The Wife of Bath interrupts her story to tell the tale of King Midas, beginning by saying "we wommen" can't keep any secrets. To illustrate this point, she begins to recount the story of King Midas's wife. King Midas had long ass's ears, which he was able to hide from everyone but his wife. He asked her not to tell anyone, and she promised to keep his secret. However, being a woman, it burbled up inside her, and she thought she would burst if she didn't tell it somehow. Therefore, she went to a marsh and putting her mouth to the mire, she told the secret to the water. What happened next? The Wife of Bath tells her listeners to look it up in Ovid.

The Wife of Bath is being characteristically wise and cunning here. She begins a story about a woman who couldn't keep a secret, but she keeps the ending a secret—undermining the sexist point of the story she is telling!

In a story meant to show that women want and are deserving of having power in marriage, it makes sense for the Wife of Bath to tell a story within a story in a way that undermines sexist myths about women.