Wynkyn de Worde

“ But loketh soure whan theyr husbandes ayleth ought;
And of good mete and drynke they wyll not fayle in dede,
What so ever it cost they care ryght nought;
Nor they care not how dere it be bought,
Rather than they should therof lacke or mysse,
They wolde leever laye some pledge ywys.
It is trewe, I tell you yonge men everychone,
Women be varyable and love many wordes and stryfe:
Who can not appease them lyghtly or anone,
Shall have care and sorowe all his lyfe,
That woo the tyme that ever he toke a wyfe ”

“ What ayleth suche an olde man for to chide?”
But the Wife of Bath does not quote Solomon for the proverb, as we find him referred to on [14] p. 20. Again, in a subsequent stanza, p. 21, we are strongly reminded of the lines where the Wife of Bath thus describes her conduct after she had married her fifth husband ”

“ In the subsequent stanza, which occurs soon afterwards, the author seems to allude to the first of the three tracts now under consideration.
“Yf that there be ony tryfelers,
That have wylled for to blame maryage,
I dare well saye that they ben but lyers,
Or elles god fayled in the fyrste age:
Adam bereth wytnesse and tesmonage:
Maryed he was, and comen we ben.
God dyde choyse maryage unto all men.”
This stanza affords an instance of the employment [12] of an anglicised French word because it happened to answer the translator’s purpose as a rhyme to “age.” ”

“ The sely husbande shall have all the sorowe.
An husbande hath greate cause to care
For wyfe, for chylde, for stuffe and meyne,
And yf ought lacke she wyll bothe swere and stare,
He is a wastour and shall never the:
And Salomon sayth there be thynges thre,
Shrewde wyves, rayne, and smokes blake
Make husbandes ofte theyr houses to forsake. ”

“ Upon theyr husbandes, whan they lyst to be bolde,
How they alone governeth the housholde. [20]
And yf her husbande happen for to thryve,
She sayth it is her prudent purveyaunce:
If they go abacke ayenwarde and unthryve,
She sayth it is his mysgovernaunce. ”