“Experience, though no authority
Were in this world, is right enough for me
To speak of the woe that is in marriage;
For, my lords, since I was twelve years of age,
Thanks be to God, eternally alive, 5*
Husbands at the church door, I have had five—
If quite so often I might wedded be—
And all were worthy men in their degree.
But it was told me not so long ago,1
That since just once our Christ did ever go 10
To a wedding, in Cana in Galilee,2
That by that same example, he taught me
That only one time I should wedded be.
Lo, listen, what a sharp word then spoke he,
Beside a well when Jesus, God and man, 15
Spoke in reproof of the Samaritan:3
‘Thou hast had five husbands,’ then said he,
‘And so that same man here who now hath thee
Is not thy husband,’ said he by the well.
But what he meant thereby, I cannot tell; 20
Except I ask, why is it the fifth man
Was not husband to the Samaritan?
How many might she have in marriage?
Yet I’ve never heard tell, in all my age,
About this, any number definite. 25
Up and down, men gloss and guess about it,
But well I know, expressly, it’s no lie,
That God bade us to wax and multiply;4
This gentle text, I can well understand.
Also, well I know, he said my husband 30
Should leave mother and father and cleave to me.
But of no number a mention made he,
Of bigamy, or of octogamy;
Why then should men speak of it villainy?
Lo, here is the wise king, Don Solomon; 35
I think he had some wives, well more than one.
Now would to God it lawful were for me
To be refreshed here half so much as he!
A gift from God had he with all his wives!
No man has such a gift who’s now alive. 40
This noble king, God knows, as I would judge it,
That first night had many a merry fit
With each of them, so well was he alive.
Blessèd be God that I have wedded five!
Of whom I have picked out the very best, 44a
For both their nether purse and money chest.
Different schools can turn out perfect clerks,
And different practices in sundry works
Make the workman perfect, it’s no lie;
From my five husbands, studying am I. 44f
Welcome the sixth, when he shall come along. 45
In truth, I won’t keep chaste for very long.
And when my husband from this world has passed,
Another Christian man will wed me fast;
Then the apostle5 says that I am free
To wed, by God, where it most pleases me. 50
He says to be wedded is not sinning;
Better to be wedded than be burning.
What do I care if folks speak villainy
About accursed Lamech’s6 bigamy?
Abraham was a holy man, I know; 55
And as I understand it, Jacob also;
And each of them had wives now, more than one,
As many other holy men have done.
Where, can you say, in any kind of age,
That our high God has forbidden marriage 60
Expressly, in a word? I pray, tell me.
Or where did he command virginity?
I know as well as you, or else you should,
The apostle,7 when he speaks of maidenhood,
Said that a precept for it he had none.8 65
Men may counsel a woman to be one,
But counseling does not make a commandment.
All of it he left to our own judgment;
For if our God commanded maidenhood,
Then wedding with the deed, he’d damn for good. 70
And surely, if no seed were ever sown,
From what, then, would virginity be grown?
And at the least, Paul never dared demand
A thing that his own Master won’t command.
The prize is set up for virginity; 75
Catch it who may; who runs the best, let’s see.
To everyone, this word does not apply,
But only where God’s might wants it to lie.
I know the apostle was a virgin;
Nonetheless, although he wrote and said then 80
He wished that everyone was such as he,
This is but counsel to virginity.
He gave me leave to be a wife, all the same,
With his permission, so it is no shame,
If my mate dies, to go then and wed me, 85
Without objections about bigamy.
Though it may be good not to touch women—
In his bed or on his couch, he meant then—
Fire and flax together make peril so—
What this example resembles, you all know. 90
The sum is this: he held virginity
More perfect than to wed from frailty.
Frailty I call it, unless he and she
Wished to lead all their lives in chastity.
I grant it well that I have no envy, 95
Though maidenhood’s preferred to bigamy.9
To be clean pleases them, body and spirit;
Of my state, I make no boast about it,
For you well know, a lord in his household,
He has not every vessel made of gold;10 100
Some come from wood, and serve their lord withal.
In sundry ways, folks to him God does call,
Each has God’s special gift while he must live,
Some this, some that, it pleases God to give.
Virginity thus is great perfection, 105
And also continence spurred by devotion,
But Christ, who of perfection is the well,
Bade not that every person should go sell
All that he has and give it to the poor,
And follow in his footsteps thus, for sure. 110
He spoke to those who would live perfectly,
And my lords, by your leave, that is not me.
I will bestow the flower of my life
In married acts and fruits, and be a wife.
Tell me, for what purpose and conclusion 115
Were the members made for generation,
And by so perfectly wise a maker wrought?
Trust it well now: they were not made for nought.
Say what you will, or hedge it by glossing,
That they were made simply for the purging 120
Of urine; and both our small things also
Were made so male from female we could know,
And for no other cause—do you say no?
Experience well knows it is not so.
So the clerks will not be angry at me, 125
They were made for both: I say this truly.
That is, to do our business and for ease
In engendering, where God we don’t displease.
