Page:Patient countess.pdf/5

5

To check him were to make him eheck,
 Altho' he now were chaste;
A man controuled of his wife,
 To make her lesser haste.

If duty then or dalliance may
 Prevail to alter him,
He will be dutiful and make,
 Myself for dalliance trim.
So was she, and so lovingly,
 Did entertain her Lord,
As fairer, or more faultless none
 Could be for bed or board

Yet still he loves his leman, and
 Did still pursue his game,
Suspecting nothing less than that,
 His lady knew the same:
Wherefore to make him know she knew,
 She this devise did frame.

When long she had been wrong’d and sought
 The foresaid means in vain,
She rideth to the simple grange,
 But with a slender train.
She lighteth, entereth greets them well,
 And then did look about her,
The guilty household knowing her,
 Did wish themselves without her,
Yet, for Are looked merrily,
 The less they did misdoubt her.