Canterbury Revisited

One of Chaucer’s Tales retold by another famous writer

Wilt thou forgive those sins whereby, misled,

A wonton wife, betroth’d four times before,

Did, at the fourth one’s funeral, choose to wed

A clerk possessed of vigour and allure?

This woman then did justify her lust

By citing such as Solomon who took

More wives than one and thereby bid us trust

All that is writ in God’s most Holy Book;

Forgive thou wilt, as thou forgave the knight

Who raped a maiden fair and yet was spared

By learning that a wife knows best what’s right,

And thus, by Grace, in God’s forgiveness shared.

Bathed in baptism’s pool this Wife of Bath

And errant knight were destined both to win

Joys due to those who find the narrow path

And turn their backs on sacrilege and sin.

John Donne: The wife of Bath