte” (completely formed and, by implication, real).

362–63 Matthew 24:24. Not exact.

370 a paarty. The spacing of “a paarty” would suggest that it means “in part,” but may derive from Latin “aperte,” an adverb well attested in Middle English that means “openly” or “plainly.”

398 Haymo of Auxerre (d. 855), a Benedictine monk who authored numerous biblical commentaries.

409 marke of Antycryste. For medieval interpretations of the Apocalypse and the Antichrist, see D’Angelo and Matter, “Apocalypticism,” 1:41–42.

422–23 The stars were elsewhere understood to be angels who fell in the heavenly rebellion; their proportion ranges from one-tenth (or at least one whole unnamed order of angels [Langland, >i B.I.105–06]) to one-third (Milton, Paradise Lost 2.692) to, if we can believe Satan, one-half (Milton, Paradise Lost 9.141).

451–53 Because neither Enoch nor Elijah died, they are permitted to return to earth as preachers against Antichrist at the end of time (see below line 497 ff.). Enoch was taken by God (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire (4 Kings 2:11). Now, restored to human form, they may die in order to participate in the full glory of the resurrection of the dead and Christ’s grace at the Last Judgment. See the Chester Antichrist (play 23), where Enoch and Elijah are resurrected to join Michael in judgment against Antichrist and his demons. (Malachi 4:5 provides a scriptural basis.)

461 Apocalypse 20:8. The following connections to Caspia and the Queen of the Amazons derive from apocalyptic literature associated with a group known as the “Red Jews.” See Gow, Red Jews, p. 203.

484–87 See Ezechiel 38:2 and Apocalypse 20:8, and the marginal gloss to Apocalypse 20:8 in the >i (the “gloose of bokes,” ed. Froehlich and Gibson [4:574]). See Introduction, p. 8.

503 Enoch and Elijah are identified with the two prophets of Apocalypse 11:3. Compare Andrew Marvell’s invocation of this sign in “To His Coy Mistress”: “I would / love you ten years before the flood: / And you should, if you please, refuse / Till the conversion of the Jews” (lines 7–10).

515 Marginal gloss to Malachi 4:5–6 in Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria (ed. Froehlich and Gibson). See Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio (PL 217:848b).

525–27 According to Luke 3:23, Christ was about thirty years old when he began preaching, and according to tradition he died in his thirty-third year (thirty plus “thre yere”; see below, lines 587-88 and 961-62, with its “thritty wynter and two / And thre monethes eke”).

522-29 See Apocalypse 11:3 for the number of days (“a thousand two hundred sixty days”) and for the sackcloth; compare Apocalypse 12:6, where a woman glossed as holy church, or “our blessed lady,” is fed in the wilderness 1,260 days. Compare the legend of the Egyptian Mary, as well (see, e.g., Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale, CT II[B1]500–01, and the South English Legendary, 1:136–48).

550 Her enemyse. “Their enemies” here and in line 554 are the enemies of Enoch and Elijah, or in other words the forces of Antichrist.

587-88 See above, lines 525–27 and note.

598See above, line 117 and note.

605 N.b., Apocalypse 12:7 and Jude 9.

607 See 2 Thessalonians 2:8 where God slays Antichrist “with the spirit of his mouth” (Isaias 11:4), a practice which Hill, “When God Blew,” connects to the liturgical practice of exsufflatio, a form of exorcism by blowing.

622 The interlinear gloss at Daniel 9:23–24 in Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria (ed. Froehlich and Gibson) mentions respite for those who repent, but it does not specify the length of time.

665–67 Pseudo-Jerome, as quoted in the Regula monachorum (PL 30:417); see also the Vita Antiquior by Bruno the Carthusian (PL 152:484b). Sir David Lyndesay quotes a similar passage in his The Monarche (1552): Sanct Ierome thoucht continuallye On this Iugement, so ardentlye, He said, ‘quidder I eit, or drynk, Or walk, or sleip, forsuth me thynk That terrabyll Trumpat, lyke ane bell, So quiklye in my eir doith knell, As Instantlye it wer present, — Ryse, dede folk, cum to Iugement!’ (Skeat, ed., Specimens, p. 259, lines 5604–11) See also Heist, Fifteen Signs, pp. 40–41.

