Part 18

"Sithe" signifies "times." Pope has generalised the imprecation, and extended it to all bards, living or deceased, whereby the fitness of invoking a curse upon their bones is destroyed.]

A wife! ah! Sainte Mary, benedicite, How might a man have any adversite That hath a wife? certes I cannot say.

The requirements of the metre in this and other passages of Chaucer, show that benedicite was sometimes contracted, in the pronunciation, to ben'cite.]

She saith nought ones nay when he saith ye; Do this, saith he; all ready, sir, saith she.

Consequently the married man

Upon his bare knees ought all his life Thanken his God that him hath sent a wife;

and if he is not yet possessed of the treasure, he ought to pray without ceasing that it may be vouchsafed him, for then he is established in safety, and

May not be deceived as I guess.

From the praise of wives, the merchant, speaking the views of the knight, proceeds to extol the trustworthy advice of women in general, and his first instance is Rebecca, who instructed Jacob how to supplant Esau. The reasoning is purposely rendered inconsistent, and the assertion that a married man was secured against deception is immediately followed by an example in which the husband was deluded by the stratagem of the wife.]

Lo Judith, as the story telle can, By wise counsel she Goddes people kept And slew him Holofernes while he slept. Lo Abigail by good counsel how she Saved her husband Nabal, when that he Should have been slain.

The respite that Abigail obtained for Nabal was very short. He died by a judgment from heaven in about ten days from the time that she went forth to meet David, and with presents and persuasions diverted him from his purpose, as he was advancing to take vengeance on her husband. The striking narrative in the apocryphal book of Judith is undoubtedly fabulous. The pretended Judith was a widow. The deceptions by which she is said to have got the captain of the Assyrian army into her power are abhorrent to our purer morality, but they would have been considered legitimate stratagems of war in the East.]

The rest are summoned on a point so nice.

But one thing warn I you, my friendes dear, I will none old wife have in no manere.

Marriages seem to have taken place in those days at a very early age. The wife of Bath married at twelve, and the knight's notion of an "old wife" it appears, five lines further on, was a woman of twenty. He insists that he will marry nobody that is above sixteen:

She shall not passe sixteene year certain. Old fish, and young flesh, that would I have full fain. Bet is, quoth he, a pike than a pikerel, And bet than old beef is the tender veal.

"Bet" is for "better."]

Children to thonour of God above, And not only for paramour, and for love.

But a little before he had given a more worldly reason for his desire to have a son and heir, and said that he would rather be eaten by dogs than that his inheritance should go to a stranger.]

Friendes I am hoar and old, And almost, God wot, at my pittes brink Upon my soule somewhat must I think. I have my body folily dispended Blessed be God that it shall be amended.

In the passage, for which Pope's lines are the substitute, the knight is enumerating the causes why men should marry, and one reason, he says, is that each person ought to

Helpen other In meschief, as a sister shall the brother, And live in chastity full holily. But, sires, by your leave that am not I, For, God be thankèd, I dare make avaunt, I feel my limbes stark and suffisaunt.

The meaning is, that when a husband is "in meschief," or, in other words, in a state of helpless decrepitude, his wife ought to live in holy chastity, and nurse him as a sister would a brother. But, adds the knight, thank God I am not decrepit myself, and feel my limbs to be still stout; which is a very different sentiment from sneering at the saintly life he had just commended.]

Ev'n when the vital sap retreats below, Ev'n when the hoary head is hid in snow.]

And synnes ye have heard all mine intent, I pray you to my wille ye assent.

They do, indeed, offer him counsel where he solicited help, which is a true stroke of nature on both sides.]

A full great fool is any counsellor That serveth any lord of high honour, That dare presume, or once thinken it, That his counsel should pass his lordes wit. Nay lordes be no fooles by my fay. Ye have yourself y-spoken here to-day So high sentence, so holy, and so well, That I consent, and confirm every dole Your wordes all, and your opinion.]

He portrayed in his heart, and in his thought Her fresche beauty, and her age tender, Her middle small, her armes long and slender, Her wise governance, her gentilnesse Her womanly bearing, and her sadnesse.--BOWLES.]

For when that he himself concluded had, He thought each other mannes wit so bad, That impossible it were to replie Against his choice; this was his fantasie.]