He cleped [called] it Valerie and Theofraste,[458]
At whiche book he lough alwey ful faste.
. . . . . . . . . .
And every night and day was his custume,
When he had leyser and vacacioun
From other worldly occupacioun,
To reden on this book of wikked wyves.”[459]
And having quickly taken measure of the Wife’s character, he could not refrain from reading to her stories which seemed to contain a lesson and to point a moral for her. She lost patience, and was “beten for a book, pardee.”
“Up-on a night Jankin, that was our syre,
Redde on his book, as he sat by the fyre.”
And when his wife saw he would “never fyne” to read “this cursed book al night,” all suddenly she plucked three leaves out of it, “right as he radde,” and with her fist so took him on the cheek that he fell “bakward adoun” in the fire. Springing up like a mad lion he smote her on the head with his fist, and she lay upon the floor as she were dead. Whereupon he stood aghast, sorry for what he had done; and “with muchel care and wo” they made up their quarrel: our clerk, let us hope, winning peace, and his wife securing the mastery of their household affairs and the destruction of the “cursed book.”
In Troilus we are told that Uncle Pandarus comes into the paved parlour, where he finds his niece sitting with two other ladies—