SON. If that ye be, father, well remembered,
As the same I believe ye cannot forget,
You said that, so soon as I were married,
Much pain and trouble thereby I should get.
FATHER. Hast thou by proof, son, this thing tried?
SON. Yea, alas, too much I have experienced:
My wife I did wed all full of frenzy.
My seely poor shoulders hath now so bruised,
That like to a cripple I move me weakly,
Being full often with the staff thwacked:
She spareth no more my flesh and bone,
Than if my body were made of stone!
Her will, her mind, and her commandment
From that day hither I have fulfilled,
Which if I did not, I was bitterly shent,
And with many strokes grievously punished:
That would God, the hour when I was married,
In the midst of the church I might have sinked.
I think there is no man under the sun,
That here on the earth beareth life,
Which would do such drudgery as I have done,
At the unkind words of such a wife;
For how I was used, and in what wise,
A day to declare will not suffice.
If this be not true, as I have spoken,
To my good neighbours I me report,
Who other whiles, when I was smitten,
My wife to be gentle did then exhort:
For glad I was to abide all labour,
Whereby the less might be my dolour.[372]
Wherefore, good father, I you humbly desire
To have pity of me and some compassion,
Or else I am like to lie fast in the mire,
Without any succour or consolation:
For at this hour I have not a penny,
Myself to help in this great misery.
FATHER. For so much as by my advice and counsel
In no manner wise thou wouldest be ruled.
Therefore to thee I cannot do well,
But let thee still suffer as thou hast deserved,
For that thou hast suffered is yet nothing
To that tribulation which is behind coming.
SON. Alas, father, what shall I do?
My wits of themselves cannot devise
What thing I were best go unto,
Whereof an honest living may arise:
Wherefore, gentle father, in this distress,
Somewhat assuage mine heaviness.
FATHER. What should I do, I cannot tell,
For now that thou hast taken a wife,
With me thy father thou mayest not dwell,
But always with her spend thy life.
Thou mayest not again thy wife forsake,
Which during life to thee thou didst take.
SON. Alas, I am not able thus to endure,
Though thereunto I were never so willing;
For my wife is of such a crooked nature,
As no woman else in this day living,
And if the very truth I shall confess,
She is to me an evil that is endless.
FATHER. If that thou thinkest thyself alone
Only to lead this irksome life,
Thou may'st learn what grief, sorrow and moan,
Socrates had with Xantippe his wife[373];
Her husband full oft she taunted and checked,
And, as the book saith, unhonestly mocked.
SON. I cannot tell what was Socrates wife,
But mine I do know, alas, too well;
She is one that is evermore full of strife,
And of all scolders beareth the bell.
When she speaketh best, then brawleth her tongue;
When she is still, she fighteth apace;
She is an old witch, though she be young:
No mirth with her, no joy or solace!
FATHER. I cannot, my son, thy state redress;
Me thy father thou didst refuse;
Wherefore now help thy own foolishness,
And of thy wife no longer muse.