Note 19 — THE WIFE OF BATH.
Reading edition
I trow I loved him beste for that he Was of his love daungerous to me. We women have, if that I shall not lie, In this matter a queynte fantasy. Wayte, what thing we may not lightly have, Thereafter will we soonest cry and crave. Forbid us thing, and that desire we; Press on us fast, and thenne will we flee. With danger outen alle we our ware; Great press at market maketh dear chaffare.
"Daungerous" in the second line means sparing, and in the last line but one, "with danger" signifies with a scarcity. Then, says the wife of Bath, we must produce all our own wares to give in exchange. At the date of her fifth marriage she was forty and the bridegroom was only twenty. Everything is now reversed. Her first husbands had endowed her with all their property that they might buy a young wife in their old age. She, in turn, that she may procure a young husband, gives him
all the land and fee That ever was me give therebefore; But afterward repented me full sore.
Her aged mates had worshipped her, and she repaid them with disdain. In her mature years she is infatuated by a youth, and he, who has no relish for the homage of a matron of forty, slights her just as she had done her early husbands under similar circumstances.