YOUNG WOMAN. I never heard in all my life a better,
More pleasant, more meet for the matter;
Now let us go then, the morning is nigh gone,
We cannot any longer here remain:
Farewell, good masters every one,
Till from the church we come again.
[Here they go out, and in cometh the Priest alone.
PRIEST. Sirs, by my troth it is a world to see[339]
The exceeding negligence of every one,
Even from the highest to the lowest degree
Both goodness and conscience is clean gone.
There is a young gentleman in this town,
Who this same day now must be married:
Yet though I would bestow a crown,
That knave the clerk cannot be spied;
For he is safe, if that in the alehouse
He may sit tippling of nut-brown ale,
That oft he comes forth as drunk as a mouse,
With a nose of his own not greatly pale;
And this is not once, but every day
Almost, of my faith, throughout the whole year,
That he these tricks doth use to play,
Without all shame, dread and fear.
He knoweth himself, that yesternight
The said young gentleman came to me,
And then desired that he might
This morning betimes married be;
But now I doubt it will be high noon,
Ere that his business be quite ended,
Unless the knavish fool come very soon,
That this same thing may be despatched;
And therefore, since that this naughty pack
Hath at this present me thus served,
He is like henceforward my good-will to lack,
Or else unwise I might be judged.
I am taught hereafter how such a one to trust
In any matter concerning the church;
For, if I should, I perceive that I must
Of mine own honesty lose very much.
And yet for all this, from week to week,
For his stipend and wages he ever[340] crieth,
And for the same continually doth seek,
As from time to time plainly appeareth;
But whether his wages he hath deserved,
Unto you all I do me report,
Since that his duty he hath not fulfilled,
Nor to the church will scant resort;
That many a time and oft[341] I am fain
To play the priest, clerk, and all,
Though thus to do it is great pain,
And my reward but very small.
Wherefore (God willing) I will such order take,
Before that I be many days elder,
That he shall be glad this town to forsake,
And learn evermore to please his better,
And in such wise all they shall be used,
Which in this parish intend to be clerks;
Great pity it were the church should be disordered,
Because that such swillbowls[342] do not their works.
And to say truth, in many a place,
And other great towns beside this same,
The priests and parishioners be in the like case,
Which to the churchwardens may be a shame.
How should the priest his office fulfil,
Accordingly as indeed he ought,
When that the clerk will have a self-will,
And always in service-time must be sought?
Notwithstanding at this present there is no remedy,
But to take time, as it doth fall,
Wherefore I will go hence and make me ready,
For it helpeth not to chafe or brawl.
[Here the Priest goeth out, and in cometh the Rich Man.
THE RICH MAN.
Coming this day forth of my chamber,
Even as for water to wash I did call,
By chance I espied a certain stranger,
Standing beneath within my hall;
Who in very deed came from the innholder,
Whereas for a time my son did lie,
And said that his master had sent me a letter,
And bad him to bring it with all speed possible;
Wherein he did write that as this day
That unthrift,[343] my son, to a certain maid
Should then be wedded without further delay,
And hath borrowed more than will be paid;
And since that he heard he was my son
By a gentleman or two this other day,
He thought that it should be very well done
To let me have knowledge thereof by the way;
And willed me, if that I would any thing
Of him to be done of me in this matter,
That then he his servant such word should bring,
As at his coming he might do hereafter:
I bad him thank his master most heartily,
And sent him by him a piece of venison,
For that he vouchsafed to write so gently,
Touching the marrying and state of my son;
But notwithstanding I sent him no money
To pay such debts as my son did owe,
Because he had me forsaken utterly,
And me for his good father would not know;
And said that with him I would not make
From that day forward during my life,
But as he had brewed, that so he should bake,
Since of his own choosing he gat him a wife.
Thus, when his servant from me departed,
Into my chamber I went again,
And there a great while I bitterly weeped:
This news to me was so great pain.
And thus with these words I began to moan,
Lamenting and mourning myself all alone:
O madness, O doting of those young folk!
O minds without wit, advice and discretion,
With whom their parents can bear no stroke
In their first matrimonial conjunction:
They know not what misery, grief and unquietness
Will hereafter ensue of their extreme foolishness;
Of all such labours they be clean ignorant,
Which, in the nourishing and keeping of children,
To their great charges it is convenient
Either of them henceforth to sustain:
Concerning expenses bestowed in a house,
They perceive as little as doth the mouse.
On the one side the wife will brawl and scold,
On the other side the infant will cry in the cradle:
Anon, when the child waxeth somewhat old,
For meat and drink he begins to babble:
Hereupon cometh it that at markets and fairs
A husband is forced to buy many wares.
Yet for all this hath my foolish son,
As wise [as] a woodcock,[344] without any wit,
Despising his father's mind and opinion,
Married a wife for him most unfit,
Supposing that mirth to be everlasting,
Which then at the first was greatly pleasing.
How they two will live, I cannot tell;
Whereto they may trust, they have nothing.
My mind giveth me, that they will come dwell
At length by their father for want of living;
But my son doubtless, for anything that I know,
Shall reap in such wise as he did sow;
True he shall find, that Hipponax did write,
Who said with a wife are two days of pleasure;
The first is the joy of the marriage-day and night,
The second to be at the wife's sepulture:
And this by experience he shall prove true,
That of his bridal great evils do ensue.
And (as I suppose) it will prove in his life,
When he shall wish that to him it may chance,
Which unto Eupolis and also his wife,
The night they were wedded, fell for a vengeance;
Who with the heavy ruin of the bed were slain,
As the Poet Ovid in these two verses make plain:
Sit tibi conjugii nox prima novissimi vitae,
Eupolis hoc periit et nova nupta modo.
Ovidius, writing against one Ibis his enemy,
That the first night of his marriage did wish
The last of his life might be certainly,
For so (quoth he) did Eupolis and his wife perish.
Yet to my son I pray God to send,
Because thereunto me nature doth bind,
Though he hath offended, a better end
Than Eupolis and his wife did find.
And now I shall long ever anon,
Till some of those quarters come riding hither,
Unto the which my son is gone,
To know how they do live together.
But I am fasting, and it is almost noon,
And more than time that I had dined:
Wherefore from hence I will go soon;
I think by this time my meat is burned.
[Here the Rich Man goeth out, and in cometh the Young
Man his son with the Young Woman, being both married.
THE HUSBAND.
O my sweet wife, my pretty coney!
THE WIFE.
O my husband, as pleasant as honey.