The Wright's Chaste Wife A Merry Tale (about 1462)   By: of Cobsam Adam

Letters that could not be fully displayed are "unpacked" and shown top to bottom within braces:

{GH}, {gh} for small and capital yogh. {l~l} for double l with a tilde through. {=u} for u with a macron. {h } for h with a line through the top. {rh} for r with a upwards hook attached to the horizontal stem. {m~} for a m with a loop back over the character. {n)} for a n with a ) attached to the right side. {d} for the d with a little crook attached to the top right of the d. {/æ} for an ae ligature with an acute accent.

There is also one instance of (on line 391 of the poem) a m with a ) attached to the right side (rendered as {m)} and looks like), but this is probably a typo for {m~}. I have left this as is.

Text and letters in brackets [ ] is original.

Obvious typos are corrected in this e text.]

The Wright's Chaste Wife.

Early English Text Society

Original Series, No. 12

1865

Reprinted 1891, 1905, 1965

Price 7 s. 6 d.

The

Wright's Chaste Wife,

OR

"A Fable of a wryg{h }t that was maryde to a pore wydows dowt re / the whiche wydow havyng noo good to geve w i t h her / gave as for a p re cyous Johe{l~l} to hy m a Rose garlond / the whyche sche affermyd wold nev er fade while sche kept truly her wedlok."

A Merry Tale, by Adam of Cobsam.

From a MS. in the Library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth, about 1462 A.D.

COPIED AND EDITED BY FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL.

Published for THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY by the OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON · NEW YORK · TORONTO

FIRST PUBLISHED 1865

REPRINTED 1891, 1905, 1965.

Original Series No. 12

REPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY (THE CHAUCER PRESS) LTD., BUNGAY, SUFFOLK

PREFACE.

Good wine needs no bush, and this tale needs no Preface. I shall not tell the story of it let readers go to the verse itself for that; nor shall I repeat to those who begin it the exhortation of the englisher of Sir Generides ,

"for goddes sake, or ye hens wende, Here this tale unto the ende." (ll. 3769 70.)

If any one having taken it up is absurd enough to lay it down without finishing it, let him lose the fun, and let all true men pity him. Though the state of morals disclosed by the story is not altogether satisfactory, yet it is a decided improvement on that existing in Roberd of Brunne's time in 1303, for he had to complain of the lords of his day:

Also do þese lordynges, Þe[y] trespas moche yn twey þynges; Þey rauys a mayden a{gh}ens here wyl, And mennys wyuys þey lede awey þertyl. A grete vylanye þarte he dous {GH}yf he make therof hys rouse [boste]: Þe dede ys confusyun, And more ys þe dyffamacyun.

The volume containing the poem was shown to me by Mr Stubbs, the Librarian at Lambeth, in order that I might see the version of Sir Gyngelayne, son of Sir Gawain, which Mr Morris is some day, I trust, to edit for the Society in one of his Gawain volumes.[1] Finding the present poem also on the paper leaves, I copied it out the same afternoon, and here it is for a half hour's amusement to any reader who chooses to take it up.

The handwriting of the MS. must be of a date soon after 1460, and this agrees well with the allusion to Edward the Fourth's accession, and the triumph of the White Rose o'er the Red alluded to in the last lines of the poem. The Garlond,

It was made ... Of flourys most of honoure, Of roses whyte þat wy{l~l} nott fade, Whych floure a{l~l} ynglond doth glade.... Vn to the whych floure I wys The loue of God and of the comonys Subdued bene of ryght.

For, that the Commons of England were glad of their Yorkist king, and loved Duke Richard's son, let Holinshed's record prove. He testifies: