Chapter XIII: Part 13

And when they saw that it must needis be,
They wroughten so by sleight and wise treate,
That she, this maiden, which that Maybus hight,
As hastily as ever that she might,
Shall wedded be unto this January.]

[Footnote 29: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

For women to the brave an easy prey,
Still follow fortune where she leads the way.]

[Footnote 30: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

I pass their warlike pomp, their proud array.]

[Footnote 31: This line has no warrant from Chaucer.]

[Footnote 32: Here followed a bad couplet, which Pope afterwards omitted:

Expensive dainties load the plenteous boards,
The best luxurious Italy affords.]

[Footnote 33: Joab, the leader of the Israelites in battle, blew the trumpet, as is recorded in the Bible, to gather them together. Theodomas is thought by Tyrwhitt to be a character in some fictitious history which was popular in the days of Chaucer.]

[Footnote 34: Chaucer says that the bed was blessed by the priest, and the form used on these occasions may be seen in the old Latin service books.]

[Footnote 35: Dryden's Sigismonda and Guiscardo:

What thoughts he had beseems me not to say.]

[Footnote 36: A circumstance is added by Chaucer which brings vividly before the reader the advanced age of the knight:

The slacke skin about his necke shaketh
While that he sung.]

[Footnote 37: Chaucer had previously mentioned that it was the usage for newly married wives to keep their chambers till the fourth day, and he repeats the fact here:

As custom is unto these nobles all,
A bride shall not eaten in the hall,
Till dayes four, or three days atte least
I-passed be; then let her go to the feast.
The fourthe day complete from noon to noon,
When that the highe masse was i-doon,
In halle sit this January and May,
As fresh as is the brighte summer's day.]

[Footnote 38: In the original January passes a warm panegyric upon the excellent qualities of Damian, which is meant to display in broader contrast the treachery and infamy of the squire. The merchant in his own person denounces the villany of Damian's conduct, and prays that all persons may be protected from the machinations of those deceitful vipers, who, when fostered in a family, employ their opportunities to injure their benefactors. Pope has omitted every allusion of the kind, and has treated the baseness of the squire as if he regarded it in the light of a joke.]

[Footnote 39: It was at first "speaking sigh," which was distinctive. "Heaving" is the accompaniment of all sighs, and, as the sigh of Damian was soft, did not mark his in an especial degree.]

[Footnote 40: There is not a word, as may be supposed, in Chaucer of the squire asking for divine assistance in his wicked schemes.]

[Footnote 41: May, on her return from the visit which, at her husband's desire, she paid to Damian in his chamber, that she might cheer him in his illness, read the billet that he had given her covertly, and the result is thus told by Chaucer in a passage which has not been versified by Pope:

This gentle May fulfilled of pite,
Right of her hand a letter maked she;
In which she granteth him her very grace;
There lacked nought but only day and place.
And when she saw her time upon a day
To visite this Damian goeth May,
And subtilely this letter down she thrust
Under his pillow; read it if him lust.
She taketh him by the hand, and hard him twist
So secretly, that no wight of it wist,
And bade him be all whole; and forth she went
To January, when that he for her sent.
Up riseth Damian the nexte morrow;
All passed was his sickness and his sorrow.]

[Footnote 42: The Epicurean philosophers.]

[Footnote 43: Addison's Letter from Italy:

My humbler verse demands a softer theme,
A painted meadow, or a purling stream.]

[Footnote 44: Pope has here shown his judgment in adopting the lighter fairy race of Shakespeare and Milton. Chaucer has king Pluto and his queen Proserpina.--BOWLES.

There was not much judgment required. They are fairies in Chaucer, but, as was not unusual in his day, he called them by names taken from the heathen mythology. Pope merely dropped the classical appellations, which would have been an incongruity when he wrote. In the details of his description he did not copy Shakespeare or Milton, but Dryden's version of Chaucer's Wife of Bath:

The king of elfs, and little fairy queen
Gambolled on heaths, and danced on ev'ry green.]

[Footnote 45: Another couplet preceded this in the first edition:

Thus many a day with ease and plenty blessed
Our gen'rous knight his gentle dame possessed.]

[Footnote 46: Dryden's Palamon and Arcite:

Nor art, nor nature's band can ease my grief,
Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief.]

[Footnote 47: There is a natural trait in the original which is not preserved by Pope. The knight weeps piteously at his sudden calamity:

But atte last, after a month or tweye,
His sorrow gan assuage sooth to say;
For when he wist it may not other be
He patiently took his adversitie.

This is one of the deeper and more solemn touches which Pope systematically rejected. Although the old man gets reconciled to the loss of his sight, his jealousy remains unabated.]

[Footnote 48:

Oh! January, what might it thee avail
If thou might see as far as shippes sail?
For as good is blind deceived be,
As to be deceived when a man may see.]

[Footnote 49: Chaucer only says that they whispered through the crevice they discovered in the wall which divided the houses of their parents. All their kisses were bestowed upon the wall itself, or as Sandys puts it in his translation of Ovid,

Their kisses greet
The senseless stones, with lips that could not meet.]

[Footnote 50: This couplet, which is not in the original, is in the style of the pastorals which were common in Pope's youth.]

[Footnote 51:

Thou art the creature that I best love;
For by the Lord that sit in heaven above,
Lever I had to dyen on a knife.
Than thee offende, deare, trewe wife.]

