Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/231

With well-proved precepts how to be
A scourge to those who scourèd me;
And you right apt will be thereto
Recalling all I say to you,
Since you by happy chance have got
So young a mind as faileth not
To keep in memory the wit
That old experience plants in it.
For Plato said, long years agone,
That, things which men in youth had known
Stay fixed within the memory fast,13591
Though many a year be overpast.

A woman’s revenge Ah, dearest son, beloved youth,
If strong and young as you forsooth
I were, the laws by Draco made
My fierce revenge should cast in shade:
Such vengeance on my foes I’d take,
Before I could mine anger slake,
As never yet was known ere now
In all the world’s great age I trow.13600
Those ribalds who have passed me by
With mocks and jeers, insultingly,
And have disdained my glance to meet,
With open scorn in public street,
Good Lord! but they should dearly pay
Whene’er arrived the reckoning day,
For that contemptuous, scathing pride
Wherewith they have my spirit tried.
For, using the experience I
Have learned through God’s good clemency.
Know you the fashion they should fare?13611
In my turn would I pluck them bare;