Original Text
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Modern Text
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This Alison answerde, ‘Who is ther
That knokketh so? I warante it a theef.’
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“Who’s there knocking on the window?” Alison called. “It’s not a thief, is
it?”
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‘Why, nay,’ quod he, ‘God woot, my swete leef,
I am thyn Absolon, my dereling!
Of gold,’ quod he, ‘I have thee broght a ring;
My moder yaf it me, so God me save,
610Ful fyn it is, and ther-to wel y-grave;
This wol I yeve thee, if thou me kisse!’
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“No, my darling, it’s me, Absalom, sweet love. I’ve brought you a gold ring
that my mother once gave me,” he said. “It’s very beautiful and even engraved.
I’ll give it to you if you’ll give me another kiss!”
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This Nicholas was risen for to pisse,
And thoghte he wolde amenden al the Iape,
He sholde kisse his ers er that he scape.
And up the windowe dide he hastily,
And out his ers he putteth prively
Over the buttok, to the haunche-bon;
And ther-with spak this clerk, this Absolon,
‘Spek, swete brid, I noot nat wher thou art.’
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Nicholas, who’d gotten up to pee, heard Absalom outside and thought he’d make
the night even funnier by making the priest kiss his ass too. He opened the
window quickly and stuck out his butt as far as it would go, just at the moment
Absalom said, “Say something, my sweet bird, so I know where you are.”
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620This Nicholas anon leet flee a fart,
As greet as it had been a thonder-dent,
That with the strook he was almost y-blent;
And he was redy with his iren hoot,
And Nicholas amidde the ers he smoot.
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Nicholas answered by ripping off an enormous fart as powerful as thunder that
nearly blinded Absalom. He was ready with the hot poker, though, and rammed it
right at Tricky Nicky’s butt.
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Of gooth the skin an hande-brede aboute,
The hole culter brende so his toute,
And for the smert he wende for to dye.
As he were wood, for wo he gan to crye—
Help! water! water! help, for Goddes herte!’
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The poker burned Nicholas’s butt so badly that the skin started peeling off.
Nicholas thought he’d die from the pain, and he screamed like a madman, “Help!
Water! Help! Water! For God’s sake, water!”
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