[Footnote 52: By the injudicious interpolation of this parenthesis Pope makes the knight express his belief to May that she is more likely to be kept faithful by her love of money than by her sense of honour and religion. It is undeniable that covetousness would be the predominant motive with a depraved woman, such as was poor old January's wife, but this is not his settled conviction, and he would have shrunk from openly admitting the idea.]

[Footnote 53: The knight's promise was to be performed the next morning. His doubt was whether May, on her side, would fulfil the pledge of perpetual fidelity. The ceremony is, therefore, reversed in the original, and January asks _her_ to kiss _him_ in token of her adhesion to the covenant.]

[Footnote 54: In the original the knight avows the jealousy, which in Pope's version he denies, and excuses his misgivings on the ground of May's beauty, and his own age. Having disclaimed all jealousy, there is no longer any meaning in representing him as pleading the inequality of his years to justify his conduct.]

[Footnote 55: May in the original is the same wicked, shameless woman that she is described by Pope, but Chaucer is content to put into her mouth the wish that she may die a foul death if she breaks her marriage vows. There is not a hint of the more frightful imprecation she invokes on herself in expressing the hope that she may descend alive into hell when she commits the crime she is meditating at the moment.]

[Footnote 56: "Infidelity in women is a subject of the severest crimination among the Turks. When any of these miserable girls are apprehended, for the first time they are put to hard labor, &c.; but for the second, they are recommitted, and many at a time tied up in sacks, and taken in a boat to the Seraglio-Point, where they are thrown into the tide." Dallaway's Constantinople.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 57: The squire kneeling to worship May as she passed by is an exaggerated trait supplied by Pope.]

[Footnote 58: At the conclusion of the hypocritical rejoinder of May, in which she speaks the language of indignant innocence, the narrative goes on thus in the original:

And with that word she saw where Damyan
Sat in the bush, and coughing, she began;
And with her fingers signes made she,
That Damyan should climb upon a tree,
That charged was with fruit, and up he went,
For verily he knew all her intent;
For in a letter she had told him all
Of this mattier, how he worke shall.]

[Footnote 59: These lines, which have no counterpart in Chaucer, owe their beauty to Dryden's Wife of Bath's Tale:

He saw a choir of ladies in a round,
That featly footing seemed to skim the ground:
Thus dancing hand in hand, so light they were,
He knew not where they trod, on earth or air.]

[Footnote 60: The author of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. Chaucer says that he seldom speaks of women with reverence, which is correct. The statement of Pope that the son of Sirach asserted, like Solomon, that there was no such thing as a good woman, is in direct contradiction to various passages among his precepts.]

[Footnote 61: There is no specification of "these ladies" in Chaucer.]

[Footnote 62:

Now by my mother Ceres' soul, I swear
That I shall give her suffisaunt answere,
And alle women after for her sake;
That though they be in any guilt i-take,
With face bold they shall themselves excuse,
And bear them down that woulde them accuse.
For lack of answer none of them shall dyen.
All had ye seen a thing with both your eyen,
Yet shall we women visage it hardily,
And weep, and swear, and chide subtilely.]

[Footnote 63:

I wot well that this Jew, this Solomon,
Found of us women fooles many one;
But though he be founde no good woman,
Yet hath there founde many another man
Women full true, full good, and vertuous;
Witness on them that dwell in Christes house;
With martyrdom they proved their constaunce.]

[Footnote 64: Pluto and Proserpine each select that portion of the meaning which is convenient. Both senses are included in the words of Solomon, who at once asserts the general wickedness of mankind, and the comparative worthlessness of women.]

[Footnote 65: The queen has just been boasting that she will endow the sex with the art of ingenious lying to cover the violation of their most solemn vows, and now she tauntingly tells her husband that it is not in woman to break her word. This contradiction is imported into the story by Pope. The original is as follows:--

Dame, quoth this Pluto, be no longer wroth,
I give it up; but since I swore mine oath,
That I will grante him his sight again,
My word shall stand, I warne you certain;
I am a king it sit me not to lie.
And I, quoth she, am queen of faierie.
Her answer shall she have I undertake,
Let us no more wordes hereof make.]

[Footnote 66: The allusion is to the common longing of pregnant women for particular articles of diet. May cries out that she shall expire unless she has some of the "small green pears" to eat, and then exclaims anew,

I tell you well, a woman in my plight
May have to fruit so great an appetite,
That she may dyen, but she it have.]

[Footnote 67: The moral is Pope's own, and is in the dissolute spirit which had descended from the reign of Charles II. The comment on the story, in Chaucer, is put into the mouth of the host, who begs that he may be preserved from such a wife, and inveighs against the craft and misdoings of women.]

THE WIFE OF BATH.

HER PROLOGUE.

FROM CHAUCER.

