Note 11 — JANUARY AND MAY:
Reading edition
In the original,
But one thing warn I you, my friendes dear, I will none old wife have in no manere.
Marriages seem to have taken place in those days at a very early age. The wife of Bath married at twelve, and the knight's notion of an "old wife" it appears, five lines further on, was a woman of twenty. He insists that he will marry nobody that is above sixteen:
She shall not passe sixteene year certain. Old fish, and young flesh, that would I have full fain. Bet is, quoth he, a pike than a pikerel, And bet than old beef is the tender veal.
"Bet" is for "better."