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THE PROLOGUE

 

 "Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow,
 

 I have enough, on even and on morrow,"
 

 Quoth the Merchant, "and so have other mo',
 

 That wedded be; I trow* that it be so;            *believe
 

 For well I wot it fareth so by me.
 

 I have a wife, the worste that may be,
 

 For though the fiend to her y-coupled were,
 

 She would him overmatch, I dare well swear.
 

 Why should I you rehearse in special
 

 Her high malice? she is *a shrew at all.*       *thoroughly, in
 

 There is a long and large difference        everything wicked*
 

 Betwixt Griselda's greate patience,
 

 And of my wife the passing cruelty.
 

 Were I unbounden, all so may I the,*              *thrive
 

 I woulde never eft* come in the snare.            *again
 

 We wedded men live in sorrow and care;
 

 Assay it whoso will, and he shall find
 

 That I say sooth, by Saint Thomas of Ind,<2>
 

 As for the more part; I say not all, --
 

 God shielde* that it shoulde so befall.           *forbid
 

 Ah! good Sir Host, I have y-wedded be
 

 These moneths two, and more not, pardie;
 

 And yet I trow* that he that all his life           *believe
 

 Wifeless hath been, though that men would him rive*       *wound
 

 Into the hearte, could in no mannere
 

 Telle so much sorrow, as I you here
 

 Could tellen of my wife's cursedness."*          *wickedness
 

“Now,” quoth our Host, “Merchant, so God you bless,
Since ye so muche knowen of that art,
Full heartily I pray you tell us part.”
“Gladly,” quoth he; “but of mine owen sore,
For sorry heart, I telle may no more.”

Notes to the Prologue to the Merchant’s Tale

1. Though the manner in which the Merchant takes up the closing words of the Envoy to the Clerk’s Tale, and refers to the patience of Griselda, seems to prove beyond doubt that the order of the Tales in the text is the right one, yet in some manuscripts of good authority the Franklin’s Tale follows the Clerk’s, and the Envoy is concluded by this stanza: —