746 The fifteen signs before Doomsday are a widespread motif, possibly Irish in origin. The tradition exists in three Latin versions (the Pseudo-Bede type, the Comestor type, and the Aquinas type; see Heist, Fifteen Signs, p. 24) each claiming to derive from the otherwise unknown Annales Hebraeorum by Jerome. Heist doubts that such a work ever existed (p. 108), though the attribution of Jerome’s name to the tradition ensured its persistence. The version in the Prik of Conscience resembles Pseudo-Bede in order and most details (PL 94:555; see Heist, pp. 131–33, 197). All Saints Church, North Street, York, contains an early fifteenth-century stained glass window with pictures of each of the signs captioned by verses from the Prik of Conscience (see Gee, “Painted Glass”). The window represents, to my knowledge, the only example of Middle English poetry represented in a near-contemporary artistic medium.

755–58 The association of the tides with the moon was well known. Thus, at the beginning of time, before the Fall of Man, there were no tides (see above, 2.53–68 note).

760 “Wondursteful” is an unusual form for the superlative. The MED records the more usual form “wond(e)rest.”

786 See Isaias 40:4 on one of the signs.

793-95 On the account of the valley of the dry bones, see Ezechiel 37.

810 Compare Matthew 24:36, 44; Luke 12:40; Acts 1:7.

844 “Filius hominis,” the son of man (i.e., Christ), is here translated as “monnes soule.”

881 Genesis 7:20. Compare the forty cubits of line 750 above.

892 “Charity” is Latin caritas, the love of God for humanity, and vice versa (see C. S. Lewis, Four Loves, chapter 6). Lines 884–91 contain a simile comparing God’s destruction of the world by water in the time of Noah to his destruction of the world by fire at the end of time. The connection to lechery derives from the obscure verses concerning sexual intercourse between the sons of God and the daughters of men immediately preceding the flood story (Genesis 6:1–6). By post hoc ergo propter hoc, the flood was seen as the punishment for that union. God had promised not to destroy the world again, at least not by water (Genesis 9:11). Water quenches lechery just as fire will remedy the “coldness of charity.” The “firste comyng” (line 884) is Christ’s Incarnation; the “laste comyng” (line 888) is his return at the end of time.

894 That is, at the beginning of the Last Judgment, before Christ returns.

899–900 The use of fire in the preceding lines illustrates how the same phenomenon can be interpreted differently depending on context. Fire acts positively (in bono) insofar as it cleanses those who are ultimately saved; fire acts negatively (in malo) insofar as it punishes the damned.

938 See Apocalypse 8.

947–48 yghe twynkelyng. 1 Corinthians 15:52 (not exact).

949–91 These lines are roughly paralleled in Cursor Mundi lines 22816–952 (Cotton Vespasian A.iii).

962 See above, lines 525–27 and 587-88.

982 abate. See MED abaten (4.b), “to alleviate suffering.”

1000 Since it is not the place of saved souls to keep or care for Christ, “kepe” here probably means “to await” or “to greet” (MED kepen 17b); in line 1020 meaning 14a, “to take care of, watch over, attend, honor,” pertains.

1073 An antiphon for the first and third Sundays in Advent, frequently cited (e.g., Gregory, Liber antiphonarius [PL 78:643c]; Sicardus Cremonensis, De officiis ecclesiasticis summa [PL 213:201d]).

1124 vale navel. Central valley; the belly button of the world.

1146 In the medieval understanding, the world consisted of three great land masses: Europe to the north, Asia to the east, and Africa to the south (compare below, 7.1342–43). Thus Jerusalem was “amid” the world in the same sense that the Mediterranean Sea was “in the middle of the lands.” N.b., how the Vale of Josaphat is called the “navel” of the earth (line 1124). Calvary, as the site of the Crucifixion (Mark 15:22, Luke 23:33), marks the exact center. The poet associates Old Testament sites with Christian ones (compare Spenser’s technique in The Faerie Queene, 1.10.53–54).

1156 bytwene ox and as. None of the Gospel nativity stories mention these beasts, a standard feature of many nativity scenes. They derive from the prophetic implications of Isaias 1:3. Christ here narrates a synopsis of his life in a form similar to those found in Gospel harmonies and Lives of Christ (see Morey, Book and Verse, pp. 209–15, 333–43, and the nativity, block B of the Biblia Pauperum, p. 16).

1232–33 Gregory, Liber Responsalis (PL 78:803B).

1246 That Jewes hym to the rood faste. Cotton Galba E.ix does not designate who nailed Jesus to the cross. In the passion plays it is the soldiers who do the stretching and the nailing. To give that agency specifically to the Jews is less common.

1252 The insistence that the cross and various instruments of the Passion (see Matthew 27, John 19) were tokens, and not the things themselves, runs counter to the fascination with relics (ostensibly authentic) found throughout medieval Europe. It also anticipates Reformation controversies having to do with the real presence of Christ at Communion.