Why should men otherwise in their books set
It down that man should yield his wife her debt? 130
Now how to her should he make his payment,
Unless he’d used his silly instrument?
Thus, they were bestowed upon a creature
To purge urine, and so we could engender.
But I don’t say that each one’s obligated, 135
Who has the harness that I’ve just related,
To go and use it for engendering.
Then for chastity, men wouldn’t care a thing.
Christ was a maiden and shaped like a man,
And many saints, since first the world began; 140
They lived forever in perfect chastity.
I won’t envy any virginity.
Let them be bread of wheat that’s been refined,
As barley bread, let us wives be defined;
And yet, with barley bread, as Mark can tell, 145
Our Lord has refreshed many men quite well.
In whatever rank God’s called to us,
I’ll persevere; I’m not fastidious.
In wifehood, I will use my instrument
As freely as my Maker has it sent. 150
If I’m aloof, then God send me dismay!
My husband can well have it, night and day,
When it pleases him to come and pay his debt.
A husband I will have—I won’t stop yet—
Who shall be both my debtor and my slave, 155
With tribulation, unless he behaves,
Upon his flesh while I may be his wife.
I have the power, during all my life
Over his own body, and not he.
Thus the Apostle has told this to me, 160
And bade our husbands they should love us well.
This meaning, I like more than I can tell—”
Up the Pardoner starts, immediately;
“Now, Madame, by God and Saint John,” said he,
“You are a noble preacher on this strife. 165
Alas! I was about to wed a wife.
Why on my flesh now pay a price so dear?
I’d rather not wed any wife this year!”
“Just wait! My tale is not begun,” said she.
“No, you’ll drink from another cask, you’ll see, 170
Before I go, that will taste worse than ale.
And when I will have told you all my tale
Of the tribulation that’s in marriage—
About which I’m an expert in my age—
That is to say that I have been the whip— 175
Then you can choose if you might want to sip
Out of the cask that I will open here.
Beware of it, before you come too near;
For I shall give examples, more than ten.
‘Whoever won’t be warned by other men, 180
By him will other men corrected be.’
Those same words were written by Ptolemy;11
Read his Almageste, and there you’ll find it still.”
“Madame, I pray you, if it be your will,”
Said this Pardoner, “now as you began, 185
Tell forth your tale, and don’t spare any man;
Teach us young men all about your practice.”
“Gladly,” said she, “since you might well like this;
But yet I pray to all this company,
If I speak after my own fantasy, 190
Do not be aggrieved by what I say,
For my intent is only now to play.
And now, sir, now I’ll tell on with my tale.
As ever I might drink of wine or ale,
I’ll tell the truth; those husbands that I had, 195
Some three of them were good, and two were bad.
The three who were good men were rich and old;
And so they barely could the statute hold
Through which they all had bound themselves to me.
By God, you know what I mean, certainly! 200
So help me God, I laugh to remember
How pitifully at night I made them labor!
In faith, I set no store by their pleasure.
To me, they had given land and treasure;
No longer need I use my diligence 205
To win their love or do them reverence.
They loved me so well that, by God above,
I set no value then upon their love!
A wise woman will be the busy one
To get herself love, yes, where she has none. 210
But since I had them wholly in my hand,
And since to me they’d given all their land,
Why should I take care that I should them please
Unless it were for my profit and my ease?
I set them so to hard work, by my lights, 215
That they sung ‘Wey-la-way!’ on many nights.
I don’t think the bacon was meant for them now
That some men win in Essex at Dunmowe.12
I governed them so well, after my law,
That each of them was eager, as I saw, 220
To bring me home some gay things from the fair.
They were glad when my speech to them was fair;
I scolded them, as God knows, spitefully.
Now, listen how I acted properly,
You wise wives, who can so well understand. 225
Thus should you accuse falsely, out of hand.
For half so boldly knows no living man
How to swear and lie just as a woman can.
This statement about wise wives, I don’t make—
Unless it be when they’ve made some mistake. 230
A wise wife, who knows what’s good for her,
Will swear the tattling crow13 is mad for sure,
And make sure that her maid has assented
As her witness. But hear now what I said:
‘Sir old dotard, is this your array? 235
Why is it that my neighbor’s wife’s so gay?
She is honored everywhere she goes;
I sit at home; I have no decent clothes.
What do you do at my neighbor’s house there?
Are you so amorous? Is she so fair? 240
What do you whisper to our maid? Bless me!
Sir old lecher, now let your jokes be!
If, without guilt, I have a chum or friend,
Just like a fiend, you scold me without end
If I should play or walk down to his house! 245
But you come home as drunken as a mouse,
And then preach from your bench, no proof from you!
And it’s great mischief, as you tell me too,
A poor woman to wed, for the expense;
If she’s rich and born to lofty parents, 250
Then you say that a torment it will be
To bear her pride and sullen melancholy.
And if she should be fair, you horrid cur,
You say every lecher soon will have her;
For she can’t long in chastity abide, 255
Who is always assailed on every side.
You say some folk want us for our richness,
Some for our figure, and some for our fairness,
Some because she can either dance or sing,
Some for gentility and socializing; 260
And some because their hands and arms are small;
By your lights, to the devil thus goes all.
