Transcribed from the 1896 George Allen edition by David Price,
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OLD FRENCH

ROMANCES

DONE INTO ENGLISH

BY

WILLIAM MORRIS

WITH AN
INTRODUCTION BY

JOSEPH JACOBS

LONDON

GEORGE ALLEN, RUSKIN HOUSE

1896

All rights reserved

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.

At the Ballantyne Press

p.
vINTRODUCTION

Many of us have first found our way
into the Realm of Romance, properly so called, through the pages
of a little crimson clad volume of the Bibliothèque
Elzevirienne. [1]  Its last pages contain the
charming Cante-Fable of Aucassin et Nicolete, which Mr.
Walter Pater’s praises and Mr. Andrew Lang’s
brilliant version have made familiar to all lovers of
letters.  But the same volume contains four other tales,
equally charming in their way, which Mr. William Morris has now
made part of English literature by writing them out again for us
in English, reproducing, as his alone can do of living
men’s, the tone, the colour, the charm of the Middle
Ages.  His versions have appeared in three successive issues
of the Kelmscott Press, which p. vihave been eagerly snapped up by the
lovers of good books.  It seemed a pity that these cameos of
romance should suffer the same fate as Mr. Lang’s version
of Aucassin et Nicolete, which has been swept off the face
of the earth by the Charge of the Six Hundred, who were lucky
enough to obtain copies of the only edition of that little
masterpiece of translation.  Mr. Morris has, therefore,
consented to allow his versions of the Romances to be combined
into one volume in a form not unworthy of their excellence but
more accessible to those lovers of books whose purses have a
habit of varying in inverse proportion to the amount of their
love.  He has honoured me by asking me to introduce them to
that wider public to which they now make their appeal.

p.
viiI

Almost all literary roads lead back
to Greece.  Obscure as still remains the origin of that
genre of romance to which the tales before us belong,
there is little doubt that their models, if not their originals,
were once extant at Constantinople.  Though in no single
instance has the Greek original been discovered of any of these
romances, the mere name of their heroes would be in most cases
sufficient to prove their Hellenic or Byzantine origin. 
Heracles, Athis, Porphirias, Parthenopeus, Hippomedon,
Protesilaus, Cliges, Cleomades, Clarus, Berinus—names such
as these can come but from one quarter of Europe, and it is as
easy to guess how and when they came as whence.  The first
two crusades brought the flower of European chivalry to
Constantinople and restored that spiritual union between Eastern
and Western Christendom that had been interrupted by the great
schism of the Greek and Roman Churches.  The crusaders p. viiicame
mostly from the Lands of Romance.  Permanent bonds of
culture began to be formed between the extreme East and the
extreme West of Europe by intermarriage, by commerce, by the
admission of the nobles of Byzantium within the orders of
chivalry.  These ties went on increasing throughout the
twelfth century till they culminated at its close with the
foundation of the Latin kingdom of Constantinople.  In
European literature these historic events are represented by the
class of romances represented in this volume, which all trace
back to versions in verse of the twelfth century, though they
were done into prose somewhere in Picardy during the course of
the next century.  Daphnis and Chloe, one might say, had
revived after a sleep of 700 years, and donned the garb and spoke
the tongue of Romance.

II

The very first of our tales illustrates admirably the general
course of their history.  It is, in effect, a folk etymology
of the name of the great capital of the Eastern Empire. 
Constantinople, so runs the tale, received that name instead of
Byzantium, because of the remarkable career of one of its former
rulers, Coustans.  M. Wesselovsky p. ixhas published in Romania (vi.
1. seq.) the Dit de l’empereur Constant, the verse
original of the story before us, and in this occur the
lines—

Pour ce que si nobles estoit

Et que nobles œvres faisoit

L’appielloient Constant le noble

Et pour çou ot Constantinnoble

Li cytés de Bissence a non.

