The Merchant's Tale
Folio 150r
25 of 30 folios
And in the nexte Ryuer / do me drenche
I am a gentil womman / and no wenche
Why speke ye thus / but men been euere vntrewe
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And wommen haue reproue / of yow ay newe
Ye han / noon oother contenance I leue
But speke to vs / of vntrust and repreue
¶ And with that word / she saw wher Damyan
Sat in the bussħ / and coghen she bigan
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And with hir fynger / signes made she
That Damyan / sholde clymbe vp on a tree
That charged was with fruyt and vp he wente
For verraily / he knew al hir entente
And euery signe / þt she koude make
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Wel bet than Ianuarie / hir owene make
For in a lettre / she hadde told hym al
Of this matere / how he werken shal
And thus I lete hym sitte / vp on the purye
And Ianuarie and May / romynge murye
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¶ Bright was the day / and blew the firmament
Phebus hath of gold / his stremys doun ysent
To gladen euery flour / with his warmnesse
He was that tyme / in Geminis as I gesse
But litel / fro his declynacioū
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Of Cancer / Iouis exaltacioū
And so bifel / that brighte morwe tyde
That in that gardyn / in the ferther syde
Pluto / that is the kyng of Fairye
And many a lady / in his compaignye
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Folwynge his wyf / the queene Proserpyne
Whos answer hath doon many a man pyne
¶ Whil that she gadrede / floures in the mede
In Claudyan / ye may the stories rede
How in his grysly Carte / he hir sette
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This kyng of Fairye / thanne a down hym sette
Vp on a bench of turues / fressh and grene
And right anon / thus seyde he to his queene
¶ My wyf quod he / ther may no wight sey nay
Thexperience / so proueth euery day
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The treson / which þt womman dooth to man
Ten hundred thousand / tellen I kan