You say men can’t defend a castle wall
When it’s so long assailed by large and small.
And if she should be ugly, you say she 265
Will covet every man that she may see,
For like a spaniel, she will on him leap
Until she finds a man to buy her cheap.
No goose goes out there on the lake so gray
That she will be without a mate, you say. 270
You say it’s hard for men to have controlled
A thing that no man willingly would hold.
Thus you say, scoundrel, when you go to bed,
That no wise man has any need to wed,
Nor one who toward heaven would aspire. 275
With wild thunder claps and lightning’s fire
May your old withered neck break right in two!
You say that leaky houses, and smoke too,
And scolding wives all cause a man to flee
Out of his own house; ah now, God bless me! 280
What can ail such an old man, who must chide?
You say that we wives will our vices hide
Till we’re hitched, and then we show them to you—
Well may that be the proverb of a shrew!
You say horses, hounds, asses, and oxen 285
At different times can be tried out by men;
Wash bowls and basins, spoons and stools, you say,
All household things men try before they pay;
The same thing goes for clothes and gear and pots;
But to try out a wife, a man may not 290
Till they are wedded—you old dotard shrew!—
And then we show our vices, so say you.
You say also that it displeases me
Unless you will always praise my beauty,
Or else always pore over my face, 295
And call me “Fair Madame” in every place.
Unless you make a feast upon the day
That I was born, and dress me fresh and gay;
Unless to my nurse,14 you do all honor,
And to the chambermaid within my bower, 300
And to my father’s folk and kin all day—
Old barrelful of lies, all this you say!
Yet of Jenkin, who is our apprentice,
Whose curly hair shines just like gold—for this,
And because he will squire me around, 305
A cause for false suspicions, you have found.
I don’t want him, though you should die tomorrow!
Tell me: why do you hide, to my sorrow,
The keys now of your chest away from me?
They are my goods as well as yours, bless me! 310
Will you make an idiot of your dame?
Now, by that good lord who is called Saint James,
You will not, though it might make you crazy,
Be master of both my goods and body;
One of them you’ll forgo, to spite your eyes. 315
What good is it to ask around and spy?
I think you want to lock me in your chest!
You should say, “Wife, go where you think is best;
Enjoy yourself; I’ll believe no tales of this.
I know you for my own true wife, Dame Alice.” 320
We love no man who will take heed or charge
Of where we go; we want to be at large.
And of all men, quite blessèd must he be,
That wise astrologer, Don Ptolemy,
Who says this proverb in his Almageste,15 325
“Of all men, his wisdom is the highest
Who never cares who holds the world in hand.”
By this proverb, you should well understand,
If you have enough, why then should you care
How merrily some other folks might fare? 330
For certainly, old dotard, by your leave,
You’ll have some quaint things sure enough come eve.
He is too great a niggard who would spurn
A man to light a candle at his lantern;
By God, from that, he doesn’t have less light. 335
If you’ve enough, complaining isn’t right.
You also say if we make ourselves gay
With our clothing and with precious array,
That it is peril to our chastity;
Woe to you—you then enforce it for me, 340
And say these words in the Apostle’s name:
“In clothing made from chastity and shame
You women all should dress yourselves,” said he,
“Not with well-coifed hair and with gay jewelry,
Not with rich clothes, with pearls, or else with gold.” 345
With your text and your rubric,16 I don’t hold,
Or follow them as much as would a gnat.
You said this: that I was just like a cat;
Whoever wanted to singe a cat’s skin
He could be sure the cat would then stay in; 350
And if the cat’s skin were so sleek and gay,
She’d not stay in the house for half a day;
Forth she’d go, before the day was dawning,
To show her skin and to go caterwauling.
That is to say, if I am gay, sir shrew, 355
I’ll run to put my poor old clothes on view.
Sir old fool, what help is it if you spy?
Though you prayed Argus17 with his hundred eyes
To be my bodyguard, as he’d know best,
He’d not guard me till I let him, I’ll be blessed. 360
I’d hoodwink him, as I am prospering!
Yet you also say that there are three things,
And that these same things trouble all this earth,
And that no man might yet endure the fourth.
Oh, dear sir shrew, Jesus shorten your life! 365
Yet you will preach and say a hateful wife
Is one of these misfortunes that you reckon.
Aren’t there other kinds of comparison
That, for all your parables, you could use,
Unless a poor wife were the one you’d choose? 370
You liken, too, a woman’s love to hell,
To barren land where water may not dwell.
You liken it also to a wild fire;
The more it burns, the more it has desire
To consume everything that burned will be. 375
You say that just as worms destroy a tree,
A wife destroys her husband, you have found;
This, they well know who to wives have been bound.’
My lords, right thus, as you can understand,
I stiffly kept my old husbands in hand 380
And swore they said thus in their drunkenness;
And all was false; except I took witness
On Jenkin there, and on my niece, also.
Oh Lord! The pain I did them and the woe.
And, by God’s sweet pain, they were not guilty! 385
For, like a horse, I could bite and whinny.
