And when that he was passed sixty year, Were it for holiness or for dotage, I cannot say, but such a great courage Hadde this knight to be a wedded man, That day and night he doth all that he can Taspye where that he might wedded be; Praying our Lord to grante him that he Might ones knowen of that blissful life, That is betwixt a husband and his wife.] [Footnote 4: In the original, And certainly, as sooth as God is king, To take a wife it is a glorious thing; And namely when a man is old and hoar, Then is a wife the fruit of his tresor. This is another instance that the merchant's remarks are sarcastic; for no rational person would gravely assert that to wed was especially wise in old age, when a man was married for his money alone. The whole purport of the tale was to prove that such an alliance ended in discomfiture. The vein of satire is continued through the subsequent reflections. The merchant represents January as imagining wives to be models of obedience and fidelity, who will cleave to a husband through weal and woe, and will never be weary of loving and serving him, though he is bed-ridden all his days. The example of May, to which the description is a preface, shows that the praises are meant to be interpreted in an adverse sense.] [Footnote 5: In the original the merchant is quoting an invective against wives from the Liber Aureolus of Theophrastus, who had long been dead. Hence the narrator calls down a curse upon his _bones_ in the name of the advocates of matrimony: This entent and an hundred sithe worse Writeth this man; there God his bones curse. "Sithe" signifies "times." Pope has generalised the imprecation, and extended it to all bards, living or deceased, whereby the fitness of invoking a curse upon their bones is destroyed.] [Footnote 6: Chaucer would have thought it an anomaly for a Christian knight to invoke the heathen deities. The original is, A wife! ah! Sainte Mary, _benedicite_, How might a man have any adversite That hath a wife? certes I cannot say. The requirements of the metre in this and other passages of Chaucer, show that _benedicite_ was sometimes contracted, in the pronunciation, to _ben'cite_.] [Footnote 7: The merchant, in his account of the motives which actuated the knight, dilates more largely in the original, and in more enthusiastic language, upon the felicity of marriage. A wife helps her husband in his work, is the careful guardian of his property, and is perfect in her submission. She saith nought ones nay when he saith ye; Do this, saith he; all ready, sir, saith she. Consequently the married man Upon his bare knees ought all his life Thanken his God that him hath sent a wife; and if he is not yet possessed of the treasure, he ought to pray without ceasing that it may be vouchsafed him, for then he is established in safety, and May not be deceived as I guess.