This carpenter awoke, and heard him sing, And spake unto his wife, and said anon, What Alison, hear’st thou not Absolon, That chanteth thus under our bower* wall?” *chamber And she answer’d her husband therewithal; “Yes, God wot, John, I hear him every deal.” This passeth forth; what will ye bet* than well? *better From day to day this jolly Absolon So wooeth her, that him is woebegone. He waketh all the night, and all the day, To comb his lockes broad, and make him gay. He wooeth her *by means and by brocage*, *by presents and by agents* And swore he woulde be her owen page. He singeth brokking* as a nightingale. *quavering He sent her piment <20>, mead, and spiced ale, And wafers* piping hot out of the glede**: *cakes **coals And, for she was of town, he proffer’d meed.<21> For some folk will be wonnen for richess, And some for strokes, and some with gentiless. Sometimes, to show his lightness and mast’ry, He playeth Herod <22> on a scaffold high. But what availeth him as in this case? So loveth she the Hendy Nicholas, That Absolon may *blow the bucke’s horn*: *“go whistle”* He had for all his labour but a scorn. And thus she maketh Absolon her ape, And all his earnest turneth to a jape*. *jest Full sooth is this proverb, it is no lie; Men say right thus alway; the nighe sly Maketh oft time the far lief to be loth. <23> For though that Absolon be wood* or wroth *mad Because that he far was from her sight, This nigh Nicholas stood still in his light. Now bear thee well, thou Hendy Nicholas, For Absolon may wail and sing “Alas!”