The Pardoner's Prologue & Tale
Folio 198v
15 of 17 folios
215
That may go thurgh the golet softe and soote
Of Spicerie / of lief / and bark / and roote
Shal been his Sauce / ymaked by delit
To make hym yet a newer appetit
But certes / he that haunteth swiche delices
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Is deed / whil þt he lyueth in tho vices
¶ A lecherous thyng is wyn // and dronkenesse
Is ful of stryuyng and of wrecchednesse
O dronke man / disfigured is thy face
Sour is thy breeth / foul artow to embrace
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And thurgh thy dronke nose / semeth the soun
As thogh thou seydest ay / Sampsoū Sampsoun
And yet god woot Sampson drank neuere no wyn
Thou fallest as it were a stiked swyn
Thy tonge is lost and al thyn honest cure
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For dronkenesse / is verray sepulture
Of mannes wit and his discrecioū
In whom þt drynke / hath domynacioū
He kan no conseil kepe / it is no drede
Now kepe yow / fro the white and fro the rede
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And namely / fro the white wyn of lepe
That is to selle / in Fissħstrete / or in Chepe
This wyn of Spaigne / crepeth subtilly
In othere wynes / growynge faste by
Of which / ther riseth swich fumositee
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That whan a man / hath dronken draghtes thre
And weneth þt he be / at hom in Chepe
He is in Spaigne / right at the toune of lepe
Nat at the Rochel / ne at Burdeux toun
And thanne wol he seyn / Sampson Sampsoun
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¶ But herkneth lordynges / o word I yow preye
That alle the souereyn actes / dar I seye
Of victories / in the olde testament
Thurgh verray god / that is omipotent
Were doon in abstinence / and in prayere
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Looketh the Bible / and ther ye may it leere
¶ Looke Attilla / the grete conquerour
Deyde in his sleepe / with shame and dishonor
Bledyng at his nose / in dronkenesse
A Capitayn / sholde lyue in sobrenesse