SHE: Wherefore?
HE: Thou'rt a woman.
SHE: And thou a man, ill-tongued, ill-beseen, ill-mannered, unlovely, and I like thee not!
HE: And what is worse, the fish bite not.
Now here, and very suddenly, she fell a-weeping, to the Knight's no small discomfiture, though she wept in fashion wondrous apt and pretty; wherefore Sir Pertinax glanced at her once, looked twice and, looking, scratched his ear, rubbed his chin and finally questioned her in turn:
HE: Distressful damosel, wherefore this dole? SHE: For that I am weary, woeful and solitary. And thou—thou'rt harsh of look, rough of tongue, ungentle of—HE: Misfortunate maiden, thy loneliness is soon amended, get thee to thy friends—thy gossips, thy—
SHE: I have none. And thou'rt fierce and ungentle of face.
Here she wept the more piteously and Sir Pertinax, viewing her distress, forgot his hook and worm, wherefore a fish nibbled it slyly, while the Knight questioned her further:
HE: Woeful virgin, whence comest thou?
SHE: From afar. And thou art ofeatures grim and—