HOW THE GOOD WIFE TAUGHT HER DAUGHTER
MS. Lambeth 853, p. 102, about 1430, written without breaks. Other MSS. are Trinity College, Cambridge, R. 3, 19, and Ashmole 61, p. 7 (printed in Queene Elizabethes Achademy), a later and inferior text, which contains, however, a fresh and interesting stanza:
“And if it thus thee betide,
That friends fail thee on every side,
And God from thee thy child take,
Thy wreak (vengeance) on God thou must not take,
For thyself it will undo
And all thews (virtues) that thee ’longs to.
Many a one for her own folly,
Spills (destroys) themselves unthriftily.”