THE CLERK'S TALE
my heart and my spirit, the complaint cometh so bitter to mine ears. Thus they say : 'When Walter is gone, then shall the blood of Janicle succeed and be our lord, for we have none other.' Such words, in truth, my people say; and good heed ought I to take of such murmuring, for certainly I dread such thoughts though they be not spoken plainly in my hearing. I will live in peace if I may; wherefore I am utterly determined to serve this child privily even as by night I served his sister. Of this I warn you that ye may not, on a sudden, go beside yourself for woe; be patient, thereof I pray you." "I have said," quoth she, "and shall ever say thus: I wish for nothing and I refuse nothing, save in sooth as ye list; it grieveth me not at all though my daughter and my son be slain, at your command that is to say, I have had no share of my two children save first sickness, and afterward pain and woe. Ye be our lord, do with your own things ever as ye list; ask no counsel of me. For as I left at home all my clothing when I first came to you, even so left I my will and all my freedom, and took your clothing; wherefore I pray you do your pleasure; I will obey your wish. And certes if I had prescience of your will ere ye tell it me, I would perform it without neglect; but now that I wot your desire, firmly and stably I receive it; for if I wist that my death would gladden you, right gladly would I die to please you. Death weigheth naught in comparison with your love." And when this marquis saw the constancy of his wife, he cast down his two eyes, and wondered how she could suffer all this grief in patience. And forth he goeth with a dreary countenance but unto his heart it was a full great delight.
This ugly officer, in the same wise as he took her daughter,
even so, or worse (if men can imagine worse), hath snatched
159
