good for, once we are old, save to keep
the ashes about the fire-pot? If none else knoweth it and can bear
witness thereof, that do and can I; for, now that I am old, I
recognize without avail, but not without very sore and bitter remorse
of mind, the time that I let slip, and albeit I lost it not altogether
(for that I would not have thee deem me a ninny), still I did not what
I might have done; whereof whenas I remember me, seeing myself
fashioned as thou seest me at this present, so that thou wouldst find
none to give me fire to my tinder,[286] God knoweth what chagrin I
feel. With men it is not so; they are born apt for a thousand things,
not for this alone, and most part of them are of much more account old
than young; but women are born into the world for nothing but to do
this and bear children, and it is for this that they are prized; the
which, if from nought else, thou mayst apprehend from this, that we
women are still ready for the sport; more by token that one woman
would tire out many men at the game, whereas many men cannot tire one
woman; and for that we are born unto this, I tell thee again that thou
wilt do exceeding well to return thy husband a loaf for his bannock,
so thy soul may have no cause to reproach thy flesh in thine old age.
Each one hath of this world just so much as he taketh to himself
thereof, and especially is this the case with women, whom it behoveth,
much more than men, make use of their time, whilst they have it; for
thou mayst see how, when we grow old, nor husband nor other will look
at us; nay, they send us off to the kitchen to tell tales to the cat
and count the pots and pans; and what is worse, they tag rhymes on us
and say,

"Tidbits for wenches young;
Gags[287] for the old wife's tongue."

[Footnote 286: _i.e._ she was grown so repulsively ugly in her old
age, that no one cared to do her even so trifling a service as giving
her a spark in tinder to light her fire withal.]

[Footnote 287: Or chokebits (_stranguglioni_).]

And many another thing to the like purpose. And that I may hold thee
no longer in parley, I tell thee in fine that thou couldst not have
discovered thy mind to any one in the world who can be more useful to
thee than I, for that there is no man so high and mighty but I dare
tell him what behoveth, nor any so dour or churlish but I know how to
supple him aright and bring him to what I will. Wherefore do thou but
show me who pleaseth thee and aft