I knew how to complain well even when
I had the guilt, or I’d been ruined then.
Whoever comes first to the mill, first grinds;
Complaining first, our war stopped, I did find. 390
They were glad to excuse themselves quite quickly
For things of which they never had been guilty.
Of wenches, I’d accuse them out of hand
When, in their sickness, they could hardly stand.
Yet it tickled his heart, because then he 395
Thought that I had for him such great fancy!
I swore that all my walking out at night
Was to spy on wenches he was holding tight;
Using that cover, I enjoyed much mirth.
For all such wit is given us at birth; 400
Deceit, weeping, and spinning God did give
To women by nature, all the time they live.
And thus of one thing, I can surely boast:
In the end, I’m the one who won the most
By tricks or force or by some other thing 405
As much as constant grumbling and grousing.
Namely, then, they would have bad luck in bed:
I did them no pleasure, and I chided;
I would no longer in the bed abide,
If I felt his arm come over my side, 410
Till he had paid his ransom down to me;
Then I’d suffer him to do his foolery.
Therefore, to every man this tale I tell:
Win whoso may, for all is there to sell;
With empty hands men may no hawks then lure. 415
For profit, I would all their lust endure,
And I would fake it with feigned appetite;
And yet in bacon,18 I had no delight.
That was the reason I would always chide them,
For though the pope were sitting right beside them, 420
At their own table, I would never spare.
In truth, I repaid them word for word there.
So help me, oh true God omnipotent,
If now I made my will and testament,
There was not one unpaid word I did owe. 425
By my own wit, I brought it all about so
That they must give it up, and for the best,
Or otherwise, we never would have rest;
Though he looked as crazy as a lion,
He would fail at gaining his conclusion. 430
Then I would say to him, ‘Sweetheart, take heed—
See how meek our sheep Willie looks, indeed!
Come near, my spouse, and let me kiss your cheek!
Truly you should be all patient and meek,
And have, too, a carefully spiced conscience, 435
Since you always preach about Job’s patience.
Suffer always, since you can so well preach;
Unless you do, for sure we shall you teach
That it’s nice to have a wife in peace now.
Doubtless, one of the two of us must bow, 440
And so, since man is more reasonable
Than woman, to suffer you are able.
What ails you now that thus you grouse and groan?
Do you just want my quaint thing for your own?
Why, take it all! Lo, have it through and through! 445
You love it well, by Peter,19 curse on you;
For if I wanted to sell my belle chose,20
Then I could walk as fresh as is a rose;
But I will keep it just for your own tooth.
You are to blame, by God! I tell the truth.’ 450
These are the kinds of words I had on hand.
And now I will speak of my fourth husband.
My fourth husband was a reveler—
That is to say, he had a paramour—
And young and full of wantonness was I, 455
Stubborn, strong and jolly as a magpie.
How I’d dance when the small harp was playing;
Like a nightingale’s was all my singing,
When I had drunk my draught of fine sweet wine!
Metellius,21 the foul churl, the swine, 460
Who, with a staff, bereft his wife of life,
Because she drank wine, if I were his wife,
He wouldn’t frighten me away from drink!
And after wine, on Venus I must think,
For just as sure as cold engenders hail, 465
A lecherous mouth must have lecherous tail.
In wine-drunk women, there is no defence—
This, lechers know from their experience.
But—Lord Christ!—when memories come back to me,
About my youth and all my jollity, 470
It tickles me right down to my heart’s root.
To this day, it does my heart good, to boot,
That I have had my world right in my time.
But age, alas, that poisons what is prime,
Has bereft me of my beauty and my pith. 475
Let it go. Farewell! The devil go therewith!
The flower’s gone; there is no more to tell;
The bran, as I best can, now must I sell;
But yet to be right merry I have planned.
And now I will tell of my fourth husband. 480
I say, I had in my heart a great spite
That he in any other took delight.
By God and Saint Judocus,22 he’s repaid!
Of the same wood, a cross for him I made;
Not in a foul manner with my body, 485
But I made folks such cheer that certainly
I made him fry enough in his own grease
Because his jealous anger would not cease.
By God, on earth I was his purgatory,
For which, I hope his soul will be in glory. 490
God knows, he often sat and sang “Alack”
When his shoe so bitterly pinched him back.
There was no man who knew, save God and he,
In what ways I twisted him so sorely.
When I came from Jerusalem,23 he died; 495
Buried beneath the cross’s beam,24 he lies.
His tomb is not fancy or curious
As was the sepulcher of Darius,25
Which Appelles26 had formed so skillfully;
A waste to bury him expensively. 500
Let him fare well. God rest his soul, I ask it!
He is now in his grave and in his casket.
Now of my fifth husband I will tell.
May God let his soul never go to hell!
Yet to me he was the biggest scoundrel; 505
On my whole row of ribs, I feel it still,
And ever shall until my dying day.
But in our bed, he was so fresh and gay,
And he knew so well just how to gloss me
When he wanted my belle chose, as you’ll see; 510
Although he’d beaten me on every bone,
Quickly he’d win back my love for his own.
