The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo
The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo or The Tretis Of The Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo ('The conversation of the two married women and the widow') is a narrative poem in Scots by the makar William Dunbar. History The poem dates to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries and is written in the archaic form of alliterative verse rather than the rhyming verse more typical of Scots poetry of the time. It survives in The Chepman and Myllar Prints of 1508, held in the National Library of Scotland and, as a fragment, in the Maitland Manuscripts, held in the Pepys Library. It is also now available online archive of medieval texts in an annotated version (see External Links below). The poem describes an unnamed narrator's overhearing of a discussion between three women in a garden. The women speak frankly and at length of marriage and their experiences with their husbands. The discussion of sexuality is often in language which is earthy and uninhibited. The work ends with the narrator asking the reader, Quhilk wald ye waill to your wif, gif ye suld wed one? or, in English, Which would you choose for your wife, if you were