THE CLERK'S TALE.
PROLOGUE.
'Good Master Clerk of Oxford,' said our host, 'why, you ride there as still and coy as a young maid at her bridal feast! Not a word, I vow, has passed your lips the whole of this day. I would wager, now, that your brain is weaving some sophism or other: but as Solomon says, "There is a time for everything." So cheer up, man! this is no time for studying. You have consented to take a part in our play, and therefore, needs must be thinking of the character you have undertaken to perform. Come, then, tell us some merry tale; and for mercy's sake do not make it like a Lent sermon, bidding us bewail in sackcloth our sins and offences of the past year; or like