From which it would appear that we are mistaken in thinking of
the capital of Turkey as the “City of Constantine,”
whereas it is rather Constant the Noble, and the name Coustant is
further explained as “costing” too much. 
Constantinople, therefore, is the city that costs too much,
according to the prophetic etymology of the folk.

The only historic personage with whom this Coustant can be
identified is Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine the
Great and the husband of St. Helena, to whom legend ascribes the
discovery of the Holy Rood.  But the Coustans of our story
never lived or ruled on land or sea, and his predecessor,
Muselinus, is altogether unknown to Byzantine annals, while their
interlaced history reads more like a page of the Arabian
Nights than of Gibbon.

p. xBut such
a legend could scarcely have arisen elsewhere than at
Constantinople.  It is one of those fables that the
disinherited folk have at all times invented to solace themselves
for their disinherison.  The sudden and fated rise of one of
the folk to the heights of power occurs sufficiently often to
afford material for the day dreams of ambitious youth. 
There is even a popular tendency to attribute a lowly origin to
all favourites of fortune, as witness the legends that have grown
up about the early careers of Beckett, Whittington, Wolsey, none
of whom was as ill-born as popular tradition asserts.  Yet
such legends invariably grow up in the country of their heroes,
which is the only one sufficiently interested in their career, so
far as the common people are concerned.  Hence the very
nature of our story would cause us to locate its origin on the
banks of the Bosphorus.

But once originated in this manner, there is no limit to the
travels it may take.  Curiously enough, the very legend
before us in all its details has found a home among the English
peasantry.  The Rev. S. Baring-Gould collected in Yorkshire
a story which he contributed to Henderson’s Folklore of
the Northern Counties, p. xiand entitled The Fish and the
Ring. [2]  In this legend a girl comes as the
unwelcome sixth of the family of a very poor man who lived under
the shadow of York Minster.  A Knight, riding by on the day
of her birth, discovers, by consultation of the Book of Fate,
that she was destined to marry his son.  He offers to adopt
her, and throws her into the River Ouse.  A fisherman saves
her, and she is again discovered after many years by the Knight,
who learns what Fate has still in store for his son.  He
sends her to his brother at Scarborough with a fatal letter,
ordering him to put her to death.  But on the way she is
seized by a band of robbers, who read the letter and replace it
by one ordering the Baron’s son to be married to her
immediately on her arrival.

When the Baron discovers that he has not been able to evade
the decree of fate he still persists in his persecution, and
taking a ring from his finger throws it into the sea, saying that
the girl shall never live with his son till she can show him that
ring.  She wanders about and becomes a scullery-maid at a
great castle, and one day p. xiiwhen the Baron is dining at the
castle, while cleaning a great fish she finds his ring, and all
ends happily.

Now on the east wall of the chancel of Stepney Church there is
a monument erected to Dame Rebecca Berry, wife of Thomas Elton,
of Stratford, Bow, and relict of Sir John Berry, 1696.  The
arms on the monument are thus blazoned by heralds . . . . 
“Paly of six on a bend three mullets (Elton) impaling a
fish, and in the dexter chief point an annulet between two bends
wavy.”  The reference in the impalement of the blazon
is obvious.  A local tradition confidently identifies Dame
Berry as the heroine of the Yorkshire legend, though of course it
is ignorant of her connection with the etymology of
Constantinople.

Now this tale, or the first half of it, is but a Yorkshire
variant of one spread throughout Europe.  The opening of the
twenty-ninth story of the collection of the Brothers Grimm, and
entitled The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs, is exactly
the same, and in their Notes they give references to many similar
European folk-tales.  The story is found in Modern Greece
(Von Hahn, No. XX.), and it is, therefore, possible that the
story of King Coustans is the adaptation of a Greek folk-tale for
the purposes of a Folk Etymology.  But p. xiiithe
letter, “On delivery, please kill bearer,” is
scarcely likely to have occurred twice to the popular
imagination, and one is almost brought to the conclusion that the
romance before us was itself either directly or indirectly the
source of all the European Folk-tales in which the letter
“To kill bearer” occurs.  And as we have before
traced the Romance back to Constantinople, one is further tempted
to trace back the Letter itself to a reminiscence of
Homer’s σηματα
λυγρά.

