unto death, the true and brave Alcestis. And even in the body of the poem
one is struck by a certain perfunctoriness, not to say flippancy, in the
way in which its moral is reproduced. The wrathful invective against the
various classical followers of Lamech, the maker of tents, wears no aspect
of deep moral indignation; and it is not precisely the voice of a
repentant sinner which concludes the pathetic story of the betrayal of
Phillis with the adjuration to ladies in general:--

Beware ye women of your subtle foe,
Since yet this day men may example see
And as in love trust ye no man but me.

(Lamech, Chaucer tells us in "Queen Annelida and the false Arcite," was
the

first father that began
The love of two, and was in bigamy.

This poem seems designed to illustrate much the same moral as that
enforced by the "Legend of Good Women"--a moral which, by-the-bye, is
already foreshadowed towards the close of "Troilus and Cressid," where
Chaucer speaks of

women that betrayed be
Through false folk, (God give them sorrow, amen!)
That with their greate wit and subtlety
Betray you; and 'tis this that moveth me
To speak; and, in effect, you all I pray:
Beware of men, and hearken what I say.)