They took the phrase "he / was of his love dangerous to me", and read that to mean that she loved him because he beat her. But it wasn't even really intended to have a double entendre to it--just the Romance definition, of being stand-offish, disatant, playing hard to get.
And then there's a theory that some of the verses--the six most misogynous--were added by a random scribe, trying to make her look bad, and i nthe process destroying all sorts of double entendres, implied jokes, and ambiguity. And making it a bit ham fisted, really. Norton includes the lines, though from what I hear Riverside doesn't (haven't checked yet), Skeat didn't which confused me greatly in class before I read the article, and it really does change her a lot to put in the unsubtlety. Also, the same manuscript that added the lines changed the order of her husbands.
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They took the phrase "he / was of his love dangerous to me", and read that to mean that she loved him because he beat her. But it wasn't even really intended to have a double entendre to it--just the Romance definition, of being stand-offish, disatant, playing hard to get.
And then there's a theory that some of the verses--the six most misogynous--were added by a random scribe, trying to make her look bad, and i nthe process destroying all sorts of double entendres, implied jokes, and ambiguity. And making it a bit ham fisted, really. Norton includes the lines, though from what I hear Riverside doesn't (haven't checked yet), Skeat didn't which confused me greatly in class before I read the article, and it really does change her a lot to put in the unsubtlety. Also, the same manuscript that added the lines changed the order of her husbands.