Wife of Bath

For no reason, but just because it’s great (and the subject came up in the thread on the feminists’ topless demonstration in Portland, Maine), here is the beginning of “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales:

Experience, though noon auctoritee
Were in this world, were right ynogh to me
To speke of wo that is in mariage;
For, lordynges, sith I twelf yeer was of age,
Thonked be God, that is eterne on lyve,
Housbondes at chirche-dore I have had fyve-
For I so ofte have ywedded bee-
And alle were worthy men in hir degree.
But me was toold, certeyn, nat longe agoon is,
That sith that Crist ne wente nevere but onis
To weddyng in the Cane of Galilee,
That by the same ensample, taughte he me,
That I ne sholde wedded be but ones.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 07, 2010 12:18 PM | Send