Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/101

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Her goods to spare my purse, or give

All she calls hers that I might live

Untouched by want or care. I’d see

Her burnt alive, most joyfully

(The vile whoremongering old cat),

And you along with her, if that

Be not the very thing you said!

I’ll surely ask her, by my head,

But no, alas! it were but vain,

Great the vexation, nought the gain;

Past doubt you’ve talked to one another,

Like as two marbles—child and mother,

Two bells with self-same clapper rung,

Two weeds from one vile root upsprung.

Right well ye hop and step together,

Two evil birds of equal feather.

She in her youth days was as vile

As you are now, and every wile

That then she learned she taught to you,

Apt pupil for her devil’s brew!

And doubt I not that she, forsooth,

Of many a dog hath proved the tooth,

And hath but ceased to trip the dance,

Because right well she knows her chance

Therein is past and gone. Her face,

Besmeared with paint, hath lost all trace

Of beauty, and the harridan

Employs her short remaining span

Of life to sell her child. Therefor

It is she comes three times or four

Each week, pretending to engage

You to set forth on pilgrimage