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16 THE WRIGHT COMES HOME AND FINDS THE THREE CULPRITS.

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Thus be wryght stode herkenyng;
Hys wyfe was ware of hys comyng,
And ageynst hym went sche.
"Dame," he seyd, "what ys bis dynne?
I here gret noyse here wythynne;
Teft me, so god the spede."
"Syr," sche seyd, “workemen thre
Be come to helpe you and me,

Ther-of we haue gret nede;
Fayne would I wete what they were."
Butt when he sawe hys lord there,

Hys hert bygan to drede :
To see hys lord in þat place,
He bought yt was a strange cas,

And seyd, "so god hym spede,
What do ye here, my lord and knygħt?
Tett me nowe for godes mygħt

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,
By god in trinite."

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,
Butt nowe late me saye."

Anon sche sent after the lady brygħt
For to fett home her lord and knyght,
Therto sche seyd nogħt;

Sche told her what they hadde ment,

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THE LORD'S WIFE SEES HIM IN THE CELLAR.

And of ther purpos & ther intente
That they would haue wrought.
Glad was bat lady of that tydyng;
When sche wyst her lord was lyuyng,
Ther-of sche was fult fayne:
Whan sche came vn-to be steyre abouen),
Sche lokyd vn-to be seller downe,

And seyd, pis ys nott to leyne,-
"Good syres, what doo you here?"
"Dame, we by owre mete fuft dere,

Wyth gret trauayle and peyne;
I pray you helpe bat we were owte,
And I wytt swere wyth-owtyn dowte
Neuer to come here agayne."

The lady spake the wyfe vn-tylle,
And seyd "dame, yf yt be youre wylle,
What doo thes meyny here?”
The carpentarys wyfe her answerd sykerly,
"Att they would haue leyne me by;
Euerych, in ther manere,

Gold and syluer they me brought,
And forsoke yt, and would yt noght,
The ryche gyftes so clere.

Wyllyng bey were to do me schame,
I toke ther gyftes wyth-owtyn blame,
And ther they be att thre."

The lady answerd her anon),
"I haue thynges to do att home

Mo than two or thre;

I wyst my lord neuer do ryght noght
Of no þing bat schuld be wrought,

Such as fallyth to me."

The lady lawghed and made good game
Whan they came owte att in-same

From the swyngylt tre.

The knyght seyd "felowys in fere,
I am glad þat we be here,

and tells her

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what he and his

companions came there for.

The lady

looks down into
the cellar,
and says, "Good
sirs, what are
you doing?"

"Earning our
meat full dear:

help us out, and I'll never come here again."

The lady asks
the wife why
[leaf 186]

the men are
there.

The wife says
they wanted to
lie with her, and
offered her gold
and silver;

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,

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THE WRIGHT'S WIFE SETS THE CULPRITS FREE.

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By godes dere pyte;

"Ah, you'd have worked too if

you'd been with us,

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I never had such

a turn in my life before, I can tell you."

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Then the Lord

and lady go home,

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as ADAM of

COBSAM says.

[leaf 186, back]

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On their

way home

they halt,

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Dame, and ye hadde bene wyth vs,
Ye would haue wrought, by swete Ihesus,

As welle as dyd we."

And when they cam vp abouen)

They turnyd abowte and lokyd downe,
The lord seyd, "so god saue me,

Yet hadde I neuer such a fytte
As I haue hadde in þat lowe pytte;

So mary so mutt me spede."
The knyght and thys lady bryght,
Howe they would home that nyght,
For no thyng they would abyde;
And so they went home;
Thys seyd Adam of Cobsam.1
By the weye as they rode
Throwe a wode in ther playeng,
For to here the fowlys syng

They hovyd stylle and bode.
The stuard sware by godes ore,
And so dyd the proctoure much more,
That neuer in ther lyfe

Would they no more come in pat wonne
Whan they were onys thens come,

Thys forty yere and fyve.

Of the tresure that they brought,
The lady would geue hem ryght noght,

Butt gaue yt to the wryghtes wyfe.
Thus the wryghtes garlond was feyre of hewe,
And hys wyfe bothe good and trewe :

There-of was he fuft blythe;

I take wytnes att gret and smał,
Thus trewe bene good women all

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.

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MAY ALL GOOD WIVES GO TO HEAVEN!

Whan they mombytt on ther bedys
Ther pater noster ryue.

Here ys wretyn a geste of the wryght
That hadde a garlond wett I-dyght,
The coloure wytt neuer fade.
Now god, þat ys heuyn kyng,
Graunt vs att hys dere blessyng

Owre hertes for to glade;

And aft tho that doo her husbondys rygħt,
Pray we to Ihesu fult of myght,

That feyre mott hem byfalle,

And that they may come to heuen blys,
For thy dere moderys loue ther-of nott to mys,
Alle good wyues alle.

Now alle tho that thys tretys hath hard,
Ihesu graunt hem, for her reward,
As trew louers to be

As was the wryght vn-to hys wyfe
And sche to hym duryng her lyfe.
Amen, for charyte.

Here endyth the wryghtes processe trewe
Wyth hys garlond feyre of hewe

That neuer dyd fade the coloure.
It was made, by the avyse

Of hys wywes moder wytty and wyse,
Of flourys most of honoure,
Of roses whyte bat wylt nott fade,
Whych floure alt ynglond doth glade,

Wyth trewloues medelyd in sygħt;
Vn-to the whych floure I-wys
The loue of god and of the comenys
Subdued bene of rygħt.

Explicit.

May be subdied; the word has been corrected.

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Here then is
written a tale
of the Wright and
his Garland.

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,
A-nothyr swyngelyd good and fyne

By-fore the swyngytt-tre,
The thyrde did rele and spynne,

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
And Englys men yn enuye,

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.

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