Lady Alice or The Tale of the Wife of Bath
by Geoffrey Chaucer
“Experience, though it would be no authority in this
world, would be quite sufficient for me, to speak of
the woe that is in marriage; for, gentle people, since I
was twelve years old--thank God, Who lives forever-
-I have had five husbands at the church-door (for I
have been wedded so often); and all were worthy
men in their ranks. But in truth I was told not long
ago that since Christ went only once to a wedding, in
Cana of Galilee by that same example he taught me
that I should be wedded only once. Lo! Hear what a
sharp word Jesus, man and God, spoke on a certain
occasion beside a well, in reproof of the Samaritan
woman.
. He said, ‘You have had five husbands; and
that man who has you now is not your husband.’
Thus he said, certainly. What he meant by it I cannot
say; but I ask, why the fifth man was no husband to
the Samaritan woman.
“How many could she have in marriage? At this
point I have never in my life heard a designation of
the number. Men may divine and interpret up and
down, but well I know, surely, God expressly
instructed us to increase and multiply. I can well
understand that noble text. Likewise, I know well he
said also that my husband should leave father and
mother and take me. But he did not mention any
number, not bigamy or of octogamy. Why should
men speak villainously of them?
“Lo, Sir Solomon
the wise king! I believe he had
more than one wife, and I wish to God it were lawful
for me to be refreshed half so often! What a gift of
God he had in all his wives! No man who lives in this
world now has so many. God knows this noble king
to my thinking, had a merry life with each of them, so
joyous was his lot! Blessed be God that I wedded
five! And they were the best that I could pick out,
both in their bodies and of their coffers. A variety of
schools make perfect scholars, and much practice in a
variety of employments truly makes the perfect
workman. I have the schooling of five husbands. I
would welcome the sixth, whenever he shall come! In
truth, I will not keep myself wholly chaste; when my
husband has departed from the world, then some
other Christian man shall wed me. For then, the
apostle says, I am free, in God’s name, to wed where
I wish.
“He says that it is no sin to be wedded; it is better to
be wedded than to burn. What do I care if people
speak badly of cursed Lamech
and his bigamy? Well I know Abraham was a holy man, and Jacob as well,
as far as I know, and each of them had more
than two wives. And many other holy men did as
well.
“When have you seen that in any time great God
forbade marriage explicitly? Tell me, I pray you. Or
where did he command virginity? You know as well
as I, without a doubt, that the apostle, when he speaks
of maidenhood, says that he had no instructions on it.
Men may counsel a woman to be single, but
counseling is not commanding; he left it to our own
judgment. For if God had commanded maidenhood,
then with that same word had he condemned
marrying. And certainly, if no seed were sown, from
where then should virgins spring? Paul dared not
command a thing for which his master gave no order.
The prize is set for virginity--win it who can. Let us
see who runs best.
.
“But this command is not to be taken by every
creature, but only where Almighty God wishes to
give it through his might. The apostle was a virgin, I
know well, but nevertheless, though he wrote that he
wished every creature to be like him, all that is only
advice to be a virgin; and he gave me leave and
indulgence to be a wife.
So likewise, if my spouse
should die, there is no shame or charge of bigamy to
marry me. It would be good, he said, to touch no
woman, for it is a peril to bring together fire and hay.
You know what this example may mean
“This is the sum of it all: the apostle held virginity to
be more perfect than marriage because of weakness. I
call them weak unless man and wife would lead all
their life in chastity. I grant it well, I have no malice
even if maidenhood were set above remarriage. It
pleases them to be clean, body and soul; of my own
estate I will make no boast. For you well know that
not every vessel in a lord’s house is made of gold;
some are of wood, and do their lord service. God
calls people to him in various manners, and each one
has his own gift from--one this, one that, as it pleases
God to provide. Virginity is a great perfection, and
devoted chastity as well.
But Christ, the fountain of perfection, did not instruct
every person to go sell all that he had and give to the
poor, and in such a fashion follow him and his
footsteps. “He spoke this to those people who wished
to be perfect; and by your leave, gentle people, I am
not one of those. I will use the flower
of my life in
the acts and fruits of marriage
Tell me also, for what purpose were members of
procreation made, and made in such a perfect
manner? Trust well, they were not made for nothing.