The Wife of Bath is the other piece of Chaucer which Pope selected to imitate. One cannot but wonder at his choice, which perhaps nothing but his youth could excuse. Dryden, who is known not to be nicely scrupulous, informs us, that he would not versify it on account of its indecency. Pope, however, has omitted or softened the grosser and more offensive passages. Chaucer afforded him many subjects of a more sublime and serious species; and it were to be wished Pope had exercised his pencil on the pathetic story of the patience of Griselda, or Troilus and Cressida, or the complaint of the Black Knight; or, above all, on Cambuscan and Canace. From the accidental circumstance of Dryden and Pope having copied the gay and ludicrous parts of Chaucer, the common notion seems to have arisen, that Chaucer's vein of poetry was chiefly turned to the light and the ridiculous. But they who look into Chaucer will soon be convinced of this prevailing prejudice, and will find his comic vein, like that of Shakespeare, to be only like one of mercury, imperceptibly mingled with a mine of gold. Mr. Hughes withdrew his contributions to a volume of Miscellaneous Poems, published by Steele, because this Prologue was to be inserted in it, which he thought too obscene for the gravity of his character. "The extraordinary length," says Mr. Tyrwhitt, "of the Wife of Bath's Prologue, as well as the vein of pleasantry that runs through it, is very suitable to the character of the speaker. The greatest part must have been of Chaucer's own invention, though one may plainly see that he had been reading the popular invectives against marriage, and women in general, such as the Roman de la Rose, Valerius ad Rufinum de non ducenda uxore, and particularly Hieronymus contra Jovinianum. The holy Father, by way of recommending celibacy, has exerted all his learning and eloquence, and he certainly was not deficient in either, to collect together and aggravate whatever he could find to the prejudice of the female sex. Among other things he has inserted his own translation (probably) of a long extract from what he calls, Liber Aureolus Theophrasti de Nuptiis. Next to him in order of time was the treatise entitled, Epistola Valerii ad Rufinum de non ducenda uxore. It has been printed, for the similarity of its sentiments I suppose, among the works of St. Jerome, though it is evidently of a much later date. Tanner, from Wood's MSS. Collection, attributes it to Walter Mapes. I should not believe it to be older; as John of Salisbury, who has treated of the same subject in his Polycrat. l. viii. c. xl. does not appear to have seen it. To these two books Jean de Meun has been obliged for some of the severest strokes in his Roman de la Rose; and Chaucer has transfused the quintessence of all the three works upon the subject of matrimony, into his Wife of Bath's Prologue and Merchant's Tale."

The lines of Pope in the piece before us are spirited and easy and have, properly enough, a free colloquial air. The tale, to which this is the prologue, has been versified by Dryden, and is supposed to have been of Chaucer's own invention; as is the exquisite vision of the Flower and the Leaf, which has received a thousand new graces from the spirited and harmonious Dryden. It is to his Fables, (next to his Music Ode,) written when he was above seventy years old, that Dryden will chiefly owe his immortality; and among these, particularly to the well-conducted tale of Palamon and Arcite, the pathetic picture of Sigismunda, the wild and terrible graces of Theodore and Honoria, and the sportive pleasantry of Cymon and Iphigenia. The warmth and melody of these pieces has never been excelled in our language; I mean in rhyme. It is mortifying and surprising to see the cold and contemptuous manner in which Dr. Johnson speaks of these capital pieces, which he says "require little criticism, and seem hardly worth the rejuvenescence, as he affectedly calls it, which Dryden has bestowed upon them." It is remarkable, that in his criticisms he has not even mentioned the Flower and Leaf.

These pieces of Chaucer were not the only ones that were versified by Pope. Mr. Harte assured me, that he was convinced by some circumstances which Fenton, his friend, communicated to him, that Pope wrote the characters, that make the introduction to the Canterbury Tales, published under the name of Betterton.--WARTON.

Dr. Warton thinks, "one cannot but wonder at Pope's choice from Chaucer of these stories, when so many more are to be found in him more poetical." His observation on Chaucer's poems is very just, but the fact is, Pope by this very selection showed the bent of his mind,--that it was rather turned to satire and ridicule, than to the more elevated strains of poetry.--BOWLES.

The imitations of Chaucer's January and May, and Wife of Bath's Prologue, are executed with a degree of freedom, ease, and spirit, and at the same time with a judgment and delicacy which not only far exceeds what might have been expected from so young a writer, but which leave nothing to be wished for in the mind of the reader. The humour of Chaucer is translated into the lines of Pope, almost without suffering any evaporation.--ROSCOE.

Pope's version of the Prologue of the Wife of Bath first appeared in a volume of Poetical Miscellanies, published by Steele, in 1714. The portrait of this repulsive woman is drawn by Chaucer with a vigorous hand. She is a wealthy cloth manufacturer, with a bold countenance, and more than masculine freedom of speech. She dresses ostentatiously, rides with spurs, and, glorying in her shame, openly boasts of the vices which less impudent women would carefully conceal. Her two predominant characteristics are an inordinate self-will which makes her resolve to rule her husbands with an absolute despotism, and an inordinate sensuality which has completely absorbed every finer sentiment. She not only avows her propensities, but exults in the deceit, the tricks, and the violence which she has employed to gratify them as so many testimonies to her cleverness and power. She has no compunctious visitings for the frauds she has practised, and the misery she has inflicted upon her deceased husbands. She speaks of the dead as of the living with brutal insensibility, and would think it a weakness to be swayed by a human feeling. The impersonation of domineering, heartless selfishness, her pride is to prevail by tyranny instead of by the gentle graces of feminine tenderness, and her pleasure is to indulge in worldly gaiety, and the gross gratifications of sense. Even her jovial good humour is hardly a redeeming feature in her character, for it mainly proceeds from her keen relish for physical enjoyments, and turns to temper the instant she is thwarted. It is difficult to conceive that anybody could be injured by reading her confessions, which have nothing alluring, but with Warton, we must condemn the taste which could select the story as a ground-work for the embellishments of modern verse. The character may exist in every generation. The unblushing candour with which it displays itself belonged to more outspoken times than our own. Chaucer painted from the life, and this portrait of a coarse, voluptuous, defiant woman of the citizen class, finds a place in his gallery, because she had a prominent place in the society of the middle ages. There was no rational motive for tricking her out in the newest fashion of a period to which she did not belong, and she might with advantage have been allowed to remain in her primitive place and garb. The indelicacy of the pieces he translated from Chaucer was, however, one of their recommendations to Pope, and they may have had a further attraction for him from the fact, that they held wives up to odium. His deformed and insignificant person was an antidote to love, and the court he paid to women met with a cold return. He retaliated with his pen for the mortification to which they exposed him, and he almost always represented them in a frivolous or degrading light. He may not improbably have had a pleasure in reproducing from Chaucer the caustic sentiments which were congenial to his own, and may have found some satisfaction for his wounded spirit in revenging indifference by satire.

