Bade not every wight he should go sell
All that he had and give it to the poor,
In this to follow him that went before.
He spake to them that would live perfectly,
And lordings, by your leave, that is not me.
I will bestow my bloom at any age
In acts and in the fruit of marriage.
Tell me also, of your conclusion
Why we have members of generation,
That of so perfect wise a wright were wrought?
Trust me right well, they were not made for nought.
Expound who may, and say now and again,
That they were made for nought but purgation
Of urine, and of each small thing the tale
Were but to know a female from a male,
And for no other end: can you say no?
And yet it is well-known it is not so.
So that the clerics take not me to loathe,
I say this: that they have been made for both-
For "business," and for pleasure that may ease
That act in which we do not God displease.
Why else of old should men in their books set
That man shall yield to his wife her debt?
Now, wherewith should he make his payment
Unless he used his bless�d instrument?
These things were made upon a creature, then,
To purge urine, and for generation.
But I say not that every wight is bound,
That has the apparatus I expound,
To go and use it to increase his kind:
Then should men pay to chastity no mind.
Christ was a maid and shapen as a man,
And many a saint, since the world began,
Yet they lived ever in perfect chastity.
I have no envy of virginity:
Then cakes of fine white flour let them be,
And let us wives be called loaves of barley.
To tell of barley-bread, as Saint Mark can,
Our Lord Jesu refresh�d many a man.
In humble service God has giv'n to us,
I will persist; I am not precious.
In wifehood I will use my instrument
As freely as my Maker has it sent.
If I be skittish, may God give me sorrow!
My husband shall have it both eve and morrow,
When he pleases to come and pay his debt.
A husband I will have, I will not let
Him be, but as my debtor and my thrall,
He have his tribulation withal
Upon his flesh, while that I am his wife.
I have the power during all my life
Upon his proper body, and not he:
Right thus th'Apostle taught it unto me,
Our husbands are to love us well - 'tis writ.
I love this lesson, every little bit!
Finis