Snippet #0002 at the original Relformaide Dictionary on Referata (on July 7, 2018). Resurfaced on the ByetHost trial version of this site ca. October–November 2020.
Development of the earliest version of what this site founder informally calls "The Merchant's Test" dates back as early as May 2018.
The Merchant's Tale is part of The Canterbury Tales (1387–1400), a collection of 24 short stories in poetic form by Geoffrey Chaucer. The framing device implied 120 tales would be included, but there is debate as to whether Chaucer died before he could finish them, or they got completed but only these fragments survive. (In modern scholarship, Merchant's is placed in Fragment IV; Victorian-era texts placed it in Group E.)
This is based on a modern-day rendering, whose original Middle English counterpart reads:
'Wepyng and waylyng, care and oother sorwe
I knowe ynogh, on even and a-morwe,'
Quod the Marchant, 'and so doon oother mo
That wedded been.'
“Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow I know enough, in the evening and in the morning,” said the Merchant, “and so do many others who have been married.”