'Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow, I have enough, on even and on morrow,' Quoth the Merchant, 'and so have other mo’, That wedded be; I trow* that it be so; *believe For well I wot it fareth so by me.
I have a wife, the worste that may be, For though the fiend to her y-coupled were, She would him overmatch, I dare well swear. Why should I you rehearse in special Her high malice? she is *a shrew at all.
* *thoroughly, in There is a long and large difference everything wicked* Betwixt Griselda’s greate patience, And of my wife the passing cruelty. Were I unbounden, all so may I the,* *thrive I woulde never eft* come in the snare.
*again We wedded men live in sorrow and care; Assay it whoso will, and he shall find That I say sooth, by Saint Thomas of Ind,<2> As for the more part; I say not all, — God shielde* that it shoulde so befall. *forbid Ah!
good Sir Host, I have y-wedded be These moneths two, and more not, pardie; And yet I trow* that he that all his life *believe Wifeless hath been, though that men would him rive* *wound Into the hearte, could in no mannere Telle so much sorrow, as I you here Could tellen of my wife’s cursedness.
'* *wickedness 'Now,' quoth our Host, 'Merchant, so God you bless, Since ye so muche knowen of that art, Full heartily I pray you tell us part. ' 'Gladly,' quoth he; 'but of mine owen sore, For sorry heart, I telle may no more.
' Notes to the Prologue to the Merchant’s Tale 1. Though the manner in which the Merchant takes up the closing words of the Envoy to the Clerk’s Tale, and refers to the patience of Griselda,