Therfore bihoveth hire a ful long spoon
That shal ete with a feend.

This Middle English proverb appears in Geoffrey Chaucer’s *The Canterbury Tales*, in the “Wife of Bath’s Prologue.” The Wife of Bath, recounting her experience with husbands and with the hazards of marriage, uses the saying as a cautionary maxim: anyone who chooses to “eat with a fiend” (i.e., to deal closely with a dangerous or morally corrupt person) must keep a safe distance and protect themselves. Chaucer draws on a well-known medieval commonplace—also found in other European traditions—about needing a “long spoon” to dine with the devil, embedding it in a lively, colloquial narrative voice that mixes learned authorities with streetwise wisdom.

The proverb warns that intimacy with the wicked is perilous: if you must associate with a “fiend,” do so with safeguards and emotional distance. The “long spoon” is a vivid domestic image—table fellowship normally signifies trust and closeness, but here it becomes a situation requiring defensive strategy. In Chaucer’s hands, the saying underscores a tension common in the Tales between idealized courtly settings and the realities of human (or demonic) danger. More broadly, it captures a pragmatic ethic: some encounters are unavoidable, but prudence requires boundaries.

“He that sups with the devil must have a long spoon.”
“Whoever would dine with the devil needs a long spoon.”
“Those who sup with the devil should use a long spoon.”