WIFE OF BATH'S PROLOGUE
would preach to me, and tell me of old Roman stories, how Simplicius Gallus left his wife, and forsook her as long as he lived, for naught but that he saw her upon a day looking out at his door bareheaded. Another Roman he told me of that forsook his wife eke, because she was at a summer's game without his knowing. And then would he seek in his Bible that proverb of Ecclesiasticus, where in his commandment he strongly forbiddeth a man to suffer his wife go gadding about; then ye may be sure he would say right thus:
'Whoso that buildeth all his house of sallows,
Whoso that spurreth his blind horse over the fallows,
And suffereth his wife seek shrines and hallows,
Is worthy to be hangèd on the gallows.'
"But it was all for naught, I recked not a berry for his
proverbs nor his old saws, nor would I be corrected of him. I
hate him that telleth me my vices, and so do more of us than
I, God wot! This made him utterly angry with me; I would
not spare him in any case.
"Now by Saint Thomas, I will tell you the sooth why I rent a page out of his book, for which he smote me deaf. He had a book that gladly for his disport he would aye read day and night. He called it Valerie and Theofraste, at which book he laughed alway full merrily. And eke there was once a clerk at Rome, a cardinal, he was called Saint Jerome, that composed a book against Jovinian; in which book there were Crisippus, Trotula, Tertulan and Helowys, that was an abbess not far from Paris; and the Parables of Solomon, Ovid's Art and many
a book, and all these were bound in one volume, and every night
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