This Phœbus, while on nothing ill thought he, Jilted he was, for all his jollity; For under him, his wife, at her heart’s-root, Another had, a man of small repute, Not worth a blink of Phœbus; more’s the pity; Too oft it falleth so, in court and city. This wife, when Phœbus was from home one day, Sent for her lemman then, without delay. Her lemman!—a plain word, I needs must own; Forgive it me; for Plato hath laid down, The word must suit according with the deed; Word is work’s cousin-german, ye may read: I’m a plain man, and what I say is this: Wife high, wife low, if bad, both do amiss: But because one man’s wench sitteth above, She shall be called his Lady and his Love; And because t’other’s sitteth low and poor, She shall be called,—Well, well, I say no more; Only God knoweth, man, mine own dear brother, One wife is laid as low, just, as the other.

Right so betwixt a lawless, mighty chief And a rude outlaw, or an arrant thief, Knight arrant or thief arrant, all is one; Difference, as Alexander learnt, there’s none; But for the chief is of the greater might, By force of numbers, to slay all outright, And burn, and waste, and make as flat as floor, Lo, therefore is he clept a conqueror; And for the other hath his numbers less, And cannot work such mischief and distress, Nor be by half so wicked as the chief, Men clepen him an outlaw and a thief.

However, I am no text-spinning man; So to my tale I go, as I began.

Now with her lemman is this Phœbus’ wife; The crow he sayeth nothing, for his life; Caged hangeth he, and sayeth not a word; But when that home was come Phœbus the lord, He singeth out, and saith,—“Cuckoo! cuckoo!” “Hey!” crieth Phœbus, “here be something new; Thy song was wont to cheer me. What is this?” “By Jove!” quoth Corvus, “I sing not amiss. Phœbus,” quoth he; “for all thy worthiness, For all thy beauty and all thy gentilesse, For all thy song and all thy minstrelsy, And all thy watching, blearéd is thine eye; Yea, and by one no worthier than a gnat, Compared with him should boast to wear thine hat.”

What would you more? the crow hath told him all; This woful god hath turned him to the wall To hide his tears: he thought ’twould burst his heart; He bent his bow, and set therein a dart, And in his ire he hath his wife yslain; He hath; he felt such anger and such pain; For sorrow of which he brake his minstrelsy, Both harp and lute, gittern and psaltery, And then he brake his arrows and his bow, And after that, thus spake he to the crow:—

“Traitor,” quoth he, “behold what thou hast done; Made me 

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