doesn't believe that a wife would suffer so humbly, and indeed, I
expect that if you sought through a whole town nowadays you wouldn't
find above two or three Griseldas: but I tell my tale, not to suggest
that men should copy the duke and seek, like him, to prove their
wives' patience, but to show you all how woes and trials should be
borne. For if a frail woman could bear with such meekness the rough
assaults of a husband, should not we bear with resignation and
meekness the sufferings sent by Almighty God to chasten us?

* * * * *

Thus spoke the Clerk; but, seeing us all look a little sad for the
trials of patient Griselda, he suddenly burst into a merry song:

Griselda's dead, alack the day,
And buried in Italy far away,
O! men beware.
And do not dare
To test your wives in spiteful play.

For patience, in these times more crude,
By modern matrons is eschewed,
And wives to-day
Are sterner clay,
And know the art of being rude.

You, wife, who would your husband rule,
Be not a weak obedient fool;
By force or guile
Or crafty wile,