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A Merry Tale, by Adam of Cobsam.
_From a MS. in the Library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth,
about 1462 A.D._
COPIED AND EDITED BY
FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL.
_Published for_
THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY
_by the_
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON · NEW YORK · TORONTO
FIRST PUBLISHED 1865
REPRINTED 1891, 1905, 1965.
Original Series No. 12
REPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY
(THE CHAUCER PRESS) LTD., BUNGAY, SUFFOLK
PREFACE.
Good wine needs no bush, and this tale needs no Preface. I shall not
tell the story of it--let readers go to the verse itself for that; nor
shall I repeat to those who begin it the exhortation of the englisher of
_Sir Generides_,
"for goddes sake, or ye hens wende,
Here this tale unto the ende."--(ll. 3769-70.)
If any one having taken it up is absurd enough to lay it down without
finishing it, let him lose the fun, and let all true men pity him.
Though the state of morals disclosed by the story is not altogether
satisfactory, yet it is a decided improvement on that existing in Roberd
of Brunne's time in 1303, for he had to complain of the lords of his
day:
Also do ?ese lordynges,
?e[y] trespas moche yn twey ?ynges;
?ey rauys a mayden a{gh}ens here wyl,
And mennys wyuys ?ey lede awey ?ertyl.
A grete vylanye ?arte he dous
{GH}yf he make therof hys rouse [boste]:
?e dede ys confusyun,
And more ys ?e dyffamacyun.
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