The Pardoner's Prologue & Tale
Folio 145v
15 of 16 folios
270
The more is he holden / desolat
If that a Prynce / vsetħ hasardrye
In alle gouernaunce / and policye
He is / as by comune opinioū
I holde the lasse / in reputacioū
275
¶ Stilboñ / that was a wys embassadour
Was sent to Corynthe / in ful gret honour
Fro lacedomye / to maken here alliance
And whan he cam / hī happed par chaunce
That alle the gretteste / that were of that lond
280
Pleiyng atte hasard / he hem fond
For whicħ / as sone as it mygħt be
He stal hī hom a geyn / to his contre
And seide / there wyl I nat lese my name
Ne wyl nat take on me / so gret defame
285
Ȝow for to allie / vn to noone hasardoures
Sendetħ othere wyse / embassadoures
For by my trouthe / me were leuere dye
Than I ȝow shulde / to hasardoures allye
For ȝe that ben / so glorious in honours
290
Shuln nat allye ȝow / witħ hasardours
As by my wyl / ne as be myn tretee
This wys Philosophre / thus seide he
Loke eke / that to the kyng Demetrius
The kyng of Parthe / as the boke seitħ vs
295
Sent hī a peyre of dys of gold / in skorñ
For he had vsed hasard / there biforñ
For whicħ he held his glorie / or his renoū
At no value / or reputacioū
Lordes moun fynde / othere manere pleye
300
Honest I now / to dryue the day a weye
¶ Now wyl I speke / of othes false and grete
A word or two / as olde bokes trete
Gret sweryng is a thyng / abhomynable
And false sweryng is ȝet / more repreuable
305
The heigħ god / for bad sweryng at al
Wytnesse on Mathew / but in special
Of sweryng seitħ / the holy Ieremye
Thow shalt swere sotħ thyne othes / & nat lye
And swere in doom / and eke in rigħtwysnesse
310
But Idel sweryng / is a cursednesse
Byholde and se / that in the first table
Of heigħ goddes hestes / honourable
How that the secund hest of hī / is this
Take nat myn name in Ydel / or amys