A number of good fellows had once assembled to make good cheer at the tavern and drink as much as they could. And when they had eaten and drunk to God’s praise and usque ad Hebreos (*), and had paid their reckoning, some of them began to say, “How shall we be received by our wives when we return home?” “God knows if we shall be excommunicated.” “They will pluck us by the beard.” “By Our Lady!” said one, “I am afraid to go home.” “God help me! so am I,” said another. “I shall be sure to hear a sermon for Passion Sunday.” “Would to God that my wife were dumb—I should drink more boldly than I do now.”
(*) A pun on the word ebreos (drunken).
So spoke all of them with one exception, and that was a good fellow who said,
“How now, good sirs? You all seem every miserable, and each has a wife who forbids him to go to the tavern, and is displeased if you drink. Thank God my wife is not one of that sort, for if I drink ten—or even a hundred-times a day that is not enough for her,—in short I never knew an instance in which she did not wish I had drunk as much again. For, when I come back from the tavern she always wishes that I had the rest of the barrel in my belly, and the barrel along with it. Is not that a sign that I do not drink enough to please her?”
When his companions heard this argument they began to laugh, and all praised his wife, and then each one went his own way.
The good fellow we have mentioned, went home, where he found his wife not over friendly, and ready to scold him; and as soon as she saw him she began the usual lecture, and, as usual, she wished the rest of the barrel in his belly.
“Thank you, my dear, you are always much kinder than all the other women in the town for they all get wild if their husbands drink too much, but you—may God repay you—always wish that I may have a good draught that would last me all my days.”
“I don’t know that I wish that,” she said, “but I pray to God that you may drink such a lot some day that you may burst.”
Whilst they were conversing thus affectionately, the soup-kettle on the fire began to boil over, because the fire was too hot, and the good man, who noticed that his wife did not take it off the fire, said;
“Don’t you see, wife, that the pot is boiling over?”