Whosoever wishes to interpret may do so, and
interpret things up and down that and say that they
were made for purging urine and that both our small
things were also to know a female from a male and
for no other cause--did someone say no? Those with
experience know well it is not so. So that scholars
will not be angry with me, I say this: that they are
made for both; that is to say, for duty and for ease of
procreation, providing we do not displease God. Why
should men otherwise set down in their books that
man shall yield to his wife her debt? Now with what
should he make his payment, if he did not use his
blessed instrument? They were made then upon a
creature to purge urine, and for procreation as well.
But I do not say that every person who has such
equipment is bound to go and use it for procreation.
For that reason people should men take no heed of
chastity. Christ was a virgin and created as a man, as
were many saints since the beginning of the world;
yet they always lived in perfect chastity. I will not
envy any virginity. Let virgins be called bread of
purified wheat-seed, and let us wives be called
barley-bread; and yet, as Mark can tell, our Lord
Jesus refreshed many people with barley-bread. I
will persevere in such a state as God has called us to;
I am not particular. In wifehood I will use my
instrument as freely as my Maker has sent it. If I am
unaccommodating to my husband, may God give me
sorrow. My husband shall have it both evening and
morning, whenever it pleases him to come forth and
pay his debt. I will not stop. I will have a husband
who will be both my debtor and servant, and have his
tribulation upon his flesh, while I am his wife. As
long as I live I, and not he, have the power over his
body. The apostle told it to me in this very way, and
instructed our husbands to love us well. This entire
subject pleases me well, every bit
Up started the Pardoner, and without delay. “Now
lady,” he said, “by God and St. John, you are a noble
preacher in this matter! I was about to wed a wife;
alas! Why should I pay for it so dearly upon my
flesh? I would rather not wed any wife this year.”
“Wait! My tale is not yet begun,” she said. “No,
before I go you shall drink out of another barrel that
will taste worse than ale. And when I have told my
story to you about the tribulation in marriage, in
which I have been expert all my life (that is to say, I
myself have been the scourge), then you may choose
whether you will sip of that same barrel that I shall
broach. Be mindful, before you come too close; for I
shall tell half a score of examples. ‘Whosoever will
not be warned by other men, by him shall other men
be corrected’: these same words writes Ptolemy; read
his Almagest.”
“Lady,” said this Pardoner, “I would pray you, if it
were your pleasure, tell your tale as you began, hold
back for no man, and teach us young men from your
experience.”
“Gladly,” she said, “if it may please you. But I beg
all of you in this company, if I speak according to my
fancy, do not take it amiss. For my intent is but to
make sport. Now, sirs, I will continue.
“May I never see another drop of ale or wine, if I did
not tell the truth about my husbands, as three of them
were good, and two of them were bad. The three men
were good, rich and old, and they hardly could keep
their obligation to me, by which they were bound to
me. By God, you know well what I mean by this.
May God help me, I laugh when I think how pitifully
I made them work at night! And, by my faith, I found
it useless. I did not need to make an effort or pay
them any respect to win their love. They loved me so
well, by God above, that I set no value on their love.
A wise woman will always attempt to win love where
she has none; but since I had them wholly in my hand
and had all their land, why should I bother to please
them, unless it were for my profit and pleasure? I
ruled them so, by my faith, that many nights they
sang ‘alas!
“Not for them, I believe, was fetched the bacon that
some men win at Dunmow in Essex. I governed
them so well by my rules that each of them was
blissful and glad to bring me beautiful things from
the fair. They were glad when I spoke friendly to
them, for God knows, I chided them without mercy.
Now listen, you wise wives who can understand, hear
how craftily I behaved myself
“Thus shall you speak, and thus you shall put them
in the wrong, for there is no man who can swear and
lie half so boldly as a woman. I say this for the
benefit of wise wives when they have made a little
misstep. A wise wife, if she knows what is good for
her, shall make a man believe that the jackdaw is
mad, and shall use her own maid as a witness to
confirm it
“But now hear how I spoke: -’Old sir fogey, is this
how you would have things? Why is my neighbor’s
wife so fine? She is honored everywhere she goes,
while I have no decent clothes and must sit at home.
Are you in love? What are you doing at my
neighbor’s house? Is she so fair? What do you
whisper with our maid? God bless! Leave behind
your tricks, old sir lecher! And if I have a friend or a
gossip, completely innocent, and I walk to his house
or amuse myself there, you chide me like a fiend.
