Word is work's cousin-german, ye may read:
I'm a plain man, and what I say is this:
Wife high, wife low, if bad, both do amiss:
But because one man's wench sitteth above,
She shall be called his Lady and his Love;
And because t'other's sitteth low and poor,
She shall be called,--Well, well, I say no more;
Only God knoweth, man, mine own dear brother,
One wife is laid as low, just, as the other.

Right so betwixt a lawless, mighty chief
And a rude outlaw, or an arrant thief,
Knight arrant or thief arrant, all is one;
Difference, as Alexander learnt, there's none;
But for the chief is of the greater might,
By force of numbers, to slay all outright,
And burn, and waste, and make as flat as floor,
Lo, therefore is he clept a conqueror;
And for the other hath his numbers less,
And cannot work such mischief and distress,
Nor be by half so wicked as the chief,
Men clepen him an outlaw and a thief.

However, I am no text-spinning man;
So to my tale I go, as I began.

Now with her lemman is this Phoebus' wife;
The crow he sayeth nothing, for his life;
Caged hangeth he, and sayeth not a word;
But when that home was come Phoebus the lord,