Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: John Gower
Editors: Tom Bishop, Andrew Forsberg
Not Peer Reviewed

Apollonius of Tyre

[Qualiter Thaisis a lupanari virgo liberata, inter sacras mulieres hospicium habens, sciencias quibus edocta fuit nobiles regni puellas ibidem edocebat.]
How Thaisis, freed a virgin from the brothel and finding hospitality among holy women, taught the noble young women of the kingdom there those skills which she had been taught.
1510 He hath hire fro the bordel take,
Bot that was noght for goddes sake,
Bot for the lucre, as sche him tolde.
Now comen tho that comen wolde
Of wommen in her lusty youthe,
1515To hiere and se what thing sche couthe:
Sche can the wisdom of a clerk,
Sche can of every lusti werk
Which to a gentil womman longeth,
And some of hem sche underfongeth
1520To the Citole and to the Harpe,
And whom it liketh forto carpe
Proverbes and demandes slyhe,
An other such thei nevere syhe,
Which that science so wel tawhte:
1525Wherof sche grete yiftes cawhte,
That sche to Leonin hath wonne;
And thus hire name is so begonne
Of sondri thinges that she techeth,
That al the lond unto hir secheth
1530Of yonge wommen forto liere.