7. ZABYON: FOOTNOTES

1 defensour, defender.

2 slee, slay.

4 discomfited, defeated.

5 wolde, would; ho, who.

6 werre, war.

8-9 engyne, engine (torture device).

9 boote, but.

11 leese, lose.

13 Geete, Get.

17 deed, dead.

25 stronde, beach.

26 andz₂, if.

27 myddes, midst.

31 deliveraunce, rescue.

33 thenke, think.

7. ZABYON: EXPLANATORY NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS: B = Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers, ed. Bühler (1941); CA = Gower's Confessio Amantis; CT = Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; G = Pierpont Morgan Library MS G.66; MED = Middle English Dictionary; OED = Oxford English Dictionary; S = Scrope, Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers, ed. Schofield (1936).

These explanatory notes cannot hope to provide a complete accounting for the source of every proverbial statement in Dicts and Sayings. That task would be a separate book in its own right. Instead, I have attempted to contextualize this rather heterogeneous body of lore by identifying the people and places named in the text, as well as noting points that may be of interest to students and general readers. Those interested in tracing the source of particular quotations should begin by consulting Whiting's Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases From English Writings Mainly Before 1500. Readers are also invited to consult the thorough notes to Knust's Bocados de Oro, the Spanish translation of the original Arabic ancestor of Dicts and Sayings.

1 Zabyon. Schofield notes that in the Arabic version of Dicts and Sayings, this philosopher is named Zenon (S, p. 208n25). The most famous sage with this name is Zenon (or Zeno) of Citium (c. 344-c. 262 BC), the Greek philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer who studied with the Cynics and later was the founder of the Stoic movement. Given the chronological arrangement of the philosophers, however, Zeno of Citium, who lived after the likes of Socrates and Plato, probably would not appear so early in the text. More likely this is Zeno of Elea (c. 490-c. 430 BC), a member of the Eleatic School, whose members questioned everyday perceptions of reality.

16 And seith that alle evell is in dilectacion of money. For other manifestations of this maxim, see Whiting E176.

24 a yong man. Although the speakers in Dicts and Sayings tend to offer most of their counsel to the powerful - as befits a text that owes much to the "Mirror for Princes" narratives that present advice to aristocrats - here Zabyon speaks at length to an ordinary young man. As I explain in the Introduction, works of medieval wisdom literature often adopt a narrative framework in which an older man addresses a younger man, usually in the context of a father giving advice to his son; see, for instance, How the Goode Man Taght Hys Sone (Trials and Joys, ed. Salisbury, pp. 233-45).

7. ZABYON: TEXTUAL NOTES

18 Ande. G: nde preceded by a blank space for a capital A.