Thus these sysmatickes, And lowsy lunatickes, With spurres and prickes Call true men heretickes. They finger their fidles, And cry in quinibles, Away these bibles, For they be but ridles! And give them Robyn Whode, To red howe he stode In mery grene wode, When he gathered good, Before Noyes ffloodd! _The Image of Ipocrysy_, Part iii. P. 84. _Of the wyfe that bad, &c._ _Of swearing between a wyfe and her husband._ "Cis, by this candle in my sleep I thought One told me of thy body thou wert nought. Good husband, he that told you ly'd, she said, And swearing, laid her hand upon the bread. Then eat the bread, quoth he, that I may deem That fancie false, that true to me did seem. Nay, sir, said she, the matter well to handle, Since you swore first, you first shall eat the candle." _Wits Interpreter, the English Parnassus_, By John Cotgrave, 1662, p. 286. P. 87. _Of the man that had the dome wyfe._ "A certain man, as fortune fel, A woman tungles wedded to wive, Whose frowning countenance perceivig by live Til he might know what she ment he thought long, And wished ful oft she had a tung. The devil was redy, and appeered anon, An aspin lefe he bid the man take, And in her mouth should put but one, A tung, said the devil, it shall her make; Til he had doon his hed did ake; Leaves he gathered, and took plentie, And in her mouth put two or three. Within a while the medicine wrought: The man could tarry no longer time, But wakened her, to the end he mought The vertue knowe of the medicine; The first woord she spake to him She said: 'thou whoresonne knave and theef, How durst thou waken me, with a mischeef!' From that day forward she never ceased. Her boistrous bable greeved him sore: The devil he met, and him entreated To make her tungles, as she was before; 'Not so,' said the devil, 'I will meddle no more. A devil a woman to speak may constrain, But all that in hel be, cannot let it again.'" _Schole-house of Women_, 1542 (Utterson's _Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry_, ii. 74). P. 89. _Of the Proctour of Arches that had the lytel wyfe._ "One ask'd his Friend, why he, so proper a Man himself, marry'd so small a Wyfe? _Why_, said he, _I thought you had known, that of all evils we should chuse the least_."--_Complete London Jester_, ed. 1771, p. 65. P. 92. _Of him that wolde gette, &c._ In the _Scholehouse of Women_, 1542, the same story is differently related:--