Warton says that Pope has softened the more offensive passages in the Wife of Bath's Prologue, but his version, on the other hand, is often less decorous than the original. He has not justified his choice of the subject by his skill in the treatment of it. The adaptation is much inferior to the companion piece of January and May, and appears to have been thrown off in haste. There are a few, a very few, happy lines and expressions, but the bulk of the versification is not much above mediocrity, and is frequently below it. He has failed in the substance still more than in the form. Roscoe was of opinion that the humour of Chaucer had hardly suffered any evaporation. The admirers of the original have arrived at a different conclusion, and have contended, with almost one voice, that hardly any of the humour has been preserved. The genuine Prologue is alive with manners, passions, idiomatic conversations, and natural incidents. The copy is by comparison a dead, insipid dissertation. The mode in which Pope has abridged the narrative is one of many proofs that he only cared for characters in their broad outline, and had either no perception of the subtler workings of the mind, or no appreciation of them. If ever a reader masters the full sense of an author it must be when he translates him, and yet Pope has overlooked or rejected many of the happiest traits in Chaucer, and has falsified others, to the invariable injury of the story, and sometimes with a total disregard to consistency. Particular deficiencies are of little moment in the midst of general excellence, but in the present instance there is nothing to redeem the blots, and the narrative from first to last is a pale and feeble reflection of the original.

Warton asserts, on the authority of Harte, that Fenton believed that the version of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, which appeared in Lintot's Miscellany under the name of Betterton, was the work of Pope, and Johnson adds that "Fenton made Pope a gay offer of five pounds if he would show the characters in Betterton's hand." The celebrated actor certainly left some literary papers behind him, if we may assume that a letter from Caryll to Pope, and which was published by the poet himself, is a genuine production. "I am very glad," Caryll writes, May 23, 1712, "for the sake of the widow, and for the credit of the deceased, that Betterton's remains are fallen into such hands, as may render them reputable to the one, and beneficial to the other." In a note Pope states that the remains were the modernised portions of Chaucer contained in the Miscellany of Lintot. There was no apparent motive for deception on the subject, and the internal evidence supports the conclusion that Betterton composed the translation, and that Pope merely revised it. It is a bald, worthless production, with a few lines or couplets which seem to have proceeded from a more practised versifier than the novice who put together the bulk of the work. The choicest parts are very little better than bad; for Pope was a provident poet, and he did not decorate Betterton with feathers which would have shone with lustre in his own plumage. The great actor, on his side, has signally failed in the point where his art might have been expected to teach him better. He who had such a deep insight into the characters he personated, and who gave voice, action, and gesture to all the passions with such fidelity and power, has pared away the dramatic vivacity of Chaucer and left only a vapid, hybrid compound which is neither modern nor mediaeval. The sketch of the good parson is omitted altogether, doubtless because Dryden had already tried his hand upon it, and it was thought imprudent to provoke a comparison with his masterly paraphrase.

THE WIFE OF BATH.

HER PROLOGUE.

Behold the woes of matrimonial life,
And hear with rev'rence an experienced wife;
To dear-bought wisdom[1] give the credit due,
And think for once, a woman tells you true.
In all these trials I have borne a part, 5
I was myself the scourge that caused the smart;
For, since fifteen,[2] in triumph have I led
Five captive husbands from the church to bed.

Christ saw a wedding once, the Scripture says,
And saw but one, 'tis thought, in all his days; 10
Whence some infer, whose conscience is too nice,
No pious Christian ought to marry twice.

But let them read, and solve me, if they can,
The words addressed to the Samaritan:[3]
Five times in lawful wedlock she was joined; 15
And sure the certain stint was ne'er defined.