I have said above that no Greek original of any of these
Romances has hitherto been discovered.  But in the case of
King Coustans we can at any rate get within appreciable distance
of it.  As recently as 1895 a learned Teuton, Dr. Ernst
Kuhn, pointed out, appropriately enough in the Byzantinische
Zeitschrift, the existence of an Ethiopic and of an Arabic
version of the legend.  He found in one of Mr.
Quaritch’s catalogues a description of an illuminated
Ethiopic MS., once belonging to King Theodore of Magdala fame,
which from the account given of several of the illustrations he
was enabled to identify as the story of “The Man born to be
King.”  His name in the Ethiopic version is
Thalassion, or Ethiopic words to that effect, and p. xivthe Greek
provenance of the story is thereby established.  Dr.
Kuhn was also successful in finding an Arabic version done by a
Coptic Christian.  In both these versions the story is told
as a miracle due to the interference of the Angel Michael; and it
is a curious coincidence that in Mr. Morris’ poetical
version of our story in the “Earthly Paradise” he
calls his hero Michael.  Unless some steps are taken to
prevent the misunderstanding, it is probable that some Teutonic
investigator of the next century will, on the strength of this
identity of names, bring Mr. Morris in guilty of a knowledge of
Ethiopic.

But for the name of the hero one might have suspected these
Oriental versions of being derived, not from a Greek, but from an
Indian original.  Mr. Tawney has described a variant found
in the Kathākosa [3] which resembles our
tale much more closely than any of the European folk-tales in the
interesting point that the predestined bride herself finds the
fatal letter and makes the satisfactory substitution.  In
the Indian tale this is done with considerable ingenuity and
vraisemblance.  The girl’s name is Visha, and
the operative clause of the fatal letter is:

p.
xv“Before this man has washed his feet, do thou with
speed

Give him poison (visham), and free my heart from
care.”

The lady thinks (or wishes) that her father is a bad
orthographist, and corrects his spelling by omitting the final
m, so that the letter reads “Give him Visha,”
with results more satisfactory to the young lady than to her
father.  This variant is so very close to our tale, while
the letter incident in it is so much more naturally developed
than in the romance that one might almost suspect it of having
been the original.  But we must know more about the
Kathākosa and about the communication between
Byzantium and India before we can decisively determine which came
first.

III

Amis and Amil were the David and Jonathan, the Orestes and
Pylades, of the mediæval world.  Dr. Hofmann, who has
edited the earliest French verse account of the Legend,
enumerates nearly thirty other versions of it in almost all the
tongues of Western and Northern Europe, not to mention various
versions which have crept into different collections of the Lives
of the p.
xviSaints.  For their peerless friendship raised them
to the ranks of the martyrs, at any rate, at Mortara and Novara,
where, according to the Legend, they died.  The earliest of
all these forms is a set of Latin Hexameters by one Radulfus
Tortarius, born at Fleury, 1063, lived in Normandy, and died some
time after 1122.  It was, therefore, possible that the story
had come back with the first crusaders, and the Grimms attribute
to it a Greek original.  But in its earliest as well as in
its present form, it is definitely located on Romance soil, while
the names of the heroes are clearly Latin (Amicus and
Æmilius).  It was, however, only at a later stage that
the story was affiliated to the Epic Cycle of Charlemagne. 
On the face of it there is clearly stamped the impress of popular
tradition.  Heads are not so easily replaced, except by a
freak of the Folk imagination.  It is probably for this
reason that M. Gaston Paris attributes an Oriental origin to the
latter part of the tale, and for the same reason the Benedictine
Fathers have had serious doubts about admitting it into the
Acta Sanctorum.  On the other hand, the editors of
the French text, the translation of which we have before us, go
so far as to conjecture that there is a historic germ for the
whole p.
xviiLegend in certain incidents of the War of Charlemagne
against Didier.  But as the whole connection of the Legend
with the Charlemagne Cycle is late, we need not attribute much
importance to, indeed, we may at once dismiss their
conjecture.

