with his wivës two; How Xantippe cast piss upon his head. This silly man sat still, as he were dead, He wip’d his head, and no more durst he sayn, But, “Ere the thunder stint there cometh rain.” Of Phasiphaë, that was queen of Crete, For shrewedness he thought the talë sweet. Fy, speak no more, it is a grisly thing, Of her horrible lust and her likíng. Of Clytemnestra, for her lechery That falsely made her husband for to die, He read it with full good devotión. He told me eke, for what occasión Amphiorax at Thebes lost his life: My husband had a legend of his wife Eryphilé, that for an ouche of gold Had privily unto the Greekës told, Where that her husband hid him in a place, For which he had at Thebes sorry grace. Of Luna told he me, and of Lucie; They bothë made their husbands for to die, That one for love, that other was for hate. Luna her husband on an ev’ning late Empoison’d had, for that she was his foe: Lucia liquorish lov’d her husband so, That, for he should always upon her think, She gave him such a manner lovë-drink, That he was dead before it were the morrow: And thus algatës husbands haddë sorrow. Then told he me how one Latumeus Complained to his fellow Arius That in his garden growed such a tree, On which he said how that his wivës three Hanged themselves for heart dispiteous. “O leve brother,” quoth this Arius, “Give me a plant of thilkë blessed tree, And in my garden planted shall it be.” Of later date of wivës hath he read, That some have slain their husbands in their bed, And let their lechour dight them all the night, While that the corpse lay on the floor upright: And some have driven nails into their brain, While that they slept, and thus they have them slain: Some have them given poison in their drink: He spake more harm than heartë may bethink.
And therewithal he knew of more provérbs, Than in this world there groweth grass or herbs. “Better (quoth he) thine habitatión Be with a lion, or a foul dragón, Than with a woman using for to chide. Better (quoth he) high in the roof abide, Than with an angry woman in the house, They be so wicked and contrarioús: They hatë that their husbands loven aye.” He said, “A woman cast her shame away When she