"Encrease and multiply," was heav'n's command,
And that's a text I clearly understand.
This too, "Let men their sires and mothers leave,
And to their dearer wives for ever cleave." 20
More wives than one by Solomon were tried,
Or else the wisest of mankind's belied.
I've had myself full many a merry fit;
And trust in heav'n I may have many yet.
For when my transitory spouse, unkind, } 25
Shall die, and leave his woeful wife behind, }
I'll take the next good Christian I can find. }

Paul, knowing one could never serve our turn,
Declared 'twas better far to wed than burn.
There's danger in assembling fire and tow; 30
I grant 'em that, and what it means you know.
The same apostle too has elsewhere owned,
No precept for virginity he found:
'Tis but a counsel, and we women still
Take which we like, the counsel, or our will. 35

I envy not their bliss, if he or she
Think fit to live in perfect chastity;
Pure let them be, and free from taint or vice;
I, for a few slight spots, am not so nice.
Heav'n calls us diff'rent ways, on these bestows 40
One proper gift, another grants to those:
Not ev'ry man's obliged to sell his store,
And give up all his substance to the poor;
Such as are perfect, may, I can't deny;
But, by your leaves, divines, so am not I. 45
Full many a saint, since first the world began,
Lived an unspotted maid, in spite of man:
Let such (a God's name) with fine wheat be fed,
And let us honest wives eat barley bread.
For me, I'll keep the post assigned by heav'n, 50
And use the copious talent it has giv'n:
Let my good spouse pay tribute, do me right,
And keep an equal reck'ning ev'ry night:
His proper body is not his, but mine;
For so said Paul, and Paul's a sound divine.[4] 55
Know then, of those five husbands I have had,
Three were just tolerable, two were bad.[5]
The three were old, but rich and fond beside,
And toiled most piteously to please their bride:
But since their wealth, the best they had, was mine, 60
The rest, without much loss, I could resign.
Sure to be loved, I took no pains to please,[6]
Yet had more pleasure far than they had ease.
Presents flowed in apace: with show'rs of gold,
They made their court, like Jupiter of old. 65
If I but smiled, a sudden youth they found,
And a new palsy seized them when I frowned.
Ye sov'reign wives! give ear, and understand,
Thus shall ye speak, and exercise command.[7]
For never was it giv'n to mortal man, 70
To lie so boldly as we women can:
Forswear the fact, though seen with both his eyes,
And call your maids to witness how he lies.
Hark, old Sir Paul, 'twas thus I us'd to say,
Whence is our neighbour's wife so rich and gay? 75
Treated, caressed, where'er she's pleased to roam--
I sit in tatters, and immured at home.
Why to her house dost thou so oft repair?
Art thou so am'rous? and is she so fair?
If I but see a cousin or a friend, 80
Lord! how you swell, and rage like any fiend!
But you reel home, a drunken beastly bear,
Then preach till midnight in your easy chair;
Cry, wives are false, and ev'ry woman evil,
And give up all that's female to the devil. 85
If poor, you say she drains her husband's purse;
If rich, she keeps her priest, or something worse;
If highly born, intolerably vain,
Vapours and pride by turns possess her brain,
Now gayly mad, now sourly splenetic, 90
Freakish when well, and fretful when she's sick.
If fair, then chaste she cannot long abide,
By pressing youth attacked on ev'ry side:
If foul, her wealth the lusty lover lures,
Or else her wit some fool-gallant procures, 95
Or else she dances with becoming grace,
Or shape excuses the defects of face.
There swims no goose so grey, but soon or late,
She finds some honest gander for her mate.
Horses, thou say'st, and asses men may try, 100
And ring suspected vessels ere they buy:
But wives, a random choice, untried they take,
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake;
Then, nor till then, the veil's removed away,
And all the woman glares in open day. 105
You tell me, to preserve your wife's good grace,
Your eyes must always languish on my face,
Your tongue with constant flatt'ries feed my ear,
And tag each sentence with, My life! my dear!
If, by strange chance, a modest blush be raised, 110
Be sure my fine complexion must be praised.
My garments always must be new and gay,
And feasts still kept upon my wedding-day.
Then must my nurse be pleased, and fav'rite maid:
And endless treats, and endless visits paid, 115
To a long train of kindred, friends, allies;
All this thou say'st, and all thou say'st, are lies.
On Jenkin too you cast a squinting eye:
What! can your 'prentice raise your jealousy?
Fresh are his ruddy cheeks, his forehead fair; 120
And like the burnished gold his curling hair.
But clear thy wrinkled brow, and quit thy sorrow,
I'd scorn your 'prentice, should you die to-morrow.
Why are thy chests all locked? on what design?
Are not thy worldly goods and treasures mine? 125
Sir, I'm no fool; nor shall you, by St. John,
Have goods and body to yourself alone.
One you shall quit, in spite of both your eyes;
I heed not, I, the bolts, the locks, the spies.
If you had wit, you'd say, "Go where you will, 130
Dear spouse, I credit not the tales they tell;
Take all the freedoms of a married life;
I know thee for a virtuous, faithful wife."
Lord! when you have enough, what need you care
How merrily soever others fare? 135
Though all the day I give and take delight,
Doubt not, sufficient will be left at night.
'Tis but a just and rational desire,
To light a taper at a neighbour's fire.
There's danger too, you think, in rich array, 140
And none can long be modest that are gay:
The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin,
The chimney keeps, and sits content within;
But once grown sleek, will from her corner run,
Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun; 145
