In the Man of Lawes Tale we have the account of a messager being so drunk that, ‘while he slept as a swine,’ his letters were stolen from him by the king’s mother, and changed to spite her daughter-in-law. His orgies are thus described:-- This messager drank sadly ale and wine, 5163 * * * * * He dranke, and wel his girdel underfight. 5209 Our poet thus apostrophises the sorry fellow:-- O messager, fulfilled of dronkenesse, 5191 Strong is thy breth, thy limmes faltren ay, And thou bewreiest alle secrenesse; Thy mind is lorne, thou janglest as a jay; Thy face is tourned in a new array; 5195 Ther dronkenesse regneth in any route, Ther is no conseil hid withouten doute. 5197 A virtuous mediæval commentator has written in the margin of a MS. copy of Chaucer in the Cambridge Library the following excellent Latin remarks:-- _O messager._ ‘Quid turpius ebrioso, cui fœtor in ore, tremor in corpore; qui promit stulta, prodit occulta; cui mens alienatur, facies transformatur; nullum enim latet secretum ubi regnat ebrietas.’ _Query_--Are these words merely the commentator’s effusion and outcome, or are they a quotation from some Latin writer? If the latter, they would probably have been the basis of Chaucer’s lines here. They say a good deal in a few words. The ‘Wif of Bathe’ is one of Chaucer’s equivocal characters. Her remarks are usually incisive. Her attainments, upon her own confession, were mainly dependent on the brimming cup; as in the lines-- Tho coude I dancen to an harpe smale, And sing ywis as any nightingale, When I had dronke a draught of swete wine. The same impression is produced in the engravings of the lady in Knight’s _Old England_. Chaucer continues:-- Metellius, the foule cherle, the swine, That with a staf beraft his wif hire lif, For she drank wine, though I had been his wif, Ne shuld he not have daunted me fro drinke. The story about Metellius beating his wife for drinking is told by Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xiv. 13) of one Mecenius, but Chaucer probably followed Valerius Maximus (vi. 3). A little further on is a line full of truth-- In woman vinolent is no defence, which may have been suggested by the couplet in _Romaunt de la Rose_:-- Car puisque femme est enyvrée Et n’a point en soy de deffence. The Sompnour, or, in other words, the summoner (so called from delivering the summonses of the archdeacons), vows vengeance on the Frere (friar) for telling a tale so palpably levelled at his profession, and, giving him a Roland for his Oliver, thus describes the Frere of the period:--