You come home as drunk as a mouse and sit on your
bench preaching, with no good reason. You say to
me, it is a great evil to wed a poor woman, for the
cost; and if she were rich, of noble birth, then you say
that it is a torment to suffer her pride and her
melancholy. And if she were fair, you say that every
lecher will have her, you very knave! She who is
assailed on every side cannot remain in chastity for
long.
“‘You say that some folk desire us for our wealth,
some for our figure, some for our beauty, some
because we can sing or dance, some for our manners
and mirth, and some for our hands and slim arms.
Thus all goes to the Devil, by your account.
“‘You say that a castle wall can not be defended
when it is assailed so long from every side. And if a
woman be foul, then you say that she covets every
man she sees, and will leap on him like a spaniel,
until she find some man to do business with her. You
say no goose in the lake that is too grey to look for a
mate. And you say that it is a hard matter to control a
thing that no man would be willing to keep.
“‘Thus you say, old fool, when you are going to bed;
that no wise man need marry, nor any man who
hopes for heaven. With a wild thunder-clap and fiery
lightning-bolt may your withered neck be snapped in
two! You say that leaky houses, smoke, and chiding
wives, make men flee from their own homes
“‘Ah, God bless! What ails such an old man to scold
like this? You say that we wives will cover our vices
until we are safely married, and then we show them.
That is a villain’s proverb! You say that oxen, asses,
horses, and hounds are tested for some time before
men buy them, and so are basins, wash-bowl, spoons,
stools, pots, clothes, attire, and all such household
stuff; but people make no test of wives until they are
wedded. And then, you old rascally dotard, you say,
we will show our vices.
“‘You say also it displeases me unless you praise my
beauty and gaze ever upon my face and call me “fair
lady” everywhere; and unless you make a feast on my
birthday, and dress me gay and freshly; and unless
you do honor to my nurse, and to my maid in my
bower, and to my father’s family-- all this you say,
old barrel-full of lies.
“‘And yet you have gathered a false suspicion of our
apprentice Jankin, for his crisp hair shining like fine
gold, and because he escorts me back and forth. I
would not have him, even if you should die
tomorrow! But tell me this--and bad luck to you!--
why do you hide the keys of your chest from me? By
God, they are my goods as well as yours! Why do
you intend to make a fool of the mistress of your
house? Now by the lord who is called St. James,
however you may rage, you shall not be master both
of my body and of my goods; you must give up one
of them, in spite of your eyes
“‘What good does it do if you inquire after me or spy
upon me? You want to lock me in your chest, I
believe! You should say, “Wife, go where you wish,
take your pleasure, I will believe no tales; I know you
for a true wife, Lady Alice.” We love no man who
takes note or care where we go; we wish to have our
freedom. May he be blessed of all men, that wise
astrologer, Sir Ptolemy, who says this proverb in his
book Almagest, “Of all men, he who never cares who
has the world in hand has the greatest wisdom.” You
are to understand by this proverb that you have
enough: why do you need to care how well-off other
people are? For in truth, old fogey, you shall have
plenty of pleasing thing in the evening. He who will
forbid a man to light a candle at his lantern is too
great a miser; by God, he should have light,
nevertheless. So you have enough; you need not
complain.
“‘You say also that if we make ourselves amorous
with clothing and with costly dress, it would be a
peril to our chastity; and yet--may the plague take
you!--you must confirm it with these words of the
apostle: “Ye women shall apparel yourselves in
garments made with chastity and shame,” he said,
“and not with tressed hair and splendid gems and
pearls, nor with gold, nor rich clothes.” I would not
give a fly for your text or your rubric.
“‘You said also I was like a cat; for a cat, if someone
were to singe the cat’s skin, will always dwell at
home; but if she were sleek and elegant in her fur,
she will not remain in the house an hour, but before
any day would dawn, will go forth to show her skin
and go a-caterwauling. This is to say, sir rogue, if I
am finely dressed, I will run out to show my clothes.
“‘Sir old fool, what ails you to spy after me? Even if
you were to ask Argus to be my sentry with his
hundred eyes as best he can, in faith, he shall not
keep watch over me unless it suits me. Still I could
deceive him, as I hope to prosper
“‘You say also that there are three things that trouble
this entire world, and that no creature can endure the
fourth. Oh, dear sir rascal, may Jesus shorten your
life! Still you preach and say a hateful woman is
considered one of these adversities. Are there no
other things you can use for comparison without an
innocent wife being one of them?
