[39] Chaucer says nothing of the blushes of the wife of Bath, which were not at all in her character.
[40] Who, exclaims the wife of Bath, could imagine
The woe that in mine hearte was and pine?
And when I saw he nolde never fine
To reden on this cursed book all night,
All suddenly three leaves have I plight
Out of this booke that he had, and eke
I with my fist so took him on the cheek,
That in our fire he fell backward adown.
And he upstert as doth a wood leoun,
And with his fist he smote me on the head
That in the floor I lay as I were dead.
And when he saw so stille that I lay
He was aghast, and would have fled away.
Till atte last out of my swoon I braide;
O hastow slain me, false thief I said,
And for my land thus hastow murdered me?
Ere I be dead, yet will I kisse thee.
"Pine" is pain; "fine" is cease; "plight" is plucked; "wood" is mad; and "braide" is awoke. Pope has dropped the natural circumstance of the clerk's terror when he fancies he has killed his wife. This alarm brings out more strongly the hypocrisy of his virulent dame in pretending that the blow he gave her on the head, after she had torn the leaves out of his book and knocked him backwards into the fire, was with the deliberate design of murdering her to get possession of her property.
[41] Pope's translation is mawkish, and his "adieu, my dear, adieu!" destroys the point of the story. The wife of Bath seconds the blow with reproaches instead of with terms of endearment, nor does she consent to be pacified until the clerk surrenders at discretion. Had she relaxed before her conquest was complete, she would have lost the opportunity of establishing her dominion. After the line, "Ere I be dead, yet will I kisse thee," Chaucer thus continues:
And near he came, and kneeleth fairadown,
And saide, Deare sister Alisoun,
As help me God, I shall thee never smite;
That I have done it is thyself to wite;
Forgive it me, and that I thee beseke;
And yet oftsoon I hit him on the cheek,
And saide, Thief thus muchel I me wreke
Now will I die, I may no longer speak.
But atte last, with muchel care and woe
We fell accorded by ourselven two;
He gave me all the bridle in mine hand
To have the governance of house and land,
And of his tongue, and of his hand also,
And made him burn his book anon right tho.
"To wite" is to blame; "I me wreke" is "I revenge myself;" and "tho" is then. As soon as the poor clerk consented to have no will of his own, and to be governed like a school-boy by his master, the dame declares,
God help me so, I was to him as kind
As any wife from Denmark unto Inde.
It must have been holiday time with him, notwithstanding, when the wife of Bath set out on one of her pilgrimages, and left him in peace at home.