The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer & Nevill Coghill & Nevill Coghill & Nevill Coghill

Author:Geoffrey Chaucer & Nevill Coghill & Nevill Coghill & Nevill Coghill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2003-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

[GROUP D]

The Wife of Bath’s Tale

The Wife of Bath’s Prologue

‘If there were no authority on earth

Except experience, mine, for what it’s worth,

And that’s enough for me, all goes to show

That marriage is a misery and a woe;

For let me say, if I may make so bold,

My lords, since when I was but twelve years old,

Thanks be to God Eternal evermore,

Five husbands have I had at the church door;

Yes, it’s a fact that I have had so many,

All worthy in their way, as good as any.

‘Someone said recently for my persuasion

That as Christ only went on one occasion

To grace a wedding – in Cana of Galilee –

He taught me by example there to see

That it is wrong to marry more than once.

Consider, too, how sharply, for the nonce,

He spoke, rebuking the Samaritan

Beside the well, Christ Jesus, God and man.

“Thou has had five men husband unto thee

And he that even now thou hast,” said He,

“Is not thy husband.” Such the words that fell;

But what He meant thereby I cannot tell.

Why was her fifth – explain it if you can

No lawful spouse to the Samaritan?

How many might have had her, then, to wife?

I’ve never heard an answer all my life

To give the number final definition.

People may guess or frame a supposition,

But I can say for certain, it’s no lie,

God bade us all to wax and multiply.

That kindly text I well can understand.

Is not my husband under God’s command

To leave his father and mother and take me?

No word of what the number was to be,

Then why not marry two or even eight?

And why speak evil of the married state?

‘Take wise King Solomon of long ago;

We hear he had a thousand wives or so.

And would to God it were allowed to me

To be refreshed, aye, half so much as he!

He must have had a gift of God for wives,

No one to match him in a world of lives!

This noble king, one may as well admit,

On the first night threw many a merry fit

With each of them, he was so much alive.

Blessed be God that I have wedded five!

Welcome the sixth, whenever he appears.

I can’t keep continent for years and years.

No sooner than one husband’s dead and gone

Some other Christian man shall take me on,

For then, so says the Apostle, I am free

To wed, o’ God’s name, where it pleases me.

Wedding’s no sin, so far as I can learn.

Better it is to marry than to burn.

‘What do I care if people choose to see

Scandal in Lamech for his bigamy?

I know that Abraham was a holy man

And Jacob too – I speak as best I can –

Yet each of them, we know, had several brides,

Like many another holy man besides.

Show me a time or text where God disparages

Or sets a prohibition upon marriages

Expressly, let me have it! Show it me!

And where did He command virginity?

I know as well as you do, never doubt it,

All the Apostle Paul has said about it;

He said that as for precepts he had none.

One may advise a woman to be one;

Advice is no commandment in my view.

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