“‘You compare woman’s love to hell, or to barren
land where no water can lie. You compare it also to
wildfire; the more it burns, the more it desires to
consume everything that can be burned. You say that
just as worms destroy a tree, so too a wife destroys
her husband; those who are tied to women know this
“Gentle people, in this very way, as you can see, I
would firmly swear to my old husbands, that they
said this in their drunkenness; and all was false,
except I got Jankin and my niece to be my witnesses.
O Lord! The pain and woe I did them, though they
were innocent, by God’s sweet suffering! For I could
bite and whinny like a horse. I knew how to
complain, even if I was guilty; or else I would have
often been undone. He who first comes to the mill,
grinds first; I complained first, and thus our war was
ended. They were very glad to excuse themselves
hurriedly of things that they never had done in all
their lives. I would accuse my old husband of visiting
prostitutes, even when they were so sick that they
could scarcely stand.
“Yet I tickled his heart because he thought that I had
such great fondness for him. I swore that all my
walking about at night was to spot wenches whom he
slept with. Under that pretext I had many privy jests
at him; for all such wit is given to us when we are
born. God has given deceit, weeping, and spinning to
women by nature, so long as they live
“And thus I boast of one thing for myself: in the end
I had the better in every way, by cunning, or by force,
or by some type of device, such as continual
murmuring or grumbling. And most chiefly at night
they had ill fortune; then I would scold and grant him
no pleasure. I would not stay in bed any longer if I
felt his arm over my side, until he had paid his
ransom to me. And therefore I tell this to every man:
let he who can, prosper, for everything has its price.
Men may lure no hawks with an empty hand. For the
sake of gain I would give them their way, and pretend
to have an appetite; and yet I never had pleasure in
bacon, from Dunmow or elsewhere. And so I would
be chiding them all the time; even if the pope had sat
beside them, by my word, I would not spare them at
their own table. I repaid them word for word; so may
the Almighty Lord help me, if I ere to make my
testament right now, I would not owe them a word
that has not been repaid. By my wits I made it so that
they were glad to surrender, as their best option, or
we would have never been at peace. For though my
husband looked like a mad lion, he was nonetheless
bound to fail in his purpose.
“Then would I say, ‘Good dear, take note how
meekly Wilkin our sheep looks; come near, my
spouse, let me kiss your cheek. You should be all
patient and mild, and have a sweet tender conscience,
since you thus preach of the patience of Job. Always
endure, since you can preach so well; and unless you
do, we must teach you for sure that it is pleasant to
have a wife in peace. Truly, one of us two must bend
to the other and since a man is more reasonable than
a woman, you must be patient. What ails you to
grumble and groan in this way? Is it because you
want to have my body all to yourself? Why, take it
all! Have every bit! By Peter, I curse you, but you
love it well! If I would sell my beautiful thing, I
could walk as fresh as a rose, but I will keep it for
your own taste. You are to blame, by God! I tell you
the truth.” We had this sort of words between us; but
now I will speak about my fourth husband.
stubborn and strong, and jolly as a magpie. I could
dance well to a little harp, and sing like any
nightingale, when I had taken a draught of sweet
wine. Metellius, the filthy churl, the swine, who with
a staff bereft his spouse of her life, because she drank
wine, would not have frightened me from drink, if I
had been his wife! And when I think of wine I must
think of Venus; for just as surely as cold engenders
hail, a lecherous mouth leads to a lecherous body.
There is no defense in a woman who is full of wine,
as lechers know by experience
“Lord Christ! But when I think about my youth and
mirth, it tickles me at the root of my heart! To this
very day it does my heart good that I have had my
fling in my time. But alas! Age, which envenoms all
things, has bereft me of my beauty and energy. Let
them go. Farewell! May the Devil go with them! The
flour is gone, and there is no more to say; now I sell
the bran as best as I can. But even now I will strive to
be very merry
“Now I will tell of my fourth husband. I say I had
great resentment in my heart that he had pleasure in
any other. But by the Lord and Saint Joce, he was
paid back! I made a cross from the same wood for his
back; not with my body, in any foul manner, but truly
I offered people such generous hospitality that for
anger and absolute jealousy I made him fry in his
own grease. By God, I was his purgatory on earth,
wherefore I hope that his soul is in glory now2
“For God knows, he sat often and sang, when his
shoe pinched him bitterly: No creature knew, except
God and he, how sorely I twisted him in so many
ways. He died when I returned home from Jerusalem,
and lies buried under the cross-beam, albeit his
tomb is not quite as elaborately crafted as the
sepulcher of Darius that Apelles so skilfully made.
