The Face of the Fields

by Dallas Lore Sharp

For, also sicker as In principio

Mulier est hominis confusio;

translating it for her thus:—

Madam, the sentence of this Latin is—

Woman is mannës joy and all his blis,

while she tells him he needs a pill for his liver in spite of the fact that he wears a beard. It is fine scorn, but passing sad, following so close upon the old English love song that Chauntecleer was wont to wake up singing.

It is here, at this critical juncture of the nature-story, that Chaucer pauses to remark seriously:—

For thilkë tyme, as I have understondë,

Bestës and briddës couldë speke and singë.

Certainly they could; and “speking and singing in thilkë tyme” seems much more natural for “bestës and briddës” than many of the things they do nowadays.