1266–69 Augustine, Sermones de Symbolo (PL 40:647); not exact.

1271 In happe. Both “fortasse” and “in happe” usually mean “perhaps” or “by chance,” but here the appearance of the stigmata is no accident.

1284 That creates a metonymy between the wounds and salvation. “The wounds that for you were always opened [i.e., “that salvation”] you would enter by no way.”

1305–08 John Chrysostom (late fourth century) is the man with the golden mouth, but these verses are not traced in his works.

1329–31 Vita Antiquior (PL152:484B) quoting Isaias 33:7 (not exact). The proverb finds another form in Chaucer’s “If gold rust, what shall iron do?” (an image from Lamentations 4:1, and paralleled in Gregory’s Pastoral Care [PL 77:40], “Aurum igitur obscurantur, cum terrenis actibus sanctitatis vita polluitur”).

1340–43 Si iustus vix saluabitur . . . Yif the ryghtwyse mon . . . Unnethe . . . shal saved be. 1 Peter 4:18; compare Proverbs 11:31. See also the pardon scene in Langland, Piers Plowman B-text, 12.279–80 (ed. Schmidt).

1367 The Last Judgment scene described here is based on biblical passages such as Matthew 25:31–34, 41, 46 and Apocalypse 20. It is frequently represented in medieval artwork such as the west rose window in Chartres Cathedral, the west portal tympanum by Gislebertus at St. Lazare, Autun, and many (much more modest) representations such as the board painting at St. Peter’s, Wenhaston, Suffolk.

1372-83 The fifteen accusers are as follows: 1. conscience, 2. sins, 3. holy writ, 4. Creation, 5. angels, 6. devils, 7. heathens, 8. martyrs, 9. other sufferers, 10. children, 11. the poor, 12. subjects, 13. benefits, 14. Christ’s torments, 15. God in Trinity.

1399 Paraphrased from the marginal gloss to the Biblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria (ed. Froehlich and Gibson, 4:574).

1460 the byddynges tenne. The Ten Commandments. See Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.

1529–32 A similar passage can be found in Stephen of Bourbon’s Tractatus, a large thirteenth-century compendium of exempla and other materials for preaching: “Ieronymus: ‘Quid facies aut quid dices, o peccator homo, cum contra te loquetur conscientia propria? Accusabunt elementa cum armabitur contra te omnis creatura. Crux Christi contra te perorabit, Christus per uulnera sua contra te allegabit, cicatrices contra te loquentur, claui de te conquerentur’” (1.6.1215–20, ed. Berlioz and Eichenlaub, p. 237). The quotation is not traced in Jerome. Note the rhetorical feature of prosopopoeia (objects speaking); compare Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “Show you sweet Caesar’s wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths, / And bid them speak for me” (3.2.225–26), and also Swinburne’s poem “Before a Crucifix”: “Is there a gospel in the red / Old witness of thy wide-mouthed wounds? / From thy blind stricken tongueless head / What desolate evangel sounds / A hopeless note of hope deferred? / What word, if there be any word?” (lines 103–08).

1548 The second person of the Trinity is Christ. The shape of a cross, for obvious reasons, resembles the most elementary stick figure of a man. The dramatic impact of a speaking cross (another instance of prosopopoeia) is reminiscent of the Old English Dream of the Rood.

1583–85 Not traced in Bernard. See Luke 21:18.

1706 se. An unusual occurrence of the Old English pronoun for “she,” seo, instead of the more usual form “heo.”

1711 The exemplum is strained since the king (God, as it turns out) is to be faulted for not properly supervising his daughter. In Cotton Galba E.ix the king entrusts his daughter to his “ryfe” (“reeve,” line 5785), not the “reign” to the daughter.

1724 Not traced, but see Proverbs 4:5–13.

1741 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 82 (PL 183:700A); also Peter Comestor, Sermon 49 (PL 198:1839C).

1850 connyng men. The category of “cunning” men is not clear, nor what kind of “conscience” they are making known; perhaps: “And wise men their moral sense to teach.”

1900 naeyte. Probably from the verb “naiten,” MED v(2), meaning “to deny” or “to refuse,” the sense here being legal: when called to account one has no way out. Naiten v(1) can mean “enjoy” (a) or “want, need, or desire” (c), which might apply, insofar as judgment constrains one’s will.

1901 cely. Usually spelled “sely,” from Old English sælig, “blessed.” It has now devolved to the Modern English word “silly.”