These disputes of the pundits cannot destroy the charm of the
Legend.  Never, even in antiquity, have the claims of
friendship been urged with such a passionate emphasis.  The
very resemblance of the two heroes is symbolic of their
similarity of character; the very name of one of them is Friend
pure and simple.  The world is well lost for
friendship’s sake on the one side, on the other nearest and
dearest are willingly and literally sacrificed on the altar of
friendship.  One of the most charming of the Fioretti
tells how St. Francis overcame in himself the mediæval
dread at the touch of a leper, and washed and tended one of the
poor unfortunates.  He was but following the example of
Amil, who was not deterred by the dreaded sound of the
“tartavelle”—the clapper or rattle which
announced the approach of the leper [4]—from tending his
friend.

p.
xviiiHere again romance has points of contact with the
folk tale.  The end of the Grimms’ tale of Faithful
John is clearly the same as that of Amis and Amile. [5]  Once more we are led to believe in
some dependence of the Folk-Tale on Romance, or, vice
versa, since an incident like that of resuscitation by the
sacrifice of a child is not likely to occur independently to two
different tellers of tales.  The tale also contains the
curious incident of the unsheathed sword in bed, which, both in
romances and folk-tales, is regarded as a complete bar to any
divorce court proceedings.  It is probable that the sword
was considered as a living person, so that the principle
publico was applied, and the sword was regarded as a kind
of chaperon. [6]  It is noteworthy that the incident
occurs in Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, which is a late
interpolation into the Arabian Nights, and may be due
there to p.
xixEuropean influence.  But another incident in the
romance suggests that it was derived from a folk-tale rather than
the reverse.  The two bowls of wood given to the heroes at
baptism are clearly a modification of that familiar incident in
folk-tales, where one of a pair leaves with the other a
“Lifetoken” [7] which will
sympathetically indicate his state of health.  As this has
been considerably attenuated in our romance, we are led to the
conclusion that it is itself an adaptation of a folk-tale.

IV

The tale of King Florus—the gem of the
book—recalls the early part of Shakespeare’s
Cymbeline and the bet about a wife’s virtue, which
forms the subject of many romances, not a few folk-tales, and at
least one folk-song.  The Romance of the Violet, by
Gerbert de Montruil, circa 1225, derives its name from the
mother’s mark of the heroine, which causes her husband to
lose his bet.  This was probably the source of
Boccaccio’s novel (ii. 9), from which Shakespeare’s
more immediately grew.  p. xxThe Gaelic version of this incident,
collected by Campbell (The Chest, No. ii.), is clearly not
of folk origin, but derived directly or indirectly from
Boccaccio, in whom alone the Chest is found.  Yet it is
curious that, practically, the same story as the Romance of
the Violet is found among folk-songs in modern Greece and in
Modern Scotland.  In Passow’s collection of Romaic
Folk Songs there is one entitled Maurianos and the King,
which is in substance our story; and it is probably the existence
of this folk-song which causes M. Gaston Paris to place our tale
among the romances derived from Byzantium.  Yet Motherwell
in his Minstrelsy has a ballad entitled Reedisdale and
Wise William, which has the bet as its motive.  Here
again, then, we have a connection between our romance and the
story-store of European folk, and at the same time some slight
link with Byzantium.

V

The tale of “Oversea” has immediate connection
with the Crusades, since its heroine is represented to be no
other than the great grandmother of Saladin.  But her
adventures resemble those of Boccaccio’s Princess of
Babylon (ii. 7), p.
xxiwho was herself taken from one of the Greek romances by
Xenophon of Ephesus.  Here again, then, we can trace back to
Greek influence reaching Western Europe in the twelfth century
through the medium of the Crusades.  But the tale finds no
echo among the folk, so far as I am aware, and is thus purely and
simply a romance of adventure.

