The Squire's Tale
Folio 135v
14 of 18 folios
xxd vnder is the cors / swich as ye woot
xwich was this ypocrite / bothe cold and hoot
And in this wise / he serued his entente
That saue the feend / noon wiste what he mente
515
Til he so longe / hadde wopen and compleyned
And many a yeer / his seruice to me feyned
Til that myn herte / to pitous and to nyce
Al Innocent of his crowned malice
For fered of his deeth / as thoughte me
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Vp on his othes / and his seuretee
Graunted hym loue / vp on this condicioun
This euere mo / myn honour and renoun
Were saued / bothe pryuee and apert
This is to seyn / that after his desert
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I yaf hym al myn herte / and my thoght
God woot and he / þt oother wise noght
And took his herte / in chaunge of myn for ay
But sooth is seyd / goon sithen many a day
A trewe wight and a theef / thynketh nat oon
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¶ And whanne he saw the thyng so fer ygon
That I hadde graunted hym fully my loue
In swich a gise / as I haue seyd aboue
And yeuen hym / my trewe herte as fre
As he swoor / he yaf his herte to me
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Anoon this tygre / ful of doublenesse
Fil on his knees / with so deuout humblesse
With so heigh reuerence / and as by his cheere
So lyk a gentil louere / of manere
So rauysshed / as it semed for the ioye
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That neuere Iason / ne Parys of Troye
Iason certes / ne noon oother man
Syn Lameth was / þt alderfirst bigan
To louen two / as writen folk biforn
Ne neuere / syn / the firste man was born
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Ne koude man / by twenty thousand part
Countrefete / the Sophymes of his art
Ne were worthy / vnbokele his galoche
Ther doublenesse / or feynyng sholde approche
Ne so koude thanke a wight as he did me
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His manere / was an heuene for to see