She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad,
To show her fur, and to be catterwawed.[8]
Lo thus, my friends, I wrought to my desires
These three right ancient venerable sires.
I told 'em, Thus you say, and thus you do, 150
And told 'em false, but Jenkin swore 'twas true.
I, like a dog, could bite as well as whine,
And first complained, whene'er the guilt was mine.[9]
I taxed them oft with wenching and amours,
When their weak legs scarce dragged 'em out of doors; 155
And swore the rambles that I took by night,
Were all to spy what damsels they bedight.
That colour brought me many hours of mirth;[10]
For all this wit is given us from our birth;
Heav'n gave to woman the peculiar grace, 160
To spin, to weep, and cully human race.
By this nice conduct, and this prudent course,
By murm'ring, wheedling, stratagem, and force,
I still prevailed, and would be in the right,
Or curtain lectures made a restless night. 165
If once my husband's arm was o'er my side,
What! so familiar with your spouse? I cried:
I levied first a tax upon his need:
Then let him--'twas a nicety indeed!
Let all mankind this certain maxim hold, 170
Marry who will, our sex is to be sold.
With empty hands no tassels you can lure,[11]
But fulsome love for gain we can endure;
For gold we love the impotent and old,
And heave, and pant, and kiss, and cling, for gold. 175
Yet with embraces, curses oft I've mixed,
Then kissed again, and chid, and railed betwixt.
Well, I may make my will in peace, and die,
For not one word in man's arrears am I.
To drop a dear dispute I was unable, 180
Ev'n though the Pope himself had sat at table.[12]
But when my point was gained, then thus I spoke,
"Billy, my dear, how sheepishly you look?
Approach, my spouse, and let me kiss thy cheek;
Thou should'st be always thus resigned and meek! 185
Of Job's great patience since so oft you preach,
Well should you practise, who so well can teach.
'Tis difficult to do, I must allow,
But I, my dearest, will instruct you how.
Great is the blessing of a prudent wife, 190
Who puts a period to domestic strife.
One of us two must rule, and one obey; }
And since in man right reason bears the sway, }
Let that frail thing, weak woman, have her way. }
The wives of all my family have ruled 195
Their tender husbands, and their passions cooled.
Fye, 'tis unmanly thus to sigh and groan;
What! would you have me to yourself alone?
Why take me, love! take all and ev'ry part!
Here's your revenge! you love it at your heart. 200
Would I vouchsafe to sell what nature gave,
You little think what custom I could have.
But see! I'm all your own--nay hold--for shame!
What means my dear--indeed--you are to blame."
Thus with my first three lords I passed my life; 205
A very woman, and a very wife.
What sums from these old spouses I could raise,
Procured young husbands in my riper days.
Though past my bloom,[13] not yet decayed was I,
Wanton and wild, and chattered like a pye. 210
In country dances still I bore the bell.
And sung as sweet as ev'ning Philomel.
To clear my quail-pipe, and refresh my soul,
Full oft I drained the spicy nut-brown bowl;
Rich luscious wines, that youthful blood improve, 215
And warm the swelling veins to feats of love:
For 'tis as sure as cold ingenders hail,
A liqu'rish mouth must have a lech'rous tail;
Wine lets no lover unrewarded go,
As all true gamesters by experience know. 220
But oh, good gods! whene'er a thought I cast
On all the joys of youth and beauty past,
To find in pleasures I have had my part,
Still warms me to the bottom of my heart.
This wicked world was once my dear delight; 225
Now all my conquests, all my charms, good night!
The flour consumed, the best that now I can,
Is e'en to make my market of the bran.[14]
My fourth dear spouse was not exceeding true!
He kept, 'twas thought, a private miss or two: 230
But all that score I paid--as how? you'll say,
Not with my body, in a filthy way:
But I so dressed, and danced, and drank, and dined;
And viewed a friend, with eyes so very kind,
As stung his heart, and made his marrow fry,[15] 235
With burning rage, and frantic jealousy.
His soul, I hope, enjoys eternal glory,
For here on earth I was his purgatory.
Oft, when his shoe the most severely wrung,
He put on careless airs, and sat and sung. 240
How sore I galled him, only heav'n could know,
And he that felt, and I that caused the woe.
He died, when last from pilgrimage I came,
With other gossips, from Jerusalem;[16]
And now lies buried underneath a rood,[17] 245
Fair to be seen, and reared of honest wood.
A tomb indeed, with fewer sculptures graced,
Than that Mausolus' pious widow placed,[18]
Or where inshrined the great Darius lay;
But cost on graves is merely thrown away. 250
The pit filled up, with turf we covered o'er;
So bless the good man's soul, I say no more.
Now for my fifth loved lord, the last and best;
(Kind heav'n afford him everlasting rest)
Full hearty was his love, and I can shew 255
The tokens on my ribs in black and blue;
Yet, with a knack, my heart he could have won,
While yet the smart was shooting in the bone.
How quaint an appetite in woman reigns!
Free gifts we scorn, and love what costs us pains: 260
Let men avoid us, and on them we leap;
A glutted market makes provision cheap.[19]
In pure good will I took this jovial spark,
Of Oxford he, a most egregious clerk.
He boarded with a widow in the town,[20] 265
A trusty gossip, one dame Alison.
Full well the secrets of my soul she knew,
Better than e'er our parish priest could do.
To her I told whatever could befall:
Had but my husband pissed against a wall, 270
Or done a thing that might have cost his life,
She, and my niece, and one more worthy wife,
Had known it all: what most he would conceal,
To these I made no scruple to reveal.
Oft has he blushed from ear to ear for shame, 275
That e'er he told a secret to his dame.