This, however, is not the only story connected with the
Crusades in which the Soudan loves a lady of the Franks. 
Saladin is credited by the chatty Chronicle of Rheims with having
gained the love of Eleanor, wife of Louis VII., when they were in
Palestine on the Second Crusade.  As Saladin did not ascend
the throne till twenty years later, chronology is enabled to
clear his memory of this piece of scandal.  But its
existence chimes in with such relations between Moslem and
Christian as is represented in our story, which were clearly not
regarded at the time with any particular aversion by the folk;
they agree with Cardinal Mazarin on this point.

p.
xxiiVI

So much for the origin of our tales.  Yet who cares for
origins nowadays?  We are all democrats now, and a tale,
like a man, is welcomed for its merits and not for its
pedigree.  Yet even democracy must own, that pedigree often
leaves its trace in style and manner, and certainly the tales
before us owe some of their charm to their lineage. 
“Out of Byzantium by Old France” is a good strain by
which to produce thoroughbred romance.

Certainly we breathe the very air of romance in these
stories.  There is none of your modern priggish care for the
state of your soul.  Men take rank according to their might,
women are valued for their beauty alone.  Adventures are to
the adventurous, and the world is full of them.  Every place
but that in which one is born is equally strange and
wondrous.  Once beyond the bounds of the city walls and none
knows what may happen.  We have stepped forth into the Land
of Faerie, but at least we are in the open air.

Mr. Pater seems to regard our stories as being a premonition
of the freedom and gaiety of the Renaissance rather than as
especially p.
xxiiicharacteristic of the times of Romance.  All
that one need remark upon such misconception is that it only
proves that Mr. Pater knew less of Romance Literature than he did
of his favourite subject.  The freshness, the gaiety, the
direct outlook into life are peculiar neither to Romance nor
Renaissance; their real source was the esprit
Gaulois.  But the unquestioning, if somewhat external,
piety, the immutability of the caste system, the spirit of
adventure, the frankly physical love of woman, the large
childlike wonder, these are of the essence of Romance, and they
are fully represented in the tales before us.  Wonder and
reverence, are not these the parents of Romance? 
Intelligent curiosity and intellectual doubt—those are what
the Renaissance brought.  Without indulging in invidious
comparisons between the relative value of these gifts, I would
turn back to our stories with the remark that much of the wonder
which they exhibit is due to the vague localisation which runs
through them.  Rome, Paris, Byzantium, form spots of light
on the mediæval map, but all between is in the dim obscure
where anything may occur, and the brave man moves about with his
life in his hands.

We thus obtain that absence or localisation p. xxivwhich
helps to give the characteristic tone to mediæval
romance.  Events happen in a sort of sublime No Man’s
Land.  They happen, as it were, at the root of the
mountains, on the glittering plain, and in short, we get news
from Nowhere.  It seems, therefore, peculiarly appropriate
that they should be done into English in the same style and by
the same hand that has already written the annals of those
countries of romance.  Writing here, in front of Mr.
Morris’s versions, I am speaking, as it were, before his
face, and must not say all that I should like in praise of the
style in which he has clothed them, and of its appropriateness
for its present purpose.  I should merely like to recall the
fact that it was used by him in his versions of the Sagas as long
ago as 1869.  Since then it has been adopted by all who
desire to give an appropriate English dress to their versions of
classic or mediæval masterpieces of a romantic
character.  We may take it, I think, that this style has
established itself as the only one suitable for a romantic
version, and who shall use it with ease and grace if not its
original inventor?

