Lesson Plan Four
Testing Time
Spend the lesson planning and writing your answer this question:-
What do these extracts from the Merchants' encomium and Justinus's withering criticism of Januarie's intentions tell us about The Merchant and his attitudes to marriage and in the Tale?
Do alway so as women will thee rede.
Lo how that Jacob, as these clerkes read,
By good counsel of his mother Rebecc'
Bounde the kiddes skin about his neck;
For which his father's benison he wan.
Lo Judith, as the story telle can,
By good counsel she Godde's people kept,
And slew him, Holofernes, while he slept.
Lo Abigail, by good counsel, how she
Saved her husband Nabal, when that he
Should have been slain. And lo, Esther also
By counsel good deliver'd out of woe
The people of God, and made him, Mardoche,
Of Assuere enhanced for to be.
There is nothing in gree superlative
(As saith Senec) above a humble wife.
Suffer thy wife's tongue, as Cato bit;
She shall command, and thou shalt suffer it,
And yet she will obey of courtesy.
Justinus, which that hated his folly,
Answer'd anon right in his japery;
And, for he would his longe tale abridge,
He woulde no authority allege,
But saide; "Sir, so there be none obstacle
Other than this, God of his high miracle,
And of his mercy, may so for you wirch,
That, ere ye have your rights of holy church,
Ye may repent of wedded manne's life,
In which ye say there is no woe nor strife:
And elles God forbid, but if he sent
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