I believe that I loved him best since he
Could be standoffish with his love for me.
We women have, and no lie this will be, 515
In this matter, our own quaint fantasy:
Whatever thing won’t lightly come our way,
Then after it we’ll cry and crave all day.
Forbid us something, and that desire we;
Press on us fast, and then we’re sure to flee. 520
With standoffishness, we spread out all our wares;
Great crowds at market make the goods dear there,
Too great a bargain isn’t thought a prize;
And this knows every woman who is wise.
My fifth husband—now God his soul should bless— 525
Whom I took for love and not for richness,
Formerly, he was a clerk at Oxford,
And had left school, and went back home to board
With my close friend who in our town did dwell.
God save her! Her name’s Alison, as well. 530
She knew both my heart and my privacy
More than our parish priest did, so help me!
With her, I shared my secrets one and all.
For had my husband pissed upon a wall,
Or done a thing that should have cost his life, 535
To her and to another worthy wife,
And to my niece, whom I did love so well,
All of his secrets I’d be sure to tell.
God knows too that I did this quite often
So I made his face both red and hot then 540
From shame itself. He blamed himself that he
Had ever shared with me his privacy.
And so it happened that one time in Lent—
For often times to my close friend I went,
Because I always did love being gay, 545
And to walk out in March, April, and May,
From house to house, and sundry tales to hear—
Jenkin the clerk, Alison, my friend dear,
And I myself, into the fields all went.
My husband was at London all that Lent; 550
More leisure for my playing, I then had,
To see and to be seen (and I was glad)
By lusty folks. Did I know where good grace
Was destined to find me, or in what place?
Therefore, I made all my visitations 555
To vigils and also to processions,
To preachings and to these pilgrimages,
To miracle plays27 and to marriages,
And always wore my gowns of scarlet bright.
Neither the worms nor moths nor any mites, 560
On my soul’s peril, had my gowns abused.
Do you know why? Because they were well used.
Now I’ll tell you what happened then to me.
I say that out into the fields walked we,
Till truly, we had such a flirtation, 565
This clerk and I, that I made due provision
And spoke to him, and said to him how he,
Were I a widow, should be wed to me.
For certainly—and I’m not boasting here—
I have not ever lacked provisions clear 570
For marriage, or for such things, so to speak.
I hold a mouse’s heart not worth a leek
Who’s only got one hole where it can run,
And if that fails, then everything is done.
I made him think he had enchanted me— 575
My mother taught me all that subtlety—
And said I had dreamed this of him all night:
As I lay on my back, he’d slain me quite,
And I dreamed full of blood then was my bed;
‘But yet I hope you’ll do me good,’ I said, 580
‘For blood betokens gold, as was taught me.’
And all was false; I had no dream, you see,
But I always followed my mother’s lore,
In this as well as other things before.
But now, sirs, let’s see what I shall say then. 585
Aha! By God, I’ve got my tale again.
When my fourth husband lay up on his bier,
I wept quite long and made a sorry cheer,
As wives must, for it is common usage.
With my coverchief, I hid my visage, 590
But since I was provided with my next mate,
I didn’t weep much—this to you I’ll state.
To church was my husband borne next morning
With the neighbors, who for him were mourning;
And there Jenkin, our clerk, was one of those. 595
So help me God, when I saw how he goes
Behind the bier, I thought he had a pair
Of legs and feet that were so clean and fair,
I gave him all my heart for him to hold.
He was, I think, just twenty winters old, 600
And I was forty, if I tell the truth;
But yet I always had a coltish tooth
Gap toothed28 was I, and that became me well;
With Venus’s seal29 I’m printed, I can tell.
So help me God, I was a lusty one, 605
And fair and rich and young and well begun,
And truly, as my husbands all told me,
I had the best quoniam30 there might be.
For certainly, I’m all Venerian
In feeling, and my heart is Martian. 610
Venus gave me my love and lecherousness,
And Mars gave me my sturdy hardiness;
My ascendant sign’s Taurus, with Mars therein.
Alas! Alas! That ever love was sin!
I always followed my inclination 615
By virtue of my stars’ constellation;
Thus I could not withdraw—I was made so—
My chamber of Venus from a good fellow.
Yet I have Mars’s mark upon my face,
And also in another private place. 620
For as God so wise is my salvation,
I have never loved in moderation,
But I always followed my appetite,
Should he be long or short or black or white;
I took no heed, so long as he liked me, 625
Of how poor he was, or of what degree.
What should I say, but at the month’s end, he,
This pretty clerk, this Jenkin, so handy,31
Has wedded me with great solemnity,
And I gave him all the land and property 630
That ever had been given me before.
But after, I was made to rue that sore;
My desires he would not suffer to hear.
By God, he hit me once upon the ear,
Because, out of his book, a leaf I rent, 635
And from that stroke, my ear all deaf then went.
But, like a lionness, I was stubborn,
And with my tongue, I was a jangler32 born,
And I would walk around, as I once did,
From house to house, although he did forbid; 640
Because of this, quite often he would preach,
And from old Roman stories, he would teach;
How one Simplicius Gallus33 left his wife,
And her forsook for the rest of his life,
Because one day, and for no reason more, 645
Bareheaded she was looking out the door.
