Ful lightly maist thow be a cokewoolde.
Pt.—And if thou take a wif that to the is vntrewe
Ful ofte tyme it shal the rẽwe.
So also MS. Harl. 1758, Laud 600 and 739, Lichfield, &c. The black-letter editions of 1550 and 1561 have a much better version of the same, for they omit that and is in the former (too long) line, and insert sore before rewe in the latter (too short) one.
Dd.—And if thow take a wyf of heye lynage
She shal be hauteyn and of gret costage.
So also (according to Tyrwhitt) the Haistwell MS. and MS. Royal 17. D. xv; and, according to Furnivall, MS. Chr. Ch. C. 6.
In six MSS., according to Tyrwhitt, they are omitted; and on this account he omits them, on the plea that they 'form the opening of a new argument,... and consequently would have been cancelled, if he [Chaucer] had lived to publish his work.' But the sense is quite complete in the form in which I give them, from the two best MSS.
1311. Against this line is written, in the margin of MS. E.—'Uxor est diligenda quia donum Dei est: Iesus filius Sirac: domus et diuicie dantur a parentibus, a Domino autem proprie uxor bona uel prudens.' But the reference is wrong; the quotation is not from Ecclesiasticus (or Jesus the son of Sirach), but from Prov. xix. 14. The Vulgate has uxor prudens, omitting bona uel. The whole quotation is from Albertano of Brescia's Liber de Amore Dei (Köppel).