HKB
That made me that I coulde not withdraw My chamber of Venus from a good fellaw. [Yet have I Marte’s mark upon my face, And also in another privy place. For God so wisly* be my salvation, certainly I loved never by discretion, But ever follow’d mine own appetite, All were he short, or long, or black, or white, whether I took no keep, so that he liked me, heed How poor he was, neither of what degree.] <25> What should I say? but that at the month’s end This jolly clerk Jenkin, that was so hend, courteous 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 woulde suffer nothing of my list. pleasure By God, he smote me ones with his fist, For that I rent out of his book a leaf, That of the stroke mine eare wax’d all deaf. Stubborn I was, as is a lioness, And of my tongue a very jangleress, prater And walk I would, as I had done beforn, From house to house, although he had it sworn: had sworn to For which he oftentimes woulde preach prevent it And me of olde Roman gestes teach stories How that Sulpitius Gallus left his wife And her forsook for term of all his For nought but open-headed he her say** *bare-headed *saw Looking out at his door upon a day. Another Roman <27> 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 ilke proverb of Ecclesiast, same Where he commandeth, and forbiddeth fast, Man shall not suffer his wife go roll about. Then would he say right thus withoute doubt: “Whoso that buildeth his house all of sallows, willows And pricketh his blind horse over the fallows, And suff’reth his wife to go seeke hallows, make pilgrimages Is worthy to be hanged on the gallows.” But all for nought; I sette not a haw cared nothing for Of his proverbs, nor of his olde saw; Nor would I not of him corrected be. I hate them that my vices telle me, And so do more of us (God wot) than I. This made him wood with me all utterly; furious I woulde not forbear him in no case. *endure 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,<28> and Theophrast, And with that book he laugh’d alway full fast. And eke there was a clerk sometime at Rome, A cardinal, that highte Saint Jerome, That made a book against Jovinian, Which book was there; and eke Tertullian, Chrysippus, Trotula, and Heloise, That was an abbess not far from Paris;