“And for your charity in keeping me In dignity and honour day by day So many years, unworthy though I be, Now thank I God and you, to whom I pray That He will all your graciousness repay. Unto my father cheerfully I wend To dwell with him from now to my life’s end. “There I was fostered as an infant small, There till I die my life I will lead through, Dwell as an honest widow, heart and all. For since I gave my girlhood unto you, And am your wife, most loving and most true, It were not fitting that a great lord’s wife Should wed another husband all her life. “And with your wife to be, God of his grace Grant you all welfare and prosperity; For I will yield her cheerfully my place, In which I once so happy used to be; For since it pleaseth you, my lord,” quoth she, “Who ever were the dearest to my heart, That I should go, content I will depart. “But when you bid me take again that dower That I first brought, it still is in my mind: It was my wretched clothing, coarse and poor-- Rags that it were not easy now to find. And, O good God! how gentle and how kind You then seemed, by your words and by your look, That day whereon the name of wife I took!” Griselda said no word of reproach to her cruel husband, except one touching remark, which he may have felt as one-- “Love is not old as when that it is new.” (Love is not the same in after years as when it first comes.) Then she appeals to him in a way that must have touched a heart of stone, for she saw no sign of relenting in his face: she does not know how far his brutality will go, and will not be surprised at the last insult. My lord, ye wot that in my fadres place Ye dede me strippe out of my pore wede, strip, attire And richely me cladden of your grace; To yow brought I nought elles, out of drede, else But faith, and nakednesse, and maydenhede; maidenhood And her agayn my clothyng I restore, And eek my weddyng ryng for evermore. The remenant of your jewels redy be remainder Within your chambur, dar I saufly sayn. dare Naked out of my fadres hous, quod sche, I com, and naked moot I torne agayn. return Al your pleisauns wold I folwen fayn;[153] follow gladly But yit I hope it be not youre entente, intention That I smocles out of your paleys wente. smockless, palace “My lord, you know that in my father’s place You stript me of my poor attire, for ruth: Anew you richly clad me, of your grace. And I brought nothing unto you, in truth, But honesty, and poverty, and youth. And here again your clothing I restore, And ev’n your wedding-ring for evermore.