WIFE OF BATH'S PROLOGUE
"And so it befell that once, in Lent (I visited my gossip so often, for ever I have loved to be merry, and to walk, in March, April and May, from house to house, and hear sundry tales), that Jankin the clerk, and my gossip dame Alis, and I myself, walked into the fields. All that Lent my husband was at London; I had the better leisure to sport, and to see and eke to be seen of lusty folk; how wist I where my luck was destined to be? Therefore I made my visits to vigils and to processions, to preaching and eke to these pilgrimages, to plays of miracles, and weddings, and wore my gay scarlet skirts. These worms, nor these moths, nor these mites, ate them never a whit; and wotst thou why? for they were used well.
"Now will I tell forth what happened to me. I say that we walked in the fields, till verily we had such dalliance, this clerk and I, that I spake to him, and said to him, of my foresight, how if I were a widow, he should wed me. For certainly, I say it not for any boast, I was never yet without provision for marriage, nor for other things also. I hold that mouse hath a heart not worth a leek, which hath but one hole to start to, and if that fail, then is all lost. I made him believe he had enchanted me; my dame taught me that trick. And I said eke that I dreamed of him all night; he would have slain me, I dreamed, as I lay, and my bed was all full of very blood; but yet I hoped that he should do well by me, for to dream of blood betokeneth gold, I was taught. And all was false, I dreamed of it never at all, but I ever followed my dame's lore in this as in other things. But sir, let me see now, what shall I say? Aha! by Saint John! I have my tale again.
"When my fourth husband was on his bier, I wept aye and
made a sorrowful face, as wives must, for it is custom, and with
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