This entent and an hundred sithe worse
Writeth this man; there God his bones curse.
"Sithe" signifies "times." Pope has generalised the imprecation, and extended it to all bards, living or deceased, whereby the fitness of invoking a curse upon their bones is destroyed.
[6] Chaucer would have thought it an anomaly for a Christian knight to invoke the heathen deities. The original is,
A wife! ah! Sainte Mary, benedicite,
How might a man have any adversite
That hath a wife? certes I cannot say.
The requirements of the metre in this and other passages of Chaucer, show that benedicite was sometimes contracted, in the pronunciation, to ben'cite.
[7] The merchant, in his account of the motives which actuated the knight, dilates more largely in the original, and in more enthusiastic language, upon the felicity of marriage. A wife helps her husband in his work, is the careful guardian of his property, and is perfect in her submission.
She saith nought ones nay when he saith ye;
Do this, saith he; all ready, sir, saith she.
Consequently the married man
Upon his bare knees ought all his life
Thanken his God that him hath sent a wife;
and if he is not yet possessed of the treasure, he ought to pray without ceasing that it may be vouchsafed him, for then he is established in safety, and