16 THE WRIGHT COMES HOME AND FINDS THE THREE CULPRITS. Thus be wryght stode herkenyng; Ther-of we haue gret nede; Hys hert bygan to drede : And seyd, "so god hym spede, Howe cam thys vn-to?" The knyght seyd "What ys best rede? Mercy I aske for my mysdede, My hert ys wondyr wo." "So ys myne, verament, To se you among thys flex and hempe, Futt sore yt ruyth me; To se you in such hevynes, Futt sore myne hert yt doth oppresse, The wryght bade hys wyfe lett hym owte, "Nay, ben sorowe come on my snowte If they passe hens to-daye Tylt that my lady come and see Howe bey would haue done wyth me, Anon sche sent after the lady brygħt Sche told her what they hadde ment, 570 573 576 579 582 585 588 591 594 597 600 603 THE LORD'S WIFE SEES HIM IN THE CELLAR. And of ther purpos & ther intente And seyd, pis ys nott to leyne,- Wyth gret trauayle and peyne; The lady spake the wyfe vn-tylle, Gold and syluer they me brought, Wyllyng bey were to do me schame, The lady answerd her anon), Mo than two or thre; I wyst my lord neuer do ryght noght Such as fallyth to me." The lady lawghed and made good game From the swyngylt tre. The knyght seyd "felowys in fere, and tells her 17 what he and his companions came there for. The lady looks down into "Earning our help us out, and I'll never come here again." The lady asks the men are The wife says she took their gifts, and there they are. The lady says she really wants her lord for herself, and laughs heartily when the three eulprits come out. The Lord says, 18 THE WRIGHT'S WIFE SETS THE CULPRITS FREE. 606 By godes dere pyte; "Ah, you'd have worked too if you'd been with us, 609 I never had such a turn in my life before, I can tell you." 612 615 Then the Lord and lady go home, 618 as ADAM of COBSAM says. [leaf 186, back] 621 On their way home they halt, 624 Dame, and ye hadde bene wyth vs, As welle as dyd we." And when they cam vp abouen) They turnyd abowte and lokyd downe, Yet hadde I neuer such a fytte So mary so mutt me spede." They hovyd stylle and bode. Would they no more come in pat wonne Thys forty yere and fyve. Of the tresure that they brought, Butt gaue yt to the wryghtes wyfe. There-of was he fuft blythe; I take wytnes att gret and smał, That nowe bene on lyve, So come thryste on ther hedys The letter between the band a has had the lower part marked over. But it must mean a longs. 642 645 648 651 654 657 660 663 666 669 672 1 MAY ALL GOOD WIVES GO TO HEAVEN! Whan they mombytt on ther bedys Here ys wretyn a geste of the wryght Owre hertes for to glade; And aft tho that doo her husbondys rygħt, That feyre mott hem byfalle, And that they may come to heuen blys, Now alle tho that thys tretys hath hard, As was the wryght vn-to hys wyfe Here endyth the wryghtes processe trewe That neuer dyd fade the coloure. Of hys wywes moder wytty and wyse, Wyth trewloues medelyd in sygħt; Explicit. May be subdied; the word has been corrected. 19 Here then is God grant us all his blessing, and may all true faithful wives come to heaven's bliss, and be such true lovers as the [leaf 187] wright and his wife were. Amen! Here ends our tale of the Garland which was made of White Roses, the flowers that gladden all England, and receive the love of God, and of the Commons too. NOTES. The two first of the three operations of flax-dressing described in lines 526529, p. 15, One of hem knockyd lyne, By-fore the swyngytt-tre, must correspond to the preliminary breaking of the plant, and then the scutching or beating to separate the coarse tow or hards from the tare or fine hemp. Except so far as the swingle served as a heckle, the further heckling of the flax, to render the fibre finer and cleaner, was dispensed with, though heckles (iron combs) must have been in use when the poem was written inasmuch as hekele, hekelare, hekelyn, and hekelynge, are in the Promptorium, ab. 1440 A.D. Under Hatchell, Randle Holme gives a drawing of a heckle. The lines through the h's in the MS. are not, I believe, marks of contraction. There are no insettings of the third lines, or spaces on changes of subject, in the MS. For reference to two analogous stories to that of the Poem, I am indebted to Mr Thomas Wright. The first is that of Constant Duhamel in the third volume of Barbazan, and the second that of the Prioress and her three Suitors in the Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate, published by the Percy Society, ed. Halliwell. She In the Barbazan tale "the wife is violently solicited by three suitors, the priest, the provost, and the forester, who on her refusal persecute her husband. To stop their attacks she gives them appointments at her house immediately after one another, so that when one is there and stripped for the bath, another comes, and, pretending it is her husband, she conceals them one after another in a large tub full of feathers, out of which they can see all that is going on in the room. then sends successively for their three wives to come and bathe with her, the bath being still in the same room, and as each is stripped naked in the bath, she introduces her own husband, who dishonours them one after another, one à l'enverse, with rather aggravating circumstances, and all in view of their three husbands. Finally the latter are turned out of the house naked, or rather well feathered, then hunted by the whole town and their dogs, well bitten and beaten." (If any one wants to see a justification of the former half of the proverb quoted by Roberd of Brunne, Frenche men synne yn lecherye let him read the astounding revelation made of the state of the early French mind by the tales in the 3rd and 4th vols. of Barbazan's Fabliaux, ed. 1808.) The second story, told by Lydgate, is as follows:-A prioress is wooed d by by "a " young knyght, a parson of a paryche, and a burges of a borrow." She promises herself to the first if he will lie for a night in a chapel sewn up in a sheet like a corpse; to the second, if he will perform the funeral service over the knight, and bury him; to the third, if he will dress up like a devil, and frighten both parson and knight. This the burges Sir John does well, but is himself terrified at the corpse getting up: all three run away from one another: the knight falls on a stake, and into a snare set for bucks, and breaks his fore top in falling from the tree; the merchant gets tossed by a bull; the parson breaks his head and jumps into a bramble bush; and the prioress gets rid of them all, but not before she has made the "burges" or "marchaunt" pay her twenty marks not to tell his wife and the country generally of his tricks. -Minor Poems, p. 107-117, ed. 1840. |