If their style suits Mr. Morris, there is little doubt that
their subject is equally congenial.  I cannot claim to be in
his confidence on the p. xxvpoint, but it is not difficult, I
fancy, to guess what has attracted him to them.  Nearly all
of them, we have seen, are on the borderland between folk-tale
and romance.  It is tales such as these that Mr. Morris
wishes to see told in tapestry on the walls of the Moot-Hall of
the Hammersmith of Nowhere.  It was by tales such as these
that he first won a hearing from all lovers of English
literature.  The story of Jason is but a Greek setting of a
folk-tale known among the Gaels as the Battle of the
Birds, and in Norse as the Master Maid.  Many of
the tales which the travellers told one another in the Earthly
Paradise, such as The Man Born to be King (itself
derived from the first of our stories), The Land East of the
Sun and West of the Moon, and The Ring given to Venus,
are, on the face of them, folk-tales.  Need I give any
stronger recommendation of this book to English readers than to
ask them to regard it as a sort of outhouse to that goodly fabric
so appropriately known to us all as The Earthly
Paradise?

JOSEPH JACOBS.

p. 1The Tale
of King Coustans the Emperor

This tale telleth us that there was
erewhile an Emperor of Byzance, which as now is called
Constantinople; but anciently it was called Byzance.  There
was in the said city an Emperor; pagan he was, and was held for
wise as of his law.  He knew well enough of a science that
is called Astronomy, and he knew withal of the course of the
stars, and the planets, and the moon: and he saw well in the
stars many marvels, and he knew much of other things wherein the
paynims much study, and in the lots they trow, and the answers of
the Evil One, that is to say, the Enemy.  This Emperor had
to name Musselin; he knew much of lore and of sorceries, as many
a pagan doth even yet.

Now it befell on a time that the Emperor Musselin went his
ways a night-tide, he and a knight of his alone together, amidst
of the city which is now called Constantinople, and the moon
shone full clear.

And so far they went, till they heard a Christian woman who
travailed in child-bed in a certain house whereby they
went.  There was the husband of the said woman aloft in a
high solar, and was praying to God one while that she might be
delivered, and then again another while that she might not be
delivered.

When the Emperor had hearkened this a great while, he said to
the knight: “Hast thou heard it of yonder churl how he
prayeth that his wife may be delivered of her child, and another
while prayeth that she may not be delivered?  Certes, he is
worser than a thief.  For every man ought to have pity of
women, more especially of them that be sick of childing. 
And now, so help me Mahoume and Termagaunt! if I do not hang him,
if he betake him not to telling me reason wherefore he doeth
it!  Come we now unto him.”

They went within, and said the Emperor: “Now churl, tell
me of a sooth wherefore thou prayedst thy God thus for thy wife,
one while that she might be delivered, and another while that she
might be delivered not.  This have I will to wot.”

“Sir,” said he, “I will tell thee
well.  Sooth it is that I be a clerk, and know mickle of a
science which men call Astronomy.  Withal I wot of the
course of the stars and of the planets; therefore saw I well that
if my wife were delivered at the point and the hour whereas I
prayed God that she might not be delivered, that if she were
delivered at that hour, the child would go the way of perdition,
and that needs must he be burned, or hanged, or drowned. 
But whenas I saw that it was good hour and good point, then
prayed I to God that she might be delivered.  And so sore
have I prayed God, that he hath hearkened my prayer of his mercy,
and that she is delivered in good point.  God be heried and
thanked!”

“Well me now,” said the Emperor, “in what
good point is the child born?”

“Sir,” said he, “of a good will; know sir,
for sooth, that this child, which here is born, shall have to
wife the daughter of the emperor of this city, who was born but
scarce eight days ago; and he shall be emperor withal, and lord
of this city, and of all the earth.” 
“Churl,” said the Emperor, “this which thou
sayest can never come to pass.”  “Sir,”
said he, “it is all sooth, and thus it behoveth it to
be.”  “Certes,” quoth the Emperor,
“’tis a mighty matter to trow in.”

