The Thrush and the Nightingale is a brief Middle English debate poem in tail rhyme stanzas about the nature of woman. The poem was written in the late thirteenth century after the better-known Owl and the Nightingale which may have influenced its composition. In this debate, the Thrush uses well-known examples from the medieval antifeminist tradition, including speeches by Adam, Alexander the Great, and Sir Gawain, to argue that women are dangerous, unfaithful, and duplicitous. The Nightingale, who initially responds passionately, but without specific examples to refute the Thrush, wins the debate at the end of the poem by introducing the single example of the Virgin Mary, forcing the Thrush to recant his insults and flee into permanent exile.