ressid heard these words and womanish
things as if she were far away; for she was burning all the time with
another passion than any of which they knew; so that she almost felt
her heart die for woe, and for weariness of that company." But his
satire against women is rarely so innocent as this; and though several
ladies take part in the Canterbury Pilgrimage, yet pilgrim after
pilgrim has his saw or jest against their sex. The courteous "Knight"
cannot refrain from the generalisation that women all follow the favour
of fortune. The "Summoner," who is of a less scrupulous sort,
introduces a diatribe against women's passionate love of vengeance; and
the "Shipman" seasons a story which requires no such addition by an
enumeration of their favourite foibles. But the climax is reached in
the confessions of the "Wife of Bath," who quite unhesitatingly says
that women are best won by flattery and busy attentions; that when won
they desire to have the sovereignty over their husbands, and that they
tell untruths and swear to them with twice the boldness of men;--while
as to the power of their tongue, she quotes the second-hand authority
of her fifth husband for the saying that it is better to dwell with a
lion or a foul dragon, than with a woman accustomed to chide. It is
true that this same "Wife of Bath" also observes with an effective tu
quoque:--

By God, if women had but written stories,
As clerkes have within their oratories,
They would have writ of men more wickedness
Than all the race of Adam may redress;

and the "Legend of Good Women" seems, in point of fact, to have been
intended to offer some such kind of amends as is here declared to be
called for. But the balance still remains heavy against the poet's
sentiments of gallantry and respect for women. It should at the same
time be remembered that among the "Canterbury Tales" the two which are
of their kind the most effective, constitute tributes to the most
distinctively feminine and wifely virtue of fidelity. Moreover, when
coming from such personages as the pilgrims who narrate the "Tales" in
question, the praise of women has special significance and value. The
"Merchant" and the "Shipman" may indulge in facetious or coarse jibes
against wives and their behaviour, but the "Man of Law," full of grave
experience of the world, is a witness above suspicion to the womanly
virtue of which his narrative celebrates so illustrious an example,
while the "Cle