Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

7. PERES THE PLOWMANS CREDE. ^6^For clerkes saies we shullen be fainFor her liuelod swette and swinke,And thei right nought vs giue again,Neither to eate ne yet to drinke.Thei mowe by lawe, as thei sain,Vs curse and dampne to hell[e] brinke ;Thus thei putten vs to painWith candles queint and belles clinke.Thei make vs thralles at her lust,And sain we mowe not els be sauedThei haue the come and we the dust,Who speaketh there-again, thei sale he raued."[^Foi4r lines los(,'\" What ? man," {quod our hoste) " canst thou preache ?Come nere and tel vs some holy thing."" Sir," quod he, " I heard ones teacheA priest in pulpit a good preaching."" Sale one," quod our hoste, " I thee beseche."" Sir, I am redy at your biddingI praie you that no man me reproche,While that I am my tale telling."Thus endeth the Prologue, and here foloweth the first parte of the tale.'425. It means that his shoes were so worn and tight that his toespeeped out as he walked along, whilst his hose, being ungartered, hungdown round and over the tops of his gaiters, and so became bedaubedwith mud. Gaiters made of old stockings with the feet cut off arecalled hoeshins in Ayrshire. See Hoesbins, Hushions, and Hoggers, inJamieson's Scottish Dictionary.428. As mete, as tight, scanty, close-fitting as the shoes were. It isthe A.S. mcBte, moderate, small. The true sense is given by the inelegantbut expressive term ' skinny,' i. e. insufficient. Mr. Wedgwood sentme a quotation from an old ballad' There's no room at my side, Margaret,My coffin 's made so meet.'The word also occurs in Bishop Percy's Folio MS. (ed. Hales and Furnivall,vol. iii. p. 225).431. Worthen, become. In Layamon's Brut, the past participle ofthe verb worthen, to become, takes the forms iwur^en, iiourden, iwor^en,iwor\>e; and is sometimes used in the exact sense here required, as in