Another Roman he told me by name,
Who, since his wife was at a summer’s game
Without his knowledge, he then her forsook.
And then he would into his Bible look 650
For the proverb of Ecclesiasticus34
Where he commands, and he does forbid thus:
That man shall not suffer wife to roam about.
Then would he say right thus, without a doubt:
‘Whoever builds his house up all from willow 655
And pricks his blind horse over fields so fallow,
And lets his wife go seeking shrines so hallowed,
Is worthy to be hanging on the gallows!’35
But all for nought: I didn’t give a straw
For all his old proverbs or for his saws, 660
Nor by him would I then corrected be.
I hate him who my vices tells to me,
And so do more of us, God knows, than me.
This drove him mad about me, utterly;
For I wouldn’t bear with any of this. 665
I’ll tell you the truth now, by Saint Thomas,
Why once out of his book a leaf I rent,
For which he hit me so that deaf I went.
He had a book that, gladly, night and day,
For his pleasure, he would be reading always; 670
It’s called Valerius and Theophrastus;36
He always laughed as he read it to us.
And also there was once a clerk at Rome,
A cardinal, who was called Saint Jerome,37
Who made a book against Jovinian;38 675
In which book was also Tertullian,
Crisippus,39 Trotula, and Heloise,
An abbess near to Paris, if you please,
And too the Parables of Solomon,
Ovid’s Ars,40 and more books, many a one, 680
And all of these in one volume were bound,
And every night and day, some time he found
When he had some leisure and vacation
From his other worldly occupation,
To read then in this book of wicked wives. 685
He knew of them more legends and more lives
Then there are of good wives in the Bible.
For trust it well, it is impossible
For any clerk to speak some good of wives,
Unless he speaks about holy saints’ lives: 690
This for no other women will he do.
Now who painted the lion, tell me who?
By God, if women had written stories,
Like clerks do within their oratories,
They would have written of men more wickedness 695
Than all the mark of Adam could redress.
The children of Venus and Mercury41
In their actions are always contrary;
Mercury loves both wisdom and science;
Venus, revelry and extravagance. 700
Because of their different dispositions,
Each falls in the other sign’s exaltation.
And thus, God knows, Mercury’s despondent
In Pisces, when Venus is ascendant,
And Venus falls where Mercury is raised. 705
Therefore, no woman by a clerk is praised.
The clerk, when he is old and may not do
Of Venus’s work what’s worth his old shoe,
Then he sits down and writes in his dotage
That women cannot keep up their marriage! 710
But now to my purpose, why I told you
That I was beaten for a book, it’s true!
One night Jenkin, who was our lord and sire,
Read in this book, as he sat by the fire,
Of Eve first: because of her wickedness, 715
All mankind was brought into wretchedness,
And thus Jesus Christ himself was slain then,
Who bought us with his own heart’s blood again.
Lo, here, expressly, of woman you find
That woman was the loss of all mankind. 720
He read to me how Samson42 lost his hair:
His lover cut it while he did sleep there;
And through this treason, he lost both his eyes.
And then he read to me, if I don’t lie,
About Dianyra and Hercules; 725
She made him set himself on fire, if you please.
Nor forgot he the woe throughout his life
That Socrates endured from his two wives,
How Xantippa cast piss upon his head.
This foolish man sat still like he were dead; 730
He wiped his head and no more dared say plain,
But ‘Before thunder stops, there comes the rain!’
Of Pasiphaë,43 who was the queen of Crete,
From evilness, the tale seemed to him sweet;
Fie! Speak no more—it is a grisly thing— 735
Of her lust and horrible desiring.
Of Clytemnestra,44 who, from lechery,
Falsely made her husband die, you see,
He read out that tale with great devotion.
He told me also on what occasion 740
Amphiaraus at Thebes had lost his life.
My husband had a legend of his wife,
Eriphyle, who, for a brooch of gold
Has privately unto the Greeks then told
Where her husband had kept his hiding place, 745
And thus at Thebes he suffered sorry grace.
Of Livia and Lucia, then heard I:
How both of them had made their husbands die,
The one for love, the other one for hate.
This Livia, for sure, one evening late, 750
Poisoned her husband for she was his foe;
Lecherous Lucia loved her husband so
That, to make sure he’d always on her think,
She gave to him such a kind of love-drink
He was dead before it was tomorrow; 755
And thus, always, husbands have had sorrow.
Then he told me how one Latumius
Complained once to his fellow Arrius
That in his garden there grew such a tree
On which, he said, that all of his wives three 760
Hung themselves with spite, one then another.
Said this Arrius, ‘Beloved brother,
Give me a shoot from off that blessèd tree,
And in my garden, planted it will be.’
And later on, about wives he has read, 765
And some had slain their husbands in their bed,
And let their lechers hump them all the night,
While on the floor the corpses lay upright.
