aye mine inclinatión By virtue of my constellatión: That made me that I couldë not withdraw My chamber of Venus from a good felláw. [Yet have I Martë’s mark upon my face, And also in another privy place. For God so wisly be my salvatión, I loved never by discretión, But ever follow’d mine own appetite, All were he short, or long, or black, or white, I took no keep, so that he liked me, How poor he was, neither of what degree.] What should I say? but that at the month’s end This jolly clerk Jenkin, that was so hend, Had wedded me with great solemnity, And to him gave I all the land and fee That ever was me given therebefore: But afterward repented me full sore. He wouldë suffer nothing of my list. By God, he smote me onës with his fist, For that I rent out of his book a leaf, That of the stroke mine earë wax’d all deaf. Stubborn I was, as is a lioness, And of my tongue a very jangleress, And walk I would, as I had done beforn, From house to house, although he had it sworn: For which he oftentimes wouldë preach, And me of oldë Roman gestës teach. How that Sulpitius Gallus left his wife, And her forsook for term of all his, For nought but open-headed he her say Looking out at his door upon a day. Another Roman told he me by name, That, for his wife was at a summer game Without his knowing, he forsook her eke. And then would he upon his Bible seek That ilkë proverb of Ecclesiast, Where he commandeth, and forbiddeth fast, Man shall not suffer his wife go roll about. Then would he say right thus withoutë doubt: “ Whoso that buildeth his house all of sallows, And pricketh his blind horse over the fallows, And suff’reth his wife to go seekë hallows, Is worthy to be hanged on the gallows. ” But all for nought; I settë not a haw Of his provérbs, nor of his oldë saw; Nor would I not of him corrected be. I hate them that my vices tellë me, And so do more of us (God wot) than I. This made him wood with me all utterly; I wouldë not forbear him in no case. Now will I say you sooth, by Saint Thomas, Why that I rent out of his book a leaf, For which he smote me, so that I was deaf.
He had a book, that gladly night and day For his disport he would it read alway; He call’d it Valerie, and Theophrast, And with that book he