The Wife of Bath

By Geoffrey Chaucer

The Wyves Tale of Bathe and prologue are among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. They give insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and are probably of interest to Chaucer himself, for the character is one of his most developed ones, with her prologue twice as long as her tale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781633841734

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340s-1400) was an English poet and civil servant. Born in London to a family of wealthy vintners, Chaucer became a page to a noblewoman as a teenager, gaining access to the court of King Edward III. He served in the English army at the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, was captured during the siege of Rheims, and returned to England after a sizeable ransom was paid by the king. Afterward, he travelled throughout Europe, married Philippa de Roet—with whom he had four children—and eventually settled in London to study law. In 1367, Chaucer joined the royal court of Edward III, serving in a variety of roles while also writing his earliest known poem, The Book of the Duchess. In 1373, following a military expedition in Picardy, he visited Genoa and Florence where he is believed to have met both Petrarch and Boccaccio, who introduced him to the Italian poetry that would heavily influence the form and content of his own work. Chaucer was appointed to the role of comptroller of customs for the port of London in 1374, a position he would hold for the next twelve years. He is believed to have written The Canterbury Tales—his most important work and an early masterpiece of English literature—in the early 1380s, was appointed clerk of the king’s works in 1389, and, in the last decade of his life, lived on an annual pension granted him by King Richard II. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and is recognized today as the father of English literature.

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The Wife of Bath

by Geoffrey Chaucer

SMK Books

Copyright © 2014 SMK Books

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Manufactured in the United States of America

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ISBN 978-1-63384-173-4

Table of Contents

The Prologue.

The Tale.

The Prologue.

Experience, though none authority authoritative texts

Were in this world, is right enough for me

To speak of woe that is in marriage:

For, lordings, since I twelve year was of age,

(Thanked be God that is etern on live), lives eternally

Husbands at the church door have I had five,

For I so often have y-wedded be,

And all were worthy men in their degree.

But me was told, not longe time gone is

That sithen Christe went never but ones since

To wedding, in the Cane of Galilee, Cana

That by that ilk example taught he me, same

That I not wedded shoulde be but once.

Lo, hearken eke a sharp word for the nonce, occasion

Beside a welle Jesus, God and man,

Spake in reproof of the Samaritan:

Thou hast y-had five husbandes, said he;

"And thilke man, that now hath wedded thee, that

Is not thine husband:" thus said he certain;

What that he meant thereby, I cannot sayn.

But that I aske, why the fifthe man

Was not husband to the Samaritan?

How many might she have in marriage?

Yet heard I never tellen in mine age in my life

Upon this number definitioun.

Men may divine, and glosen up and down; comment

But well I wot, express without a lie,

God bade us for to wax and multiply;

That gentle text can I well understand.

Eke well I wot, he said, that mine husband

Should leave father and mother, and take to me;

But of no number mention made he,

Of bigamy or of octogamy;

Why then should men speak of it villainy? as if it were a disgrace

Lo here, the wise king Dan Solomon, Lord

I trow that he had wives more than one;

As would to God it lawful were to me

To be refreshed half so oft as he!

What gift of God had he for all his wives? special favour, licence

No man hath such, that in this world alive is.

God wot, this noble king, as to my wit, as I understand

The first night had many a merry fit

With each of them, so well was him on live. so well he lived

Blessed be God that I have wedded five!

Welcome the sixth whenever that he shall.

For since I will not keep me chaste in all,

When mine husband is from the world y-gone,

Some Christian man shall wedde me anon.

For then th’ apostle saith that I am free

To wed, a’ God’s half, where it liketh me. on God’s part

He saith, that to be wedded is no sin;

Better is to be wedded than to brin. burn

What recketh me though folk say villainy care evil

Of

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[R. Charles Morreale · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

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