Note: ?Additional quot. Editor's gloss: '?cleanses'. Harvey and Tavormina remark: "boketh noght ne bolketh: 'neither boketh nor bolketh.' In context, the two verbs appear to be related to the apparent 'closure' of the mouth of the womb during pregnancy (cf. ne openeth þe self), which medieval medical writers took as a general symptom of pregnancy, the body's way of retaining both semen and menstrual blood for the nourishment of the fetus. Against this backdrop, boketh and bolketh may be specialized uses of bouken 'to cleanse' and bolken 'to produce bodily emissions (belching, vomiting, bleeding, etc.),' both in reference to the suspension of the menstrual cycle in pregnancy.