But the Emperor and the Knight departed thence, and the
Emperor bade the Knight go bear off the child in such wise, if he
might, that none should see him therein.  The Knight went
and found there two women, who were all busied in arraying the
woman who had been brought to bed.  The child was wrapped in
linen clothes, and they had laid him on a chair.  Thereto
came the Knight, and took the child and laid him on a board, and
brought him to the Emperor, in such wise that none of the women
wotted thereof.  The Emperor did do slit the belly of him
with a knife from the breast down to the navel, and said withal
to the Knight, that never should the son of that churl have to
wife his daughter, nor be emperor after him.

Therewithal would the Emperor do the Knight to put forth his
hand to the belly, to seek out the heart; but the Knight said to
him: “Ah, sir, a-God’s mercy, what wouldst thou
do?  It is nought meet to thee, and if folk were to wot
thereof, great reproach wouldst thou get thee.  Let him be
at this present, for he is more than dead.  And if it please
thee that that one trouble more about the matter, I will bear him
down to the sea to drown him.”  “Yea,”
quoth the Emperor, “bear him away thither, for right sore
do I hate him.”

So the Knight took the child, and wrapped him in a cover-point
of silk, and bore him down toward the sea.  But therewith
had he pity of the child, and said that by him should he never be
drowned; so he left him, all wrapped up as he was, on a midden
before the gate of a certain abbey of monks, who at that very
nick of time were singing their matins.

When the monks had done singing their matins, they heard the
child crying, and they bore him before the Lord Abbot.  And
the Abbot saw that the child was fair, and said that he would do
it to be nourished.  Therewith he did do unwrap it, and saw
that it had the belly cloven from the breast down to the
navel.

The Abbot, so soon as it was day, bade come leeches, and asked
of them for how much they would heal the child and they craved
for the healing of him an hundred of bezants.  But he said
that it would be more than enough, for overmuch would the child
be costing.  And so much did the Abbot, that he made market
with the surgeons for four-score bezants.  And thereafter
the Abbot did do baptize the child, and gave him to name
Coustans, because him-seemed that he costed exceeding much for
the healing of him.

The leeches went so much about with child, that he was made
whole and the Abbot sought him a good nurse, and got the child to
suckle, and he was healed full soon; whereas the flesh of him was
soft and tender, and grew together swiftly one to the other, but
ever after showed the mark.

Much speedily waxed the child in great beauty; when he was
seven years old the Abbot did him to go to the school, and he
learned so well, that he over-passed all his fellows in subtilty
and science.  When he was of twelve years, he was a child
exceeding goodly; so it might nought avail to seek a
goodlier.  And whenas the Abbot saw him to be a child so
goodly and gentle, he did him to ride abroad with him.

Now so it fell out, that the Abbot had to speak with the
Emperor of a wrong which his bailiffs had done to the
abbey.  The Abbot made him a goodly gift, whereas the abbey
and convent were subject unto him, for the Emperor was a
Saracen.  When the Abbot had given him his goodly gift, the
Emperor gave him day for the third day thence, whenas he should
be at a castle of his, three leagues from the city of
Byzance.

The Abbot abode the day: when he saw the time at point to go
to the Emperor, he mounted a-horseback, and his chaplain, and
esquire, and his folk; and with him was Coustans, who was so well
fashioned that all praised his great beauty, and each one said
that he seemed well to be come of high kindred, and that he would
come to great good.

So when the Abbot was come before the castle whereas the
Emperor should be, he came before him and spake to and greeted
him: and the Emperor said to him that he should come into the
castle, and he would speak with him of his matter: the Abbot made
him obeisance, and said to him: “Sir, a-God’s
name!”  Then the Abbot called to him Coustans, who was
holding of his hat while he spake unto the Emperor; and the
Emperor looked on the lad, and saw him so fair and gentle as
never before had he seen the like fair person.  So he asked
of the Abbot what he was; and the Abbot said him that he wotted
not, save that he was of his folk, and that he had bred him up
from a little child.  “And if I had leisure with thee,
I would tell thee thereof fine marvels.” 
“Yea,” said the Emperor; “come ye into the
castle, and therein shalt thou say me the sooth.”

