“And if your wife be meek and good, and serve you well and pleasantly, look ye be not so mad as to charge her too grievously, but rule her with a fair hand and easy, and cherish her for her good deeds. For a thing unskilfully overdone makes needless grief to grow, and it is better to have a meal’s meat of homely fare with peace and quiet, than an hundred dishes with grudging and much care. And therefore learn this well that if you want a wife to your ease, take her never the more for the riches she may have, though she might endow you with lands.
“And ye shall not displease your wife, nor call her by no villainous names, for it is a shame to you to miscall a woman; and in so doing, ye are not wise, for if ye defame your own wife, no wonder that another should do so! Soft and fair will tame alike hart and hind, buck and doe.
“On the other hand, be not too hasty to fight or chide, if thy wife come to you at any time with complaint of man or child; and be not avenged till you know the truth, for you might make a stir in the dark, and afterwards it should rue you both.
“And, son, if you be well at ease, and sit warm among your neighbours, do not get new-fangled ideas, or be hasty to change, or to flit;[[114]] for if ye do, ye lack wit and are unstable, and men will speak of it and say: ‘This fool can bide nowhere!’
“And, son, the more goods you have, the rather bear you meekly, and be humble, and boast not overmuch; it is wasted, for by their boasting men know fools.
“And look you pay well what you owe, and set no great store by other riches, for death takes both high and low, and then—farewell, all that there is! And therefore do by my counsel, and take example from other men, how little their goods avail them when they be dolven[[115]] in their dens;[[116]] and one that was not of his kin hath his wife, and all that there is.[[117]]
“Son, keep you from deadly sin, and assay to enter Paradise. Make amends for your trespasses and deal out of your goods to poor men, make friends of your foes, and strive to gain salvation for your soul, for the world is false and frail, and every day doth worsen. Son, set nought by this world’s weal, for it fares as a ripe cherry. And death is ever, I trow, the most certain thing that is; and nothing is so uncertain as to know the time thereof. Therefore, my son, think on this, on all that I have said, and may Jesus, who for us bare the crown of thorns, bring us to His bliss.”
Amen.
JOHN RUSSELL’S BOOK OF NURTURE
“IN nomine Patris, God keep me, et Filii, for charity, Et Spiritus Sancti, where that I go by land or else by sea!