And I, who have put [the tale of Griselda] here only to teach you, have not put it here to apply it to you, for I am not worthy thereof, and I am not a marquis and I have not taken you as a beggar, nor am I so foolish, so conceited or so lacking in sense that I know not that ’tis not for me to assault nor to assay you thus, nor in like manner.  God keep me from trying you thus under colour of false simulations....  And forgive me that the story speaks (in my opinion) of too great cruelty and beyond reason.  And know that it never befel so, but thus the tale runs and I may nor correct nor alter it, for a wiser than I hath made it.  And it is my desire that since others have read it you also may know and be able to talk about everything even as other folk do.[9]

Moreover, in spite of the ideal of submission which he sets before his wife, the Menagier has some charming words to say about love—­with a sigh, perhaps, for his own advanced though not crabbed age, and a glance at that younger husband of the future who shall one day enjoy his little bride.

In God’s name (he says) I believe that when two good and honourable people are wed, all other loves are put far off, destroyed and forgotten, save only the love of each for the other.  And meseems that when they are in each other’s presence, they look upon each other more than upon the others, they clasp and hold each other and they do not willingly speak or make sign save to each other.  And when they are separated, they think of each other and say in their hearts, ’When I see him I shall do thus and thus to him, or say this to him, I shall beseech him concerning this or that.’  And all their special pleasure, their chief desire and their perfect joy is to do pleasure and obedience one to the other, if they love one another.[10]

The greater part of the Menagier’s book is concerned, however, not with the theoretical niceties of wifely submission, but with his creature comforts.  His instructions as to how to make a husband comfortable positively palpitate with life; and at the same time there is something indescribably homely and touching about them; they tell more about the real life of a burgess’s wife than a hundred tales of Patient Griselda or of Jehanne la Quentine.  Consider this picture (how typical a product of the masculine imagination!) of the stout bread-winner, buffeted about in all weathers and amid all discomforts, nobly pursuing the task of earning his living, and fortified by the recollection of a domesticated little wife, darning his stockings at home by the fire, and prepared to lavish her attentions on the weary hero in the evening.  The passage is an excellent example of the Menagier’s vivid and simple style, and of the use of incidents drawn from everyday life to illustrate his thesis, which is one of the chief charms of the book.