HKB
And eke the Parables* of Solomon, Proverbs Ovide’s Art, <29> and bourdes many one; *jests And alle these were bound in one volume. And every night and day was his custume (When he had leisure and vacation From other worldly occupation) To readen in this book of wicked wives. He knew of them more legends and more lives Than be of goodde wives in the Bible. For, trust me well, it is an impossible That any clerk will speake good of wives, (But if it be of holy saintes’ lives) unless Nor of none other woman never the mo’. Who painted the lion, tell it me, who? By God, if women haddde written stories, As clerkes have within their oratories, They would have writ of men more wickedness Than all the mark of Adam <30> may redress The children of Mercury and of Venus,<31> Be in their working full contrarious. Mercury loveth wisdom and science, And Venus loveth riot and dispence. *extravagance And for their diverse disposition, Each falls in other’s exaltation. As thus, God wot, Mercury is desolate In Pisces, where Venus is exaltate, And Venus falls where Mercury is raised. <32> Therefore no woman by no clerk is praised. The clerk, when he is old, and may not do Of Venus’ works not worth his olde shoe, Then sits he down, and writes in his dotage, That women cannot keep their marriage. But now to purpose, why I tolde thee That I was beaten for a book, pardie.