Et me resbaudissent li membre,
Quant de mon bon tens me remembre,
Et de la jolivete vie
Dont mes cuers a si grant envie.'
And again, just above, l. 13128:—
'Més riens n'i vaut le regreter;
Qui est alé, ne puet venir,' &c.
These lines form part of the speech of La Vieille, on whom the Wife of Bath is certainly modelled; cf. note to A. 461.
483. Ioce, in Latin Judocus, a Breton saint, whose day is Dec. 13, and who died in A. D. 669. Alban Butler says that his hermitage became a famous monastery, which stood in the diocese of Amiens, and was called St. Josse-sur-mer. This part of France became familiar to many Englishmen in the course of the wars of Edward III. See, however, Le Testament de Jean de Meung, 461-4, which I take to mean:—'When dame Katherine sees the proof of Sir Joce, who cares not a prune for his wife's love, she is so fearful that her own husband will do her a like harm, that she often makes for him a staff of a similar bit of wood'; F. 'Si li refait sovent d'autel fust une croce.' It is obvious that Chaucer has copied this in l. 484, and that he here found his rime to croce.
484. 'I made a stick for him of the same wood'; i. e. I retaliated by rousing his jealousy; compare the last note. Croce, a staff, O. F. croce, F. crosse; see Croche in the New E. Dictionary. Cf. Prompt. Parv., p. 103, note 5; and my note to P. Plowm. C. xi. 92.