It would have been a waste to bury him at such an
expense! Farewell to him; he is now in his grave and
in his coffin--God rest his soul!
“Now will I speak of my fifth husband--may God
never allow his soul to enter hell! And yet he was the
most villainous to me, as I can still feel on my ribs all
in a row, and ever shall to my ending day. But he was
so fresh and merry, and could sweet-talk so well that,
even if he had beaten me on every bone, he could
soon win my beautiful thing again. I believe I loved
him best, because he was sparing in his love.
“We women have, to tell the truth, an odd fantasy on
this matter; whatever thing we can not easily win we
will cry after continually and crave. “Forbid us
something, and we desire that thing. Press on us hard,
and then we will flee. With much reserve we offer
our merchandise; a large crowd at the market makes
our wares expensive; wares offered at too low a price
will be thought to have little value. Every wise
woman knows this
“My fifth husband--may God bless his soul--which I
took for love and not for riches, was sometime an
Oxford scholar; and he had left school, and went to
board with my good friend, who dwelt in our town.
May God keep her soul! Her name was Alisoun. She
knew my heart and my private thoughts better than
our parish priest, by my soul! To her I revealed all
my secrets.
“For had my husband peed on a wall, or done
something that would have cost him his life, I would
have told his every bit of his secret to her, and to
another worthy wife, and to my niece, whom I loved
well. And I did so often, God knows, which often
made his face red and hot for true shame, and he
would blame himself for telling me so great a secret.
“And so it happened that once, in Lent, (as I so often
did, I visited my friend, for I still always loved to be
merry, and to walk from house to house in March,
April, and May, to hear various tales) that Jankin the
clerk, my friend dame Alice, and I walked into the
fields. All that spring my husband was in London; I
had a better opportunity to play, and to see and to be
seen by lusty folk. What did I know about how my
fortune was to be shaped or in what place? Therefore,
I made my visits to holy day vigils, to processions, to
sermons, to these pilgrimages, to miracle-plays, and
to weddings, and wore my gay scarlet gowns. These
worms and moths and mites never ate a bit of them,
upon my peril! And do you know why? Because they
were well used
“Now I will tell what happed to me. I say that we
walked in the fields, until in truth we had such
flirtation together, this clerk and I, that in my
foresight I spoke to him, and told him how he should
wed me, if I were widowed. For, I am not speaking in
boast; I was certainly never to this point without
provision for marriage--nor for other things as well. I
think that a mouse’s heart is not worth a leek if the
mouse has but one hole to run to; and if that one fails,
then all is over
“I persuaded him to think that he had enchanted me;
my mother taught me that trick. And I said also I
dreamed of him all night; he would have slain me as I
lay on my back, and my whole bed was full of real
blood; but yet I hoped that he should bring good
fortune to me, for blood signifies gold, as I was
taught. And all of it was false; I dreamed not a bit of
it, but I followed my mother’s teaching all along, as
well as in other things besides
“But now, sir, let me see; what shall I say now? Aha!
By God, I have it again. When my fourth husband lay
on his bier, I wept ever and made a sorrowful
expression, as wives must, for it is the custom; and I
covered my face with my kerchief. But since I had
been provided with a new mate, I wept rather little, I
vow.
“In the morning my husband was borne to church by
the neighbors, who mourned for him, and our scholar
Jankin was one of them. So may God help me, when
I saw him go after the bier, I thought he had so clean
and fair a pair of legs and feet that I gave him all my
heart to keep. He was twenty winters old, I believe,
and if I am to tell the truth, I was forty. But I always
had a colt’s tooth. I was gap-toothed; I bore the print
of Saint Venus’ birthmark, and that became me
well. I was a lusty one, and fair, and rich, and
youthful, and merry of heart, may God help me
“For certainly, I am dominated by the planet Venus
in my senses, and my heart is dominated by the
planet Mars. Venus gave me my love for pleasure
and my wantonness, and Mars my sturdy hardihood.
