she, “Since I may choose and govern as me lest.” “Yea, certes wife,” quoth he, “I hold it best.” “Kiss me,” quoth she, “we are no longer wroth, For by my troth I will be to you both; This is to say, yea, bothë fair and good. I pray to God that I may stervë wood, But I to you be all so good and true, As ever was wife since the world was new; And but I be to-morrow as fair to seen, As any lady, emperess or queen, That is betwixt the East and eke the West, Do with my life and death right as you lest. Cast up the curtain, and look how it is.”
And when the knight saw verily all this, That she so fair was, and so young thereto, For joy he hent her in his armës two: His heartë bathed in a bath of bliss, A thousand times on row he gan her kiss: And she obeyed him in every thing That mightë do him pleasance or liking. And thus they live unto their livës’ end In perfect joy; and Jesus Christ us send Husbandës meek and young, and fresh in bed, And grace to overlive them that we wed. And eke I pray Jesus to short their lives, That will not be govérned by their wives. And old and angry niggards of dispence, God send them soon a very pestilence!