1908 shul be. Indicative of a range of possibilities; we would say “whether they be.”

1920 “privy with God”; that is, known only to God and to those with special access to him.

1971 For there is thing that may hem save. Cotton Galba E.ix reads “For nathyng may tham than save” (ed. Morris, line 6082) which seems to make more sense, but of course the point is that there is something — the grace of God — that can save them, if they were only to ask. See 5.2168–69. The same option is open to other medieval antagonists like the Sultan of Babylon, but refused; compare Marlowe’s Faustus.

1973 Sergeaunt, attourne, ny advocete. Differentiating among legal offices can be difficult. See the MED under “sergeaunte” (“a lawyer entitled to plead at the bar” [sense n 4]), “attourne” (“a person formally designated or appointed to represent a litigant in court” [sense 1]), and “advocat” (“a professional pleader in courts of law”).

2186–91 Not traced. For the inexhaustability of God’s mercy, see above, 4.1004. Compare the inversion of the metaphor in Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale, where venial sin, compared with the inexhaustability of God’s love, is compared to a drop of water that falls into “a fourneys ful of fyr” (CT X[I]383). The Parson cites “Seint Augustyn” as his source.

2208 No mercy will be granted because, at the end of time, it is too late to repent and the fates of souls are sealed.

2234 At the end of time the world is reborn in the pristine and stable state of the original Creation. See 2:53–72 concerning the changeability of the moon.

2252 See Isaias 40:4.




 

Ink blots, smudges, and other damage to the manuscript become more common in Books 5, 6, and 7 and will be noted only when readings are uncertain.

Abbreviations: see Explanatory Notes

115–16 These last two lines are recopied in a later hand in the bottom margin.

127 In an unusual spelling, the first word, “though,” begins and ends with a yogh.

130 But kynde men. The manuscript reads By kynde men.

179 forth. The manuscript reads for.

212 The “h” in “Capharnaum” is inserted above the line. A mark similar to the one in 4.938 sits above the “r.”

221 and. The manuscript omits.

232 there. The manuscript reads the.

335 sayse. Spelled “sayese,” but with an elimination point below the first “e.”

404 The running title to folio 65v was miswritten “The ferthe part” and then corrected.

416 Others. The manuscript reads “outher,” apparently a dittography from the previous line.

461 folke. The manuscript reads foke.

485 Gog. The manuscript reads God.

519 hem. The manuscript reads hen.

536 tho. The manuscript reads too.

572 finissent. The manuscript reads finssent.

642 byleue. The manuscript reads bylee

663 ay. The manuscript reads þay.

671 myn eres. The manuscript reads my neres.

696 and. A macron appears above the ampersand.

700 shul. The manuscript reads shu.

715 luna in sanguinem. The manuscript records an ampersand, again with a macron, for in.

720 and₁. The manuscript reads an.

723 In the manuscript a dittographic “fal” follows “falle.”

787 men inserted above line.

803 thar. The manuscript reads tha.

824 haec. The manuscript reads hec.

902 enemyse. The second “e” is written over another letter.

919 Fyur. The manuscript reads Fuyr.

976 evangeliste. The “a” is written above the line.

1003 his inserted above line.

1099 vidistis. The manuscript reads vidists.

1101 flessh. A macron sits above the “h.”

1114 A dittographic “gedur” is erased but still visible at the end of the line and “grede” is written in the right margin.

1134 and. The manuscript reads ad.

1156 and as. An unusually large space separates these words.

1217 they. The manuscript reads the.

1271 happe appears twice (dittography).

1325 ryghtful. The manuscript reads ryghful.

1420 shal. The manuscript reads shla.

1494 ipsum. The “i” appears to be corrected from an “r.”

1505 grevouslye. The “r” is corrected from an “e.”

1516 here. A badly formed “d” is deleted by a subpunctus before this word.

1517 The running title to folios 83r, 89r, and 90r read “The fyueth part.”

1616 minime. The manuscript reads minne.

1703 specyally. The manuscript reads spcyally.

1735 be. The manuscript reads by.

1888 they. The manuscript reads the.

1903 sely. The manuscript reads slye.

1921 deme nought. The manuscript reads nought deme, but an “X” in the margin marks the failure in rhyme.

1939 folowed. The manuscript reads felowed.

2062 them. The manuscript reads the.

2112 swolow. The scribe has written around a naturally occurring hole between the “o” and the “l.”

2144 wondur no. The same hole as that at line 2111 separates these words.

2209 blade. The “b” appears to be written over an “s.”

2219 A premature running title for “The syxte part” appears at the top of 94r.