"[2]
[1] Valerie: possibly Epistola Valerii ad Rifinum de uxore non
ducenda, attributed to Walter Mapes; it is a short treatise of
about eight folios; it is printed in Cam. Soc. xvi. 77.
Theofraste: Aureolus liber de Nuptiis, by one Theophrastus.
[2] Ll. 669-85.
And having quickly taken measure of the Wife's character,
he could not refrain from reading to her stories which
seemed to contain a lesson and to point a moral for her.
She lost patience, and was "beten for a book, pardee."
"Up-on a night Jankin, that was our syre,
Redde on his book, as he sat by the fyre."
And when his wife saw he would "never fyne" to read
"this cursed book al night," all suddenly she plucked
three leaves out of it, "right as he radde," and with
her fist so took him on the cheek that he fell "bakward
adoun" in the fire. Springing up like a mad lion he
smote her on the head with his fist, and she lay upon the
floor as she were dead. Whereupon he stood aghast, sorry
for what he had done; and "with muchel care and wo"
they made up their quarrel: our clerk, let us hope, winning
peace, and his wife securing the mastery of their household
affairs and the destruction of the "cursed book.
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