He was, I trowe, twenty wynter oold,
And I was fourty, if I shal seye sooth;
But yet I hadde alwey a coltes tooth.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. After being married to a succession of old men, the Wife of Bath now claps her eye on and lusts after the young, 20-year-old Jankin, who attends the funeral of her fourth husband. Although at forty she is old to Jankin, she says that she had always a colt’s tooth – metaphor for youthful and lusty desires.