[Footnote 1: The since printing of the Romance in the Percy Folio MS.
Ballads and Romances, (_Lybius Disconius_, ii. 404,) will probably
render this unnecessary. (1869.)]
[Footnote 2: Chaucer brings off his Carpenter, though, triumphant, and
not with the swived wife and broken arm that he gives his befooled
Oxford craftsman in _The Milleres Tale_. (1869.)]
[Footnote 3: In _Political, Religious, and Love Poems_, E.E. Text Soc.,
1867.]
THE WRIGHT'S CHASTE WIFE.
[_MS. Lambeth 306, leaves 178-187._]
A{l~l}myghty god, maker of all_e_,
My sovereigns, Saue you my sou_er_eyns in towre & hall_e_,
And send yo{=u} good grace! 3
If ye wy{l~l} a stounde blynne,
I will tell you Of a story I wy{l~l} begynne,
a tale And telle you a{l~l} the cas, 6
Meny farleyes ?at I haue herd_e_,
Ye would haue wondyr how yt ferde;
Lystyn, and ye scha{l~l} here; 9
of a wright Of a wryght I wy{l~l} you telle,
of this land, That some tyme in thys land gan dwelle,
And lyued by hys myster. 12
who, at work, was Whether that he were yn or owte,
afraid of no Of erthely man hadde he no dowte,
earthly man.
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