My ascendant was Mars in Taurus. Alas, alas! That
ever 1ove was thought a sin! I followed ever my
inclination by virtue of my constellation. That made
it that I could not withhold my chamber from any
good fellow. Yet I have the mark of Mars upon my
face and in another private place as well. May God be
my salvation indeed, I never loved discreetly, but
always followed my appetite, whether he was short or
tall, black or white it did not matter to me, as long as
he pleased me, how poor he was, nor of what station.
“What should I say but at the end of a month this
jolly clerk Jankin, who was so debonair, wedded me
with great splendor? And I gave him all the land and
wealth that I had ever been given; but afterwards I
repented myself sorely, for he would allow nothing
that I desired. By God, he struck me once on the ear!
That was because I tore a leaf out of his book and my
ear grew entirely deaf because of the blow. I was as
stubborn as a lioness, and a very chatterbox with my
tongue, and I would walk as I had done before from
house to house, though he had sworn I should not.
For this reason he would often make homilies and
teach me old Roman histories how Symplicius Gallus
left his wife and forsook her for all his days, just
because he saw her one day looking out of his door
with her head uncovered.
“He told me the name of another Roman who
forsook his wife also because without his knowledge
she was to a summer game. And then he would seek
in his Bible that proverb of the Ecclesiast where he
commands and firmly forbids that a man should
allow his wife to go wander about. Then indeed he
would say just this,
“He who builds his house out of sallows
,
And spurs his blind horse over fallows
,
And allows his wife to seek hallows
,
Then should be hanged upon the gallows.”
But all for nothing; I did not care one acorn for his
proverbs or his old saying, and I would not be
scolded by him. I hate anyone who tells me my
faults; and, God knows, so too do more of us than I.
This made him insanely furious with me, but I would
not tolerate him in any case
“Now, by Saint Thomas, I will tell you the truly,
why I tore a leaf out of his book, for which he struck
me so that I became deaf. He had a book which he
would be still reading, night and day, for his
amusement. He called it Valerius and Theophrastus;
he always laughed uproariously at this book. And
there was also once a scholar at Rome, a cardinal,
named Saint Jerome, who composed a book against
Jovinian; and besides this in my husband’s book
there were Tertullian, Chrysippus, Trotula, and
Heloise, who was abbess not far from Paris, and also
the Proverbs of Solomon, Ovid’s Art of Love and
many other books; and all these were bound in one
volume.
“And every night and day, when he had leisure and
freedom from other outside occupation, it was his
habit to read in this book about wicked women; of
them he knew more lives and legends than there are
of good women in the Bible. For, trust well, it is an
impossibility that any scholar will speak well of
women, unless it would be of the lives of holy saints;
but never of any other woman. Who painted the Lion,
tell me? By God, if women had written histories, as
scholars have in their chapels, they would have
written about men more evil than all the sons of
Adam could redress
“The children of Mercury and the children of Venus
are contrary in their actions; Mercury loves wisdom
and knowledge, and Venus revelry and extravagance.
And, because of their contrary natures, each of these
planets descends in sign of the zodiac in which the
other is most powerful; thus Mercury is depressed in
Pisces, where Venus is exalted, and Venus is
depressed where Mercury is exalted. Therefore no
woman is praised by any scholar. When the scholar is
old and entirely unable to give Venus service that is
even worth his old shoe, then he sits down and in his
dotage writes that women cannot keep their marriage
vow!
“But now to my tale--why I was beaten for a book,
by God, as I told you. One night Jankin, our husband,
sat by the fire and read in his book, first about Eve,
for whose wickedness all mankind was brought to
misery, for which Jesus Christ Himself was slain,
Who redeemed us with His heart’s blood. Lo! Here
you may read explicitly about woman, that she was
the ruin of all mankind
“Then he read to me how Samson lost his hair in his
sleep; his sweetheart cut it with her shears, through
which treason he lost both his eyes. Then I tell you
he read me about Hercules and his Dejanira, who
caused him to set fire to himself. Nor did he in any
way forget the penance and woe which Socrates had
with his two wives, how his wife Xantippe cast piss
on his head; this blameless man sat still as a stone,
wiped his head, and dared say no more than, “before
thunder ceases, the rain comes.”
