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This knight adviseth* him and sore he siketh,** *considered **sighed
But at the last he said in this mannere;
“My lady and my love, and wife so dear,
I put me in your wise governance,
Choose for yourself which may be most pleasance
And most honour to you and me also;
I *do no force* the whether of the two: *care not
For as you liketh, it sufficeth me.”
“Then have I got the mastery,” quoth she,
“Since I may choose and govern as me lest.”* *pleases
“Yea, certes wife,” quoth he, “I hold it best.”
“Kiss me,” quoth she, “we are no longer wroth,* *at variance
For by my troth I will be to you both;
This is to say, yea, bothe fair and good.
I pray to God that I may *sterve wood,* *die mad*
But* I to you be all so good and true, *unless
As ever was wife since the world was new;
And but* I be to-morrow as fair to seen, *unless
As any lady, emperess or queen,
That is betwixt the East and eke the West
Do with my life and death right as you lest.* *please
Cast up the curtain, and look how it is.”

And when the knight saw verily all this,
That she so fair was, and so young thereto,
For joy he hent* her in his armes two: *took
His hearte bathed in a bath of bliss,
A thousand times *on row* he gan her kiss: *in succession*
And she obeyed him in every thing
That mighte do him pleasance or liking.
And thus they live unto their lives’ end
In perfect joy; and Jesus Christ us send
Husbandes meek and young, and fresh in bed,
And grace to overlive them that we wed.
And eke I pray Jesus to short their lives,
That will not be governed by their wives.
And old and angry niggards of dispence,* *expense
God send them soon a very pestilence!

Notes to the Wife of Bath’s Tale

1. It is not clear whence Chaucer derived this tale. Tyrwhitt thinks it was taken from the story of Florent, in the first book of Gower’s “Confessio Amantis;” or perhaps from an older narrative from which Gower himself borrowed. Chaucer has condensed and otherwise improved the fable, especially by laying the scene, not in Sicily, but at the court of our own King Arthur.

2. Limitours: begging friars. See note 18 to the prologue to the Tales.

3. Thorpes: villages. Compare German, “Dorf,”; Dutch, “Dorp.”

4. Undermeles: evening-tides, afternoons; “undern” signifies the evening; and “mele,” corresponds to the German “Mal” or “Mahl,” time.

5. Incubus: an evil spirit supposed to do violence to women; a nightmare.

6. Where he had been hawking after waterfowl. Froissart says that any one engaged in this sport “alloit en riviere.”

7. Nice: foolish; French, “niais.”

8. Claw us on the gall: Scratch us on the sore place. Compare, “Let the galled jade wince.” Hamlet iii. 2.

9. Hele: hide; from Anglo-Saxon, “helan,” to hide, conceal.

10. Yern: eagerly; German, “gern.”

11. Wiss: instruct; German, “weisen,” to show or counsel.

12. Dante, “Purgatorio”, vii. 121.

13. “Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator” — “Satires,” x. 22.

14. In a fabulous conference between the Emperor Adrian and the philosopher Secundus, reported by Vincent of Beauvais, occurs the passage which Chaucer here paraphrases: — “Quid est Paupertas? Odibile bonum; sanitas mater; remotio Curarum; sapientae repertrix; negotium sine damno; possessio absque calumnia; sine sollicitudinae felicitas.” (What is Poverty? A hateful good; a mother of health; a putting away of cares; a discoverer of wisdom; business without injury; ownership without calumny; happiness without anxiety)

15. Elenge: strange; from French “eloigner,” to remove.