THE CLERK'S TALE
prosperity. Endure with even heart, I advise you, the strokes of fortune." And she answered again patiently, "My lord, I know and knew alway that betwixt your magnificence and my poverty no wight can make comparison; thereof is no doubt. I never deemed me in any manner worthy to be your wife, no, nor your chambermaid. And in this house where ye made me a lady—I take for my witness the high God, may he so surely comfort my soul!—I never held me lady nor mistress, but the humble servant of your worship, above every worldly creature, and that shall I ever, while my life may last. That ye of your goodness have held me so long in honour and noble estate where I was not worthy to be—for that I thank God and you, and to God I pray that it may be requited unto you; there is no more to say. Unto my father will I gladly depart and dwell with him unto my life's end. Where I was fostered a little child, there till I die will I lead my life—a widow clean in body, in heart and in all. For sith I gave unto you my maidenhood and am in sooth your faithful wife, God shield that I, the wife of such a lord, should take another man to husband and to mate. And God of his favour grant you weal and prosperity of your new wife, for I will gladly yield her my place, in which I was wont to be full blissful; for sith it pleaseth you that I shall go, my lord, that whilom wast all my heart's content, I will go when ye list. But though ye proffer me such dowry as I first brought, I have well in mind it was but my wretched clothes and uncomely, which it were hard now for me to light upon. O good God! how gentle and how kind ye seemed by your speech and your look the day that our marriage was made! But it is said truly—at least I find it so, for in me it is proved indeed—'love
grown old is not as when it was new.' But certes, for no adversity,
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