“Of his cursedness my husband found a relish in the
tale of Pasiphae, queen of Crete. Fie! Speak no
more of her horrible lust and desire--it is a grisly
thing. He read with good devotion about
Clytemnestra, who for her wantonness
treacherously caused her husband’s death. He told me
also for what cause Amphiaraus perished at Thebes;
my husband had a legend about his wife Eriphyle,
who for a brooch of gold secretly informed the
Greeks where her husband had hidden himself; for
this reason he met a sorry fate at Thebes. He told me
of Livia and Lucilia, who both caused their husbands
to die, the one for hate, the other for love. Livia
,
late one evening, poisoned her husband, because she
had become his foe; the wanton Lucilia so loved her
husband that she gave him a love-drink, that she
might always be in his mind, but of such power that
he was dead before morning
“And thus in one way or the other husbands came to
sorrow. And then he told me how one Latumius
lamented to Arrius, his fellow, how there grew in his
garden such a tree on which, he said, his three wives
had hanged themselves with desperate heart. ‘Oh
dear brother, give me a slip from this same blessed
tree,’ said this Arrius, ‘and it shall be planted in my
garden!’
“He read about wives of later times, some of whom
have murdered their husbands in their sleep, and had
sex with their lovers while the corpse lay all night flat
on the floor. And some have driven nails into their
husband’s brains while they slept. And some have
given them poison in their drink. He spoke more evil
than a heart can devise
“And in all this he knew more proverbs than blades
of grass grow in this world. He said, ‘It is better to
have your dwelling with a lion or a foul dragon, than
with a woman accustomed to scorning.’ ‘It is better,’
he said, ‘to dwell high in the roof, than down in the
house with an angry woman; they are so wicked and
contrary that they forever hate what their husbands
love.
“He said, ‘A woman casts her shame away when she
casts off her undergarments.’ And furthermore, ‘A
beautiful woman, unless she is also chaste, is like a
gold ring in a sow’s nose.’ Who would think or
imagine the woe and pain in my heart.
“And when I saw that he would never leave reading
all night in this cursed book, all of the sudden I
plucked three leaves out of his book, even as he was
reading, and I also struck him on the cheek with my
fist so that he fell down backward into our fire. And
he started up like a mad lion, and struck me on the
head with his fist so that I lay as dead on the floor.
“And he was aghast when he saw how still I was,
and would have fled on his way, until at last I came
out of my swoon. ‘Oh, have you slain me, false
thief,’ I said, ‘and have you murdered me thus for my
land? Before I die, I will still kiss you.’ And he came
nearer and kneeled down gently and said, ‘Dear sister
Alisoun, so God help me, I shall never strike you
again! You yourself are to blame for what I have
done. Forgive me for it; and I beg you for that.’ - And
yet again I hit him on the cheek, and said, ‘Thief, I
am revenged this much. Now I will die; I can speak
no more.’
“But at last with great pain and grief, we fell into
agreement between ourselves. He put the full bridle
into my hand, to have the governance of house and
estate, and over his tongue and hands as well. And I
made him burn his book then and there
“And when I had got for myself all the sovereignty,
through a master-stroke, and when he said, ‘My own
faithful wife, do as you will the rest of your days; be
the guard of your honor, and of my dignity also,’ we
had never a dispute after that day. God help me so, I
was as loving to him as any wife between Denmark
and India, and as true also; and so was he to me. And
I pray to God, Who sits in glory, so bless his soul for
His sweet compassion! Now I will relate my story, if
you will listen.”
Lady Alice is awesome: a little critical abstract
Well, it's been a long time since I wrote here. My english should be horrible. Lady Alice is a very interesting character of Chaucer's peregrination, and also a good example to try to make men think more like a women, so men can be a little more delicate and sensitive.
I could not put the original Chaucer's english here, otherwise it would be very hard for the common reader to comprehend and extract the rich beauty of Chaucer's poetry.
For example, the first verses, original:
"Experience, though noon auctoritee
Were in this world, were right y-nough to me
To speke of wo that is in marriage;
For lordinges, sith I twelf yeer was of age,
Thonked be god that is eterne on lyve
Housbondes at chirche-dore I have had fyve;
For I so ofte have y-wedded be;
And Alle were worthy men in hir degree"
Sure, we can deduce a lot from modern english, but it keeps reading quite arid and hard. We know that "speke" is "speak", that "wo" is not so modern, but very commonly found in Allan Poe's tales, so "wo" is the 19th Century's "woe".
I wasn't expecting many specialists in ancient english to be reading original, so I hope the adaptation fits well and readable. Enjoy it!
Celebrating Author