It so befel, in holy time of Lent,
That oft a day I to this gossip went;
(My husband, thank my stars, was out of town)
From house to house we rambled up and down, 280
This clerk, myself, and my good neighbour Alse,
To see, be seen, to tell, and gather tales.[21]
Visits to ev'ry church we daily paid,
And marched in every holy masquerade,
The stations duly,[22] and the vigils kept; 285
Not much we fasted, but scarce ever slept.
At sermons too I shone in scarlet gay, }
The wasting moth ne'er spoiled my best array; }
The cause was this, I wore it ev'ry day. }

'Twas when fresh May her early blossoms yields, 290
This clerk and I were walking in the fields.
We grew so intimate, I can't tell how,[23]
I pawned my honour, and engaged my vow,
If e'er I laid my husband in his urn,[24]
That he, and only he, should serve my turn. 295
We straight struck hands, the bargain was agreed;
I still have shifts against a time of need:
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any soul.

I vowed, I scarce could sleep since first I knew him, 300
And durst be sworn he had bewitched me to him;
If e'er I slept, I dreamed of him alone, }
And dreams foretell, as learned men have shown: }
All this I said; but dreams, sirs, I had none: }
I followed but my crafty crony's lore, 305
Who bid me tell this lie, and twenty more.[25]

Thus day by day, and month by month we passed;
It pleased the Lord to take my spouse at last.
I tore my gown, I soiled my locks with dust,
And beat my breasts, as wretched widows must.[26] 310
Before my face my handkerchief I spread,
To hide the flood of tears I did not shed.
The good man's coffin to the church was borne;
Around, the neighbours, and my clerk too, mourn.
But as he marched, good gods! he showed a pair 315
Of legs and feet, so clean, so strong, so fair!
Of twenty winters' age he seemed to be;
I, to say truth, was twenty more than he;
But vig'rous still, a lively buxom dame;
And had a wond'rous gift to quench a flame. 320
A conj'ror once, that deeply could divine,
Assured me, Mars in Taurus was my sign.
As the stars ordered, such my life has been:
Alas, alas, that ever love was sin!
Fair Venus gave me fire, and sprightly grace, 325
And Mars assurance, and a dauntless face.
By virtue of this pow'rful constellation,
I followed, always, my own inclination.

But to my tale: A month scarce passed away,
With dance and song, we kept the nuptial day. 330
All I possessed I gave to his command,
My goods and chattels, money, house, and land:
But oft repented, and repent it still;[27]
He proved a rebel to my sov'reign will:
Nay, once, by heav'n! he struck me on the face; 335
Hear but the fact, and judge, yourselves, the case.

Stubborn as any lioness was I,
And knew full well to raise my voice on high;
As true a rambler as I was before,
And would be so, in spite of all he swore. 340
He, against this, right sagely would advise,
And old examples set before my eyes;
Tell, how the Roman matrons led their life,
Of Gracchus' mother, and Duilius' wife;
And close the sermon, as beseemed his wit, 345
With some grave sentence out of Holy Writ.[28]
Oft would he say, who builds his house on sands,
Pricks his blind horse across the fallow lands,
Or lets his wife abroad with pilgrims roam,
Deserves a fool's-cap, and long ears at home. 350
All this availed not; for, whoe'er he be
That tells my faults, I hate him mortally:
And so do numbers more, I'll boldly say,
Men, women, clergy, regular and lay.
My spouse, who was, you know, to learning bred, 355
A certain treatise, oft, at evening,[29] read,
Where divers authors, whom the devil confound
For all their lies, were in one volume bound.
Valerius, whole; and of St. Jerome, part;[30]
Chrysippus and Tertullian; Ovid's Art, 360
Solomon's Proverbs, Eloisa's loves,[31]
And many more than sure the church approves.[32]
More legends were there, here, of wicked wives,
Than good,[33] in all the Bible and saints' lives.
Who drew the lion vanquished? 'Twas a man.[34] 365
But could we women write as scholars can,
Men should stand marked with far more wickedness
Than all the sons of Adam could redress.
Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets, ere Mercury can rise.[35] 370
Those play the scholars who can't play the men,
And use that weapon which they have, their pen;
When old and past the relish of delight,
Then down they sit, and in their dotage write,
That not one woman keeps her marriage vow. 375
This by the way, but to my purpose now.
It chanced my husband, on a winter's night,
Read in this book, aloud, with strange delight,
How the first female, as the Scriptures show,
Brought her own spouse and all his race to woe:[36] 380
How Sampson fell; and he, whom Dejanire
Wrapp'd in th' envenomed shirt, and set on fire:
How cursed Eryphile her lord betrayed,
And the dire ambush Clytemnestra laid:[37]
But what most pleased him was the Cretan dame, 385
And husband-bull--oh monstrous! fie for shame!
He had by heart, the whole detail of woe,
Xantippe made her good man undergo;
How oft she scolded in a day, he knew,
How many piss-pots on the sage she threw; 390
Who took it patiently, and wiped his head;
"Rain follows thunder," that was all he said.
He read how Arius to his friend complained,
A fatal tree was growing in his land,
On which three wives successively had twined 395
A sliding noose, and wavered in the wind.
Where grows this plant, replied the friend, oh! where?
For better fruit did never orchard bear;
Give me some slip of this most blissful tree,
And, in my garden, planted shall it be. 400
Then, how two wives their lords' destruction prove,
Through hatred one, and one through too much love;
That for her husband mixed a pois'nous draught,
And this, for lust, an am'rous philtre bought:
The nimble juice soon seized his giddy head, 405
Frantic at night, and in the morning dead.[38]
How some, with swords, their sleeping lords have slain,
And some have hammered nails into their brain,
And some have drenched them with a deadly potion;
All this he read, and read with great devotion. 410
Long time I heard, and swelled, and blushed,[39] and frowned;
But when no end of these vile tales I found,
When still he read, and laughed, and read again,
And half the night was thus consumed in vain;
Provoked to vengeance, three large leaves I tore, 415
And, with one buffet, felled him on the floor.
With that, my husband in a fury rose,
And down he settled me, with hearty blows.
I groaned, and lay extended on my side;
Oh! thou hast slain me for my wealth, I cried,[40] 420
Yet I forgive thee--take my last embrace--
He wept, kind soul! and stooped to kiss my face;
I took him such a box as turned him blue,
Then sighed and cried, Adieu, my dear, adieu![41]
But, after many a hearty struggle past, 425
I condescended to be pleased at last.
Soon as he said, My mistress and my wife,
Do what you list, the term of all your life,
I took to heart the merits of the cause,
And stood content to rule by wholesome laws; 430
Received the reins of absolute command, }
With all the government of house and land, }
And empire o'er his tongue, and o'er his hand. }
As for the volume that reviled the dames,
'Twas torn to fragments, and condemned to flames. 435
Now heav'n, on all my husbands gone, bestow
Pleasures above, for tortures felt below:
That rest they wished for, grant them in the grave,
And bless those souls my conduct helped to save!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Pope has departed at the outset from the conception of Chaucer. The purpose of the tale which the wife of Bath tells is to show that women love, above all things, to govern; and her personal history, which she relates in the prologue, is an account of the means by which she reduced her husbands to submission. It was not her own matrimonial woes, which had been slight enough, that she was about to set forth, but the miseries of those whom it is her boast to have worried into obedience to her will. As Pope correctly renders the original, she states that the pains referred to the smart she had inflicted on her husbands; and, far from alleging that "dear-bought wisdom" had taught her that matrimony to a woman was a life of suffering, she thanks God that she has been married five times already, and declares that directly her fifth mate is dead, she will marry a sixth.

