Note 12 — THE WIFE OF BATH.
Reading edition
In Chaucer she states that her husbands would grant all her demands to soothe her into good humour:
That made me that ever I would them chide. For though the pope had seten them beside, I nold not spare them at their owne board, For, by my troth, I quit them word for word. As help me very God omnipotent, Though I right now should make my testament, I owe them nought a word, that it nis quit; I brought it so aboute by my wit, That they must give it up, as for the best, Or elles had we never been in rest. For though he looked as a grim lion, Yet should he fail of his conclusion.
Pope has omitted the latter half of the lines and thus obliterated one of those nicer traits of nature with which the original abounds. Men put on the grimness of the lion, and think to prevail by strength, but women conquer by pertinacity. The majority of men grow weary of perpetual conflict, and purchase peace by concession; but women of the stamp of the wife of Bath wilt wrangle for ever, and prefer endless discord to the subjugation of self-will. Dryden, adding to Virgil's thought, has expressed the idea, Æn. v. 1024:
Ev'n Jove is thwarted by his haughty wife, Still vanquished yet she still renews the strife.