unfaithful. The lovers are three Knights (_milites_), and they are
merely kept on bread and water, not made to work; nor is any wife
introduced to see her lord's discomfiture. The English version,
therefore, is much quainter and fuller of incident than its
original. But the 'morality' of the Latin story is rich beyond
description. 'The wife is holy Mother Church,' 'the Carpenter is
the good Christian,' 'the shirt is our Faith, because, as the
apostle says, it is impossible to please God without faith.' The
Wright's work typifies 'the building up the pure heart by the works
of mercy.' The three Knights are 'the pride of life, the lust of
the eyes, and the lust of the flesh.' 'These you must shut up in
the chamber of penance till you get an eternal reward from the
eternal King.' 'Let us therefore pray God,' &c."

With the Wright's Chaste Wife may also be compared the stories mentioned
in the Notes, p. 20, and the Ballad "The Fryer well fitted; or

A Pretty jest that once befel,
How a maid put a Fryer to cool in the well"

printed "in the Bagford Collection; in the Roxburghe (ii. 172); the
Pepys (iii. 145); the Douce (p. 85); and in _Wit and Mirth, an Antidote
to Melancholy_, 8vo. 1682; also, in an altered form, in Pills to purge
Melancholy, 1707, i. 340; or 1719, iii. 325"; and the tune of which,
with an abstract of the story, is given in Chappell's _Popular Music_,
i. 273-5. The Friar makes love to the Maid; she refuses him for fear of
hell-fire.

Tush, quoth the Friar, thou needst not doubt;
If thou wert in Hell, I could sing thee out.