THE PHYSICIAN'S TALE
should be; and Phoebus hath dyed her thick tresses like to the streams of his lustrous heat. And if her beauty was excellent she was a thousand-fold more virtuous. She lacked no quality that discernment may praise ; as well in spirit as in body she was chaste ; wherefore she flowered in virginity with all humility and abstinence, with all temperance and patience, and eke sobriety of bearing and garb. In answering she was alway discreet, though she might be as wise as Pallas, I dare say. Her faculty of speech was full womanly and plain; she had no counterfeited terms, to seem wise, but she spake after her station, and all her words, both more and less, were full of virtue and of nobility. Shamefast she was in the shamefastness of a maiden, constant in heart and ever busy to drive out sluggard idleness. Of her mouth Bacchus had no mastery; for wine and youth cause Venus increase, even as men will cast oil into fire. And of her own free will and virtue, she hath full oft feigned her sick because she would flee the company where folly was like to be treated of, as at feasts, dances and revels, that be the occasions of dalliance. Such things, as men may see, make children too soon ripe and bold, which is full perilous and hath ever been. For all too soon she may learn lore of boldness, when she is waxed a wife.
And ye mistresses in your old age that have lords' daughters in governance, take no displeasure of my words. Think that ye be set to govern the daughters of lords only for two things: either for ye have kept your virtue, or else ye have fallen into frailty and know well enough the old dance and have fully forsaken such misconduct forevermore. Therefore, for Christ's sake, look that ye be not slack to teach them virtue. A thief of venison that hath
given over his appetite and all his old craft, can keep a forest
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