The Emperor came into the castle, and the Abbot was ever
beside him, as one who had his business to do; and he did it to
the best that he might, as he who was subject unto him.  The
Emperor forgat in nowise the great beauty of the lad, and said
unto the Abbot that he should cause him come before him, and the
Abbot sent for the lad, who came straightway.

When the child was before the Emperor, he seemed unto him
right fair; and he said unto the Abbot, that great damage it was
that so fair a lad was Christian.  But the Abbot said that
it was great joy thereof, whereas he would render unto God a fair
soul.  When the Emperor heard that, he fell a-laughing, and
said to the Abbot that the Christian law was of no account, and
that all they were lost who trowed therein.  When the Abbot
heard him so say, he was sore grieved; but he durst not make
answer as he would, so he said much humbly: “Sir, if God
please, who can all things, they are not lost; for God will have
mercy of his sinners.”

Then the Emperor asked of him whence that fair child was come;
and the Abbot said that it was fifteen years gone since he had
been found before their gate, on a midden, all of a
night-tide.  “And our monks heard him a-crying whenas
they had but just said matins; and they went to seek the child,
and brought him to me; and I looked on the babe, and beheld him
much fair, and I said that I would do him to be nourished and
baptized.  I unwrapped him, for the babe was wrapped up in a
cover-point of vermil sendel; and when he was unwrapped, I saw
that he had the belly slit from the breast to the navel. 
Then I sent for leeches and surgeons, and made market with them
to heal him for four-score bezants; and thereafter he was
baptized, and I gave him to name Coustans, because he costed so
much of goods to heal.  So was the babe presently made
whole: but never sithence might it be that the mark appeared not
on his belly.”

When the Emperor heard that, he knew that it was the child
whose belly he had slit to draw the heart out of him.  So he
said to the Abbot that he should give him the lad.  And the
Abbot said that he would speak thereof to his convent, and that
he should have him with their good-will.  The Emperor held
his peace, and answered never a word.  But the Abbot took
leave of him, and came to his abbey, and his monks, and told them
that the Emperor had craved Coustans of him.  “But I
answered that I would speak to you if ye will yea-say it. 
Say, now, what ye would praise of my doing herein.”

“What!” said the wisest of the convent; “by
our faith, evil hast thou done, whereas thou gavest him not
presently, even as he demanded of thee.  We counsel thee
send him straightway, lest the Emperor be wrath against us, for
speedily may we have scathe of him.”

Thereto was their counsel fast, that Coustans should be sent
to the Emperor.  So the Abbot commanded the Prior to lead
Coustans thereto; and the Prior said: “A-God’s
name!”

So he mounted, and led with him Coustans, and came unto the
Emperor, and greeted him on behalf of the Abbot and the convent;
and then he took Coustans by the hand, and, on the said behalf,
gave him to the Emperor, who received him as one who was much
wrath that such a runagate and beggar churl should have his
daughter to wife.  But he thought in his heart that he would
play him the turn.

When the Emperor had gotten Coustans, he was in sore
imagination how he should be slain in such wise that none might
wot word thereof.  And it fell out so that the Emperor had
matters on hand at the outer marches of his land, much long aloof
thence, well a twelve days’ journey.  So the Emperor
betook him to going thither, and had Coustans thither with him,
and thought what wise he might to do slay him, till at last he
let write a letter to his Burgreve of Byzance.

“I Emperor of Byzance and Lord of Greece, do thee to wit
who abidest duly in my place for the warding of my land; and so
soon as thou seest this letter thou shalt slay or let slay him
who this letter shall bear to thee, so soon as he hast delivered
the said letter to thee, without longer tarrying.  As thou
holdest dear thine own proper body, do straightway my commandment
herein.”

Even such was the letter which the fair child Coustans bore,
and knew not that he bore his own death.  The lad took the
letter, which was close, and betook him to the road, and did so
much by his journeys that he came in less than fifteen days to
Byzance, which is nowadays called Constantinople.

When the lad entered into the city