Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 1.pdf/286

And thereto gave he me that gift
Of speech, which man o’er brutes doth lift,
But to thy folly doth appear
More comely as it grows less clear.
Thou good authority mayst find
For that I say, if so inclinèd,
For, in his school, great Plato said,
That God the gift of talking shed7470
On man that, learning, he might teach
Others, and greater learning reach.

No names unseemly This proverb which I set in rhyme,
Was taught by Plato in old time
(Than whom ne’er lived more witful wight)
Within the book Timæus hight.
And since a word thou tak’st to task
I used erewhile, I dare to ask
Before the face of God, if I
Perchance had called Jove’s cullions by7480
The name of relics, and had named
Saints’ relics cullions, hadst thou blamed
That name and straightway wouldst thou find
Relics in no degree behind
The other as a blameful word?
’Twas I who gave the names which stirred
Your anger, and they are to me
Devoid all taint of ribaldry.
One’s free to use such words, i’faith,
Yet rest assured that nought he saith7490
To reprehend. Now if I’d named
The cullions relics, nought ashamed
Thou’dst been thereat, but hadst been fired
With approbation, and admired