[Footnote 60: The author of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus. Chaucer says that he seldom speaks of women with reverence, which is correct. The statement of Pope that the son of Sirach asserted, like Solomon, that there was no such thing as a good woman, is in direct contradiction to various passages among his precepts.] [Footnote 61: There is no specification of "these ladies" in Chaucer.] [Footnote 62: Now by my mother Ceres' soul, I swear That I shall give her suffisaunt answere, And alle women after for her sake; That though they be in any guilt i-take, With face bold they shall themselves excuse, And bear them down that woulde them accuse. For lack of answer none of them shall dyen. All had ye seen a thing with both your eyen, Yet shall we women visage it hardily, And weep, and swear, and chide subtilely.] [Footnote 63: I wot well that this Jew, this Solomon, Found of us women fooles many one; But though he be founde no good woman, Yet hath there founde many another man Women full true, full good, and vertuous; Witness on them that dwell in Christes house; With martyrdom they proved their constaunce.] [Footnote 64: Pluto and Proserpine each select that portion of the meaning which is convenient. Both senses are included in the words of Solomon, who at once asserts the general wickedness of mankind, and the comparative worthlessness of women.] [Footnote 65: The queen has just been boasting that she will endow the sex with the art of ingenious lying to cover the violation of their most solemn vows, and now she tauntingly tells her husband that it is not in woman to break her word. This contradiction is imported into the story by Pope. The original is as follows:-- Dame, quoth this Pluto, be no longer wroth, I give it up; but since I swore mine oath, That I will grante him his sight again, My word shall stand, I warne you certain; I am a king it sit me not to lie. And I, quoth she, am queen of faierie. Her answer shall she have I undertake, Let us no more wordes hereof make.] [Footnote 66: The allusion is to the common longing of pregnant women for particular articles of diet. May cries out that she shall expire unless she has some of the "small green pears" to eat, and then exclaims anew, I tell you well, a woman in my plight May have to fruit so great an appetite, That she may dyen, but she it have.] [Footnote 67: The moral is Pope's own, and is in the dissolute spirit which had descended from the reign of Charles II. The comment on the story, in Chaucer, is put into the mouth of the host, who begs that he may be preserved from such a wife, and inveighs against the craft and misdoings of women.] THE WIFE OF BATH. HER PROLOGUE. FROM CHAUCER.