And some have driven nails into the brain,
While they did sleep, and thus they had them slain. 770
And some did give them poison in their drink.
He spoke more slander than the heart can think,
And on top of it, he knew more proverbs
Than in this world there can grow grass and herbs.
‘Better,’ he said, ‘that your habitation 775
Be either with a lion or foul dragon,
Than with a woman who is used to chide.
Better,’ said he, ‘high on the roof abide,
Than down in the house with an angry wife;
They’re so wicked and contrary all their lives, 780
That they hate what their husbands love always.’
He said, ‘A woman casts her shame away,
When she casts off her shift.’ He spoke more so:
‘A fair woman, unless she’s chaste also,
Is just like a gold ring in a sow’s nose.’ 785
Who would imagine, or who would suppose
The woe that in my heart was, and the pain?
And when I saw he never would refrain
From reading on this cursèd book all night,
Then suddenly, three leaves I have ripped right 790
Out of his book, as he read, and also
With my fist, I took him on the cheek so
That backward in our fire, right down fell he.
He starts up like a lion who’s gone crazy,
And with his fist, he hit me on the head 795
So on the floor I lay like I were dead.
And when he saw how still it was I lay,
He was aghast, and would have fled away,
Till, at last, out of my swoon I awoke.
‘Oh! Hast thou slain me, false thief?’ then I spoke, 800
‘And for my land, hast thou now murdered me?
Before I’m dead, yet will I still kiss thee.’
And fairly he knelt down when he came near,
And he said, ‘Alison, my sister dear,
Never more will I hit you, in God’s name! 805
If I’ve done so, you are yourself to blame.
I pray you, your forgiveness now I seek.’
And right away, I hit him on the cheek,
And said, ‘Thief, now this much avenged am I;
I may no longer speak, now I will die.’ 810
But then, at last, after much woe and care,
We two fell into an agreement there,
He gave me all the bridle in my hand
To have the governing of house and land,
And of his tongue, and of his hands, then, too; 815
I made him burn his book without ado.
And when I had then gotten back for me,
By mastery, all the sovereignty,
And when he said to me, ‘My own true wife,
Do as you like the rest of all your life; 820
Keep your honor, and keep my rank and state’—
After that day, we never had debate.
God help me so, there’s no wife you would find
From Denmark to India who was so kind,
And also true, and so was he to me. 825
I pray to God, who sits in majesty,
To bless his soul with all his mercy dear.
Now will I tell my tale, if you will hear.”
Behold the words between the Summoner and the Friar.
The Friar laughed, when he had heard all this;
“Madame,” said he, “so have I joy or bliss, 830
This is a long preamble to a tale!”
The Summoner had heard his windy gale,
“By God’s two arms,” the Summoner said, “lo!
Always will a friar interfere so.
Lo, good men, a fly and then a friar 835
Will both fall in every dish and matter.
Of preambulation, what’s to say of it?
What! Amble, trot, keep still, or just go sit!
You’re hindering our sport in this manner.”
“You say so, sir Summoner?” said the Friar; 840
“Now, by my faith, I shall, before I go,
Tell a tale of a summoner, you know,
That all the folks will laugh at in this place.”
“Now, elsewise, Friar, I do curse your face,”
Said this Summoner. “And I curse myself, too, 845
Unless I tell some tales, at least a few,
Of friars before I come to Sittingbourne45
So that, be sure, I will make your heart mourn.
I know full well that you’re out of patience.”
Our Host cried out, “Peace now! And that at once!” 850
And he said, “Let the woman tell her tale.
You act like folks who are all drunk on ale.
Do, madame, tell your tale, and all the rest.”
“All ready, sir,” said she, “as you think best,
If I have license of this worthy Friar.” 855
“Yes, madame,” said he, “tell on. I will hear.”
Here the Wife of Bath ends her Prologue.
*Throughout this volume, an absence of combined lineation numbers indicates the beginning of what, in most medieval manuscripts, is a new part or fragment of The Canterbury Tales.
1 But it was told me not so long ago: The Wife of Bath cites a number of biblical sources as she constructs her argument in support of her many marriages. The vast majority of these sources and of the position on marriage that she’s rebutting can be found in Saint Jerome’s Adversus Jovinianum (392 C.E.), a work that Chaucer uses frequently throughout The Tales. In this work, Saint Jerome, a Father of the Church known for, among other things, his asceticism, challenges Jovinian’s more liberal views toward marriage and remarriage and toward women, views that did not find favor with the Church in the fourth century. Chaucer also took many aspects of the Wife of Bath’s personality, even as he wrought his own changes on them, from the figure of the Old Woman in Jean de Meun’s continuation of The Romance of the Rose.
2 wedding . . . Galilee: John 2:1.
3 Samaritan: John 4:5.
4 wax and multiply: Genesis 1:28.
5 the apostle: Saint Paul.
6 Lamech: First bigamist in the Bible, Genesis 4:19.
7 the apostle: Again, Saint Paul.
8 a precept . . . none: 1 Corinthians 7, here and following, as the Wife takes on this strain of argument.
