BICORN AND CHICHEVACHE
BY JOHN LYDGATE.



First there shall stand an image in Poet-wise, saying these verses:-

O prudent folkes, taketh heed,
And remembreth in your lives
How this story doth proceed
Of the husbands and their wives,
Of their accord and their strives,
With life or death which to darrain {85a}
Is granted to these beastes twain.

Then shall be pourtrayed two beasts, one fat; another lean.

For this Bicorn of his nature
Will none other manner food,
But patient husbands his pasture,
And Chichevache eat'th the women good;
And both these beastes, by the Rood,
Be fat or lean, it may not fail,
Like lack or plenty of their vitail.

Of Chichevache and of Bicorn, {85b}
Treateth wholly this matere,
Whose story hath taught us beforn
How these beastes both infere {85c}