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by Marie de France ( flourished 1160-1215 )
Translation by Anonymous / Unidentified Author

The Wife and her Lover
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
Choose for Diff
A peasant, one day, was watching:
His eye to the keyhole, was spying.
Now, what did he catch sight of on his bed?
His wife... and another man!
As he said “alas, what did I see?”,

Suddenly, his wife appeared at his side:
‘And what did you see, husband dear?’
‘What? Another man, I’ll have you know,
On the bed, wrapped in your arms!”

She burst out angrily:
Oh ho, not again,
You’re as stupid as the day I met you!
Oh ho, not again,
You’re bonkers if you think
everything you see is the truth

Madame led him by the hand
To a tank of water, full to the brim
And ordered him to look at it, asking him
What he saw there. Well, of course, he said
he could see his own image.

‘And yet, of course, you are not
Under the water fully dressed,
Whatever appearances might suggest!
You mustn’t have confidence
In your eyes which so often lie.’

And he said, ‘I’m sorry.
Everyone must believe absolutely
In what his wife tells him to be true,
Not what we see with our misleading eyes,
Those masters of folly and error.’

By this example you can clearly see
That having a crafty mind
Is more useful to many people
Than all their morals and upbringing.

Text Authorship:

  • by Anonymous / Unidentified Author

Based on:

  • a text in French (Français) by Marie de France ( flourished 1160-1215 ) [text unavailable]
    • Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Janet Oates (b. 1970), "The Wife and her Lover", 2022, copyright © 2022 [ soprano, recorder and theorbo ]
        Score: Janet Oates [external link]  [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-23
Line count: 34
Word count: 218

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