Stanza 62

Boccaccio:

e' primieramente la punse con parole, mostrandosi turbato e dicendo che i suoi uomini pessimamente si contentavano di lei per la sua bassa condizione e spezialmente poi che vedevano che ella portava figliuoli, e della figliuola che nata era tristissimi altro che mormorar non facevano.

wherefore he began by afflicting her with his gibes, putting on a vexed air, and telling her that his vassals were most sorely dissatisfied with her by reason of her base condition, and all the more so since they saw that she was a mother, and that they did nought but most ruefully murmur at the birth of a daughter.


Petrarch:

Michi ergo, qui cum eis pacem cupio, necesse est de filia tua non meo sed alieno iudicio obsequi, et id facere quo nil michi posset esse molestius.

Since, therefore, I desire peace with them, I must follow another's judgment, not my own, in the case of your daughter, and do that which is most grievous to me.


Chaucer:

And namely, sith thy doghter was ybore,
Thise wordes han they spoken, doutelees;
But I desire, as I have doon bifore,
To lyve my lyf with hem in reste and pees.
I may nat in this caas be recchelees;
I moot doon with thy doghter for the beste,
Nat as I wolde, but as my peple leste.


(close this window to return to the Clerk's Tale.)