O MERCIFUL AND O MERCYABLE: NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS: see Literature of Courtly Love: Introduction
1-28 The first four stanzas are borrowed from The Court of Sapience (lines 197-203, 218-24, 365-78). Lines 1-14 adapt Mercy's plea to God for the release of Adam; Mercy is unsuccessful in moving her sisters, Truth and Justice, and Peace takes up her case (lines 15-28), arguing that just as Peace, Truth, and Justice have "no properté" without war, falsehood, and injury, Mercy can only be realized through trespass. See Court of Sapience, ed. Harvey.
3 myght. Stow: might and.
19 sweete hath the price by sowre. Proverbial; see Whiting S943.
27 noon. Stow: never.
57-63 This stanza as well as lines 78-84 are from The Craft of Lovers (lines 127-33 and 169-75). The poet appears to have been attracted to juridical metaphors describing the rigors of love.
64 ought T: ou. The manuscript is cropped here; reading supplied from Stow.
66 Have pyté on your. Stow: Pitie your.
67 that. Stow: and.
68 and. Stow: that.
78 doughter of Phebus. Phoebus has no daughter; the allusion may either suggest that his lady has the attributes of the sun god (brilliance, beauty), or it may be a blunder. See note to line 15 of The Craft of Lovers.
81 and. Stow omits.
89 loo, I have won the ryng! To "win the ring" presumably means to become betrothed, as the ring was then, as now, a symbol of matrimony, though a certain sexual connotation might also be understood. The context here seems to imply that these are the initial words to a song, but no such item is listed in the IMEV or SIMEV.