9 bigamy: Here and elsewhere, it’s important to note that, as the Wife of Bath uses the term “bigamy” in her fourteenth-century context and in relation to her own marital history, the word can mean marriage to or of someone whose previous spouse has died, and not just having more than one spouse at the same time, though it sometimes bore that latter meaning, too.
10 vessel made of gold: 2 Timothy 2:20.
11 Ptolemy: the second-century astronomer and mathematician. His work The Almageste was mistakenly believed to contain, in addition to its astrological lore, a collection of proverbs.
12 the bacon . . . Dunmowe: A side of bacon was the prize given to the husband and wife who’d avoided quarreling for a year.
13 tattling crow: The talking crow who sees his mistress’s transgressions and squeals about them. A proverbial figure also found in Ovid and at the center of the plot in Chaucer’s Manciple’s Tale.
14 nurse: Although the Wife and Shakespeare’s Juliet are of different classes (Juliet is an aristocrat, while the Wife is middle class), we should construe “nurse” here to be a figure like Juliet’s “nurse”: in other words, an older woman who may once have been a wetnurse but has subsequently become a close companion since the younger person’s childhood.
15 Almageste: Again, this proverb is not found in Ptolemy’s work.
16 rubric: Refers here either to the red letters that began sections of medieval manuscripts or to words written in red in manuscripts to signify their importance.
17 Argus: Argus was a mythological character who had one hundred eyes, the better to guard Zeus’s lover, Io. Mercury had to put all the eyes to sleep before he could kill this monster.
18 bacon: Perhaps a reference to the prize at Dunmow, but as preserved, salted meat, also a sexual double entendre.
19 Peter: Saint Peter, but perhaps also perhaps a double entendre on the male sex organ.
20 belle chose: Literally, “pretty thing,” an obvious euphemism.
21 Metellius: The husband in a common exemplum from a compendium of anecdotes assembled by Valerius Maximus (first century); it was a popular medieval schoolbook.
22 Saint Judocus: Also known as Saint Josse, a Breton saint whose sign was the pilgrim’s staff.
23 Jerusalem: The Wife is a great fan of making pilgrimages, and the one to Jerusalem was the most venerated, and also, for an English person in the fourteenth century, the most difficult to make.
24 cross’s beam: He is buried inside the church, under a beam bearing the crucifix.
25 Darius: King of ancient Persia.
26 Appelles: Jewish craftsman credited with allegedly building Darius’s elaborate tomb (sixth century).
27 miracle plays: A medieval dramatic form, performed generally on religious holidays, which were festive public occasions. As their name suggests, they were focused on religious topics, but they could also at times be humorous in their representations of the foibles of their characters.
28 Gap toothed: The Wife had a space between her teeth; this was considered a sign of being highly sexed in the Middle Ages.
29 Venus’s seal: A birthmark. She says that her temperament can be understood because she was born under the warring zodiacal signs of Venus and Mars: Venus makes her interested in sex, and Mars gives her her bellicosity.
30 quoniam: In Latin, literally, “because” or “whereas.” Used here as another euphemism for female genitals.
31 handy: Chaucer here uses the same adjective, hende, to describe Jenkin as he does to describe Nicholas in The Miller’s Tale. It means simultaneously “handsome,” “near-at-hand,” “handy,” and “grabby.”
32 jangler: Avid talker.
33 Simplicius Gallus: Another exemplum, also mentioned in Valerius Maximus.
34 Ecclesiasticus: An apocryphal book of the Bible, not to be confused with Ecclesiastes.
35 “Whoever builds . . . gallows”: The Wife here is quoting from conventional misogynist lore.
36 Valerius and Theophrastus: Two writers of texts against marriage. Jenkin’s volume, his “book of wicked wives,” whose contents the Wife describes in the following lines, is actually an anthology of antifeminist writings by various classical and Christian authors. Such anthologies were common in the Middle Ages; they may have served to promote celibacy among the clergy.
37 Saint Jerome: Church Father.
38 Jovinian: A monk whose ideas about marriage and virginity were more permissive than Jerome’s.
39 Tertullian, Crisippus: Two misogynist writers.
40 Trotula: At the time, Trotula was believed to be an eleventh-century Italian woman physician who wrote a gynecological treatise; she has since been determined to be legendary.
41 Heloise: Abelard’s lover who, in the twelfth century, became a famous abbess after his castration because of their love affair.
42 Ovid’s Ars: The book on love, the Ars Amatoria, or Art of Love, by Ovid, the great first-century Roman poet, who was a central influence on Chaucer’s writing.
43 Venus and Mercury: Venus, of course, is involved with love, while Mercury is involved with learning.
44 Samson: What follows is a list of disastrous love affairs and marriages that warn against women’s treachery. Footnotes are provided if the meaning is not clear from the context.
45 Pasiphaë: Fell in love with a bull and, as a result, gave birth to the Minotaur, a creature in Greek mythology that is half man, half bull.
46 Clytemnestra: With her lover, Aegisthus, murdered her husband, Agamemnon, when he came home from the Trojan War.
47 Sittingbourne: A town forty miles from London on the road to Canterbury.