Geoffrey Chaucer

“ We must take Chaucer's remark to mean that 'Sooth play is what a Fleming would call quaad play'; which is then quite correct. For just as Flemish does not use the English words sooth and play, so English seldom uses the Flemish form quaad, equivalent to the Dutch kwaad, evil, bad, spelt quade in Hexham's Du. Dict. (1658) . Cf. also O. Friesic kwad, quad, East Friesic kwâd (still in common use) . The Mid. Eng. form is not quad, but (properly) quēd or queed; see examples in Stratmann, s. v. cwêd. In P. Plowman, B. xiv. 189, the qued means the Evil One, the devil. Queed occurs as a sb. ”

“ Morris, p. 22.
4357. 'A true jest is an evil jest.' Hazlitt, in his Collection of Proverbs, gives, 'True jest is no jest,' and quotes 'Sooth bourd is no bourd' from Heywood, and from Harington's Brief Apologie of Poetrie, 1591. Kelly's Scotch Proverbs includes: 'A sooth bourd is nae bourd.' Tyrwhitt alters the second play to spel, as being a Flemish word, but he only found it in two MSS. (Askew 1 and 2) , and nothing is gained by it. The fact is, that there is nothing Flemish about the proverb except the word quad, though there may have been an equivalent proverb in that language. ”

“ The sense is—'The master pays for the revelling of the apprentice, though he takes no part in such revel; and conversely, the apprentice may gain skill in minstrelsy, but takes no part in paying for it; for, in his case, his rioting is convertible with theft.' The master pays, but plays not; the other pays not, but plays.
4397. 'Revelling and honesty, in the case of one of low degree (who has no money) , are continually wrath with (i. e. opposed to) each other.'
4402. ”