Trust, Perfect Love, and Entire Charity,
Fervent Will, and Entalented Courage,
All thewis good, as sitteth well to be,
Have women, ere, of custom and usage.
And well they canin manis ire asuage,
With soft wordis, discreet and benign.
What they be inward, they show outward by sign!
Womanis heart unto no cruelty
Inclined is; but they be Charitable,
Piteous, Devout, Full of Humility,
Shamefast, Debonaire, and Amiable,
Dread full, and of wordis measurable:
What women, these have not, peradventure;
Followeth not the way of their nature.
Men sayin that our First Mother na'theless
Made all mankind lesin his liberty,
And nakid it of joyè, doubtless,
For GOD is hest disobeyèd she,
When she presumed to taste of the tree,
That GOD forbade, that she eat thereof should.
And ne had the Devil be, no more she would!
The envious swelling, that the Fiend our foe
Had unto man in heart, for his wealth,
Sent a serpent, and made her for to go
To deceive Eve; and thus was manis wealth
Bereft him by the Fiend, in a stealth,
The woman not knowing of the deceipt,
God wot! Full far was it from her conceipt!
Wherefore I say, that this good woman Eve
Our father Adam, ne deceived nought.
There may no man for a deceipt it prove
Properly, but that she, in heart and thought,
Had it compassed[1] first, ere she it wrought.
And for such was not her Impression,
Men may it call no Deceipt, by reason.
Ne no wight disceiveth, but he purpose!
The Fiend this deceipt cast, and nothing She.
Then it is wrong to deemin or suppose
That of his harm She should the causè be.
Wytith the Fiend, and his be the maugre!
And all excusèd have her innocence,
Save only, that she brake obedience!
And touching this, full fewè men there be,
Unnethis any, dare I safely say!
From day to day, as men may all day see,
But that the hest of GOD they disobey.
Have this in mindè, siris! I you pray.
If that ye be discreet and reasonable;
Ye will her hold the more excusable!
And where men say, "In man is stedfastness;
And woman is of her courage unstable."
Who may of Adam bear such a witness?
Tellith me this! Was he not changeable?
They both werin in one case semblable.
Save that willing, the Fiend deceived Eve;
And so did she not Adam, by your leave!
Yet was this sinnè happy to mankind,
The Fiend disceived was, for all his sleight;
For aught he could him in his sleightis wind.
For his trespass, came from heaven on height
GOD, to discharge man of his heavy weight
He, flesh and blood ytook of a Virgine,
And suffered death, him to deliver of pine.
And GOD, to whom there may nothing hid be,
If he, in woman knowen had such malice,
As men record of them in generalty;
Of our Lady, of Life Reparatrice
He n'old have be born: but that she of vice
Was void, and full of virtue, well He wist,
Endowid! of her, to be born Him list.