But
I will no more offend against good manners; I am sensible, as I ought
to be, of the scandal I have given by my loose writings, and make what
reparation I am able by this public acknowledgment. If anything of
this nature, or of profaneness, be crept into these poems, I am so far
from defending it that I disown it. _Totum hoc indictum volo_. Chaucer
makes another manner of apology for his broad speaking, and Boccace
makes the like; but I will follow neither of them. Our countryman, in
the end of his characters, before the Canterbury tales, thus excuses
the ribaldry, which is very gross in many of his novels.
But first, I pray you of your courtesie,
That ye ne arrette it nought my villanie,
Though that I plainly speak in this matere
To tellen yon her words, and eke her chere:
Ne though I speak her wordes properly,
For this ye knowen al so well as I,
Who-so shall tell a tale after a man,
He mote rehearse as nye as ever he can
Everich a word, if it be in his charge,
All speke he never so rudely and large.
Or elles he mot telle his tale untrue.
Pages:
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269