When my husband is from the world i-gone,
Some Christian man shall wedde me anon.]

[Footnote 2: "Twelve" in the original.]

[Footnote 3:

Beside a welle Jesus, God and man,
Spake in reproof of the Samaritan:
"Thou hast i-had five husbandes," quoth he,
"And that ilk-man, which that now hath thee
Is not thine husband." Thus he said certain;
What that he meant thereby I cannot sayn,
But that I axe why the fithe man
Was not husband to the Samaritan?

The question is addressed to those who deny the validity of second marriages, and she asks them to explain upon their theory why the fifth man was not properly the husband of the Samaritan woman, when there is the authoritative declaration of Scripture that he was.]

[Footnote 4: Pope alone is responsible for the second half of this line, which in its present application has an unbecoming levity. There was a pardoner in the company, a person who got his living by selling indulgences, and by displaying the pretended relics of saints, who says that he was about to marry, but that he shall abandon his intention now that he learns what despotic authority wives exercise over husbands. The wife of Bath, unabashed, informs him that what she has told is nothing in comparison with that which is to follow:

Abide, quoth she, my tale is not begun.
Nay, thou shalt drinke of another tun
Ere that I go, shall savour worse than ale.
And when that I have told thee forth my tale
Of tribulation in marriage,
Of which I am expert in all my age,
That is to say, myself hath been the whip,
Then might thou choose whether thou wilt sip
Of thilke tunne that I shall abroach:
Beware of it ere thou too nigh approach.

These dramatic touches omitted by Pope give life to the piece, and individuality to the characters.]

[Footnote 5: In the original,

I shall say sooth of husbands that I had,
As three of them were good, and two were bad.

She meant that the two were rebellious in comparison with the three who were her slaves; for in speaking of the entire five, at the commencement of the prologue, she added,

And all were worthy men in their degree.

Pope has fallen into an inconsistency. He states that the three old husbands were those who "were just tolerable." Yet when he comes to describe the youngest of the two, whom he here calls "bad," he makes the wife of Bath exclaim,

Now for my fifth loved lord, the last and _best_,

In Chaucer she distinctly denies that he was the best, but says she _loved_ him best, and proceeds to explain the reason, which is that women always value those most who treat them with harshness or indifference.]

[Footnote 6: This trait in the wife of Bath's character is brought out more distinctly by Chaucer:

Me needeth not no longer doon diligence
To win their love, or do them reverence.
They loved me so well, high God above!
That I tolde no deynte of their love.
A wise woman will busy her ever in one
To gete her love, there she hath none.
But synnes I had them wholly in my hand
And synnes they had me given all their land,
What should I take keep them for to please
But it were for my profit or mine ease?

"I tolde no deynte of their love," means I set no store by it; "ever in one" is always; and "take keep" is take care.]

[Footnote 7: The wife of Bath's first lesson in the art of domestic government is a panegyric upon the advantages of sturdy lying, in which Pope has not gone beyond the original:

Ye wise wives that can understand
Thus should ye speak, and bear them wrong in hand;
For half so boldely can there no man
Swere and lie as a woman can.

"To bear them wrong in hand" is to affirm wrongfully or falsely. The phrase "to bear in hand" for "to asseverate," was still frequently used in the reign of Charles II.]