speak amiss!

A wicked tree good fruit may none forth bring;
For such the fruit is aye as is the tree.
Take heed of whom thou took thy beginning!
Let thy mother be mirror unto thee!
Honour her, if thou wilt honoured be!
Despiseth her then not, in no manere!
Lest that thereby thy wickedness appear.

An old proverb there said is, in English,
_That bird or fowl, soothly, is dishonest
What that he be, and holden full churlish
That useth to defoulen his own nest_.
Men to say well of women, it is the best:
And naught for to despise them, ne deprave;
If that they will their honour keep or save.

The Ladies ever complainen them on Clerks
That they have made bookis of their defame;
In which they despise women and their works,
And speaken of them great reproof and shame:
And causeless give them a wicked name.
Thus they despised be, on every side,
Dislandered and blown upon full wide.

Those sorry bookes maken mention
How women betrayed in especial
ADAM, DAVID, SAMPSON, and SOLOMON,
And many one more; who may rehearse them all,
The treasons that they have done, and shall?
The world their malice may not comprehend
(As Clerkis feign), for it ne hath none end.

OVID, in his book called _Remedy
Of Love_, great reproof of woman writeth,
Wherein, I know that he did great folly;
And every wight who, in such case, him delighteth.
A Clerkis custom is, when he enditeth
Of women (be it prose, or rhyme, or verse)
Say, "They be wicked!" all know he the reverse.

And the book Scholars learned in their childhead
For they of women beware should in age,
And for to love them ever be in dread.
Sith to deceive is set all their courage,
They say peril to cast is advantage,
Namely, of such as men have in been wrapped:
For many a man, by woman hath mishapped.

No charge is what so that these Clerkis sain
Of all their writing I ne do no cure
All their labour and travail is in vain
For between me and my Lady Nature
Shall not be suffred, while the world may 'dure.
Thus these Clerkis, by their cruel tyranny,
On silly women kithen their mastery.

Whilom full many of them were in my chain
Ytied; and now, what for unwieldy age
And unlust, they may not to love attain:
And sain that "Love is but very dotage!"
Thus, for that they themse