“I trow there be a dear year
Of patient women now-a-days.
Who grieveth them with word or cheer
Let him beware of such assays;
For it is more than thirty Mays
That I have sought from lond to lond,
But yet one Grisield ne’er I fond.
“I found but one in all my live,
And she was dead ago full yore;
For more pastúre I will not strive
Nor seeké for my food no more.
Ne for vitail me to restore;
Women ben woxen [88a] so prudént
They will no more be patient.”
Then shall be pourtrayed, after Chichevache, an old man with a baton on his back, menacing the beast for devouring of his wife.
“My wife, alas, devouréd is,
Most patiént and most pesíble!
She never said to me amiss,
Whom now hath slain this beast horrible!
And for it is an impossible
To find again e’er such a wife
I will live solé all my life.”
For now of newé, for their prow, [88b]
The wivés of full high prudénce
Have of assent made their avow
T’ exile for ever patiénce,
And cried wolfs-head obedience,
To maké Chichevaché fail
Of them to findé more vitail.
Now Chichevaché may fast long
And die for all her cruelty,
Women have made themselves so strong
For to outrage humility.
O silly husbands, wo ben ye!
Such as can have no patiénce
Against your wivés violence.
If that ye suffer, ye be but dead,
Bicorn awaiteth you so sore;
Eke of your wives go stand in dread,
If ye gainsay them any more!
And thus ye stand, and have done yore,
Of life and death betwixt coveyne [89]
Linkéd in a double chain.
Best to be Blyth.
By WILLIAM DUNBAR.
Full oft I muse, and hes in thocht
How this fals Warld is ay on flocht,
Quhair [91a] no thing ferme is nor degest; [91d]
And when I haif my mynd all socht,
For to be blyth me think it best.