[58]. MS. deir.
[THE WANTON WIFE OF BATH.]
Evans's Old Ballads, i. 277; Collection of 1723, ii. 173.
This excellent ballad, to adopt the encomium of Addison, (Spectator, No. 247,) was admitted by Percy into the earlier editions of the Reliques, (iii. 146, 1st ed.) though excluded from the revised edition of 1794. The same story circulates among the peasantry of England and Scotland in the form of a penny tract or chap-book; Notices of Popular Histories, p. 16, Percy Soc. vol. xxiii., Notes and Queries, New Series, vol. iii. p. 49. The jest is an old one. Mr. Halliwell refers to a fabliau in Barbazan's collection, which contains the groundwork of this piece; Du Vilain qui conquist Paradis par Plait, Meon's ed. iv. 114.
In Bath a wanton wife did dwell,
As Chaucer he doth write,
Who did in pleasure spend her days,
In many a fond delight.
Upon a time love sick she was, 5
And at the length did die;
Her soul at last at Heaven's gate
Did knock most mightily.
Then Adam came unto the gate:
"Who knocketh there?" quoth he: 10
"I am the Wife of Bath," she said,
"And fain would come to thee."
"Thou art a sinner," Adam said,
"And here no place shall have;"
"And so art thou, I trow," quoth she, 15
"And gip, a doting knave!
"I will come in in spite," she said,
"Of all such churls as thee;
Thou wert the causer of our woe,
Our pain and misery; 20