[022]
Nor make I any doubt but there are yet others who will say that
the said stories are too full of jests and merry conceits, and that it ill
beseems a man of weight and gravity to have written on such wise.
To these I am bound to render, and do render, my thanks, for that,
prompted by well-meant zeal, they have so tender a regard to my
reputation.
[023]
But to that, which they urge against me, I reply after
this sort: That I am of weight I acknowledge, having been often
weighed in my time; wherefore, in answer to the fair that have not
weighed me, I affirm that I am not of gravity; on the contrary I am
so light that I float on the surface of the water; and considering
that the sermons which the friars make, when they would chide folk
for their sins, are to-day, for the most part, full of jests and merry
conceits, and drolleries, I deemed that the like stuff would not ill
beseem my stories, written, as they were, to banish women's dumps.
[024]However, if thereby they should laugh too much, they may be
readily cured thereof by the Lament of Jeremiah, the Passion of the
Saviour, or the Complaint of the Magdalen.
