is for "better."]

[Footnote 12: Chaucer's knight assigns it as a motive to wedlock that he
may have

Children to thonour of God above,
And not only for paramour, and for love.

But a little before he had given a more worldly reason for his desire to
have a son and heir, and said that he would rather be eaten by dogs than
that his inheritance should go to a stranger.]

[Footnote 13: The flippancy of this couplet, which departs from the
original, is at variance with the tone of the knight, whose speech
commenced with the words,

Friendes I am hoar and old,
And almost, God wot, at my pittes brink
Upon my soule somewhat must I think.
I have my body folily dispended
Blessed be God that it shall be amended.

In the passage, for which Pope's lines are the substitute, the knight is
enumerating the causes why men should marry, and one reason, he says, is
that each person ought to

Helpen other
In meschief, as a sister shall the brother,
And live in chastity full holily.
But, sires, by your leave that am not I,
For, God be thanked, I dare make avaunt,
I feel my limbes stark and suffisaunt.

The meaning is, that when a husband is "in meschief," or, in other
words, in a state of helpless decrepitude, his wife ought to live in
holy chastity, and nurse him as a sister would a brother. But, adds the
knight, thank God I am not decrepit myself, and feel my limbs to be
still stout; which is a very different sentiment from sneering at the
saintly life he had just commended.]

[Footnote 14: This verse, which has no counterpart in the original, is
altered from a line in Dryden's Flower and Leaf:

Ev'n when the vital sap retreats below,
Ev'n when the hoary head is hid in snow.]

[Footnote 15: The infatuation of the knight is more strongly marked in
the original. He summons his friends to hear his fixed resolution, and
to beg their assistance. He wants no advice, and instead of inviting
them to speak their minds with freedom, he concludes his address with
the words

And synnes ye have heard all mine intent,
I pray you to my wille ye assent.

They do, indeed, offer him counsel where he solicited help, which is a
true stroke of nature on both sides.]

[Footnote 16: Pope gives the real character of Placebo, but sets
probability at defiance in making him parade with boastful effrontery
his own systematic fawning and