THE CLERK'S TALE
the people thought, or else that he could discourse the best of such a thing,—he said to the marquis as ye shall hear :
"O noble marquis, as oft as there is need that we tell unto you our heaviness, your humanity giveth us assurance and courage. Permit now, lord, of your grace, that we lament unto you with piteous heart, and let not your ears disdain my voice. Although I have naught to do with this matter more than another man hath that is here, yet as ye, my dear lord, have alway showed me your grace and favour, I dare the better ask of you a little while of audience, to show our request, and do ye, my lord, even as it liketh you. For certes so pleasing to us be ye and all your work and ever have been, lord, that we could not ourselves devise how we might live in more felicity, save in one thing, lord, that, if it be your will, it might please you to be a wedded man; then were your people utterly in heart's content. Bow your neck under that blissful yoke of sovereignty, not of servitude, which men call spousal or wedlock ; and think, lord, amongst your wise thoughts, how in sundry fashion our days pass, for though we sleep, or wake, roam or ride, time fleeth aye, it will wait for no man. And though as yet your green youth flowereth, in creepeth age alway, as still as a stone, and death menaceth young and old, and smiteth in each estate, for none escapeth ; and as certain as we all know that we shall die, so uncertain be we all of that day when death shall betide us. Accept then the loyal meaning of us, that never yet refused your behest, and lord, if ye will assent, we will choose you a wife in short time, born of the gentlest and the highest of all this land, so that, as we believe, it ought to seem an honour to God and to you. Deliver us out of all this anxious fear, and wed a wife, for high God's sake;
for if—as God forbid—it should so befall that through your
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