Note 40 — THE WIFE OF BATH.
Reading edition
Who, exclaims the wife of Bath, could imagine
The woe that in mine hearte was and pine? And when I saw he nolde never fine To reden on this cursed book all night, All suddenly three leaves have I plight Out of this booke that he had, and eke I with my fist so took him on the cheek, That in our fire he fell backward adown. And he upstert as doth a wood leoun, And with his fist he smote me on the head That in the floor I lay as I were dead. And when he saw so stille that I lay He was aghast, and would have fled away. Till atte last out of my swoon I braide; O hastow slain me, false thief I said, And for my land thus hastow murdered me? Ere I be dead, yet will I kisse thee.
"Pine" is pain; "fine" is cease; "plight" is plucked; "wood" is mad; and "braide" is awoke. Pope has dropped the natural circumstance of the clerk's terror when he fancies he has killed his wife. This alarm brings out more strongly the hypocrisy of his virulent dame in pretending that the blow he gave her on the head, after she had torn the leaves out of his book and knocked him backwards into the fire, was with the deliberate design of murdering her to get possession of her property.