'Més riens n'i vaut le regreter;
Qui est alé, ne puet venir,' &c.
These lines form part of the speech of _La Vieille_, on whom the Wife of
Bath is certainly modelled; cf. note to A. 461.
483. _Ioce_, in Latin _Judocus_, a Breton saint, whose day is Dec. 13, and
who died in A. D. 669. Alban Butler says that his hermitage became a famous
monastery, which stood in the diocese of Amiens, and was called St.
Josse-sur-mer. This part of France became familiar to many Englishmen in
the course of the wars of Edward III. See, however, Le Testament de Jean de
Meung, 461-4, which I take to mean:--'When dame Katherine sees the proof of
_Sir Joce_, who cares not a prune for his wife's love, she is so fearful
that her own husband will do her a like harm, that she often makes for him
a staff of a similar bit of wood'; F. 'Si li refait sovent d'autel fust une
croce.' It is obvious that Chaucer has copied this in l. 484, and that he
here found his rime to _croce_.
484. 'I made a stick for him of the same wood'; i. e. I retaliated by
rousing his jealousy; compare the last note. _Croce_, a staff, O. F.
_croce_, F. _crosse_; see _Croche_ in the New E. Dictionary. Cf. Prompt.
Parv., p. 103, note 5; and my note to P. Plowm. C. xi. 92.
487. In Hazlitt's Proverbs is given--'To fry in his own grease,' from
Heywood; it is explained to mean 'to be very passionate,' but means rather
'to torment oneself.' He also quotes, from Heywood:--
'She fryeth in hir owne grease, but as for my parte,
If she be angry, beshrew her angry harte.'
See also Rich. Coer de Lion, 4409; Lydgate's Temple of Glas, ed. Schick,
pp. 14, 94.
492. The story is given by Jerome, in the treatise so often quoted above.
'Legimus quendam apud Romanos nobilem, cum eum amici arguerent quare uxorem
formosam et castam et diuitem repudiasset, protendisse pedem, et dixisse
eis: Et hic soccus quem cernitis, uidetur uobis nouus et elegans, sed nemo
scit praeter me ubi me premat.'--Hieron. c. Iouinianum, lib. i.: Epist. ii.
52 (Basil. 1524). John of Salisbury has the same story, almost in the same
words, but gives the name of the noble Roman, viz. P. Cn. Graecinus. See
his Policraticus, lib. v. c. 10. Chaucer alludes to it again below, in E.
1553.