“Ey! Goddes mercy!” seyde oure Hooste tho,
\n“Now swich a wyf I pray God kepe me fro!
\nLo, whiche sleightes and subtilitees
\nIn wommen been! for ay as bisy as bees
\nBeen they, us sely men for to deceyve,
\nAnd from the soothe evere wol they weyve;
\nBy this marchauntes tale it preveth weel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The above is in barely comprehensible Middle English, so here it is below in modern English<\/a>:<\/p>\n Eh! By God’s mercy!” cried our host. Said he: This ancient comparison of women to busy bees is actually rather apt since every single worker Honeybee that you see out busily gathering nectar and pollen from flowers is a female.<\/p>\n The origin of the common simile “busy as a bee” is thought to be Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the late 1380s until his death in 1400. “Ey! Goddes mercy!” seyde oure Hooste tho, “Now swich a wyf I pray God kepe me fro! Lo, whiche sleightes and subtilitees In wommen been! for ay as… Read More → <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arizona-invertebrates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n“Now such a wife I pray God keep from me!
\nBehold what tricks, and lo, what subtleties
\nIn women are. For always busy as bees
\nAre they, us simple men thus to deceive,
\nAnd from the truth they turn aside and leave;
\nBy this same merchant’s tale it’s proved, I feel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"Female](\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2006\/March\/Bee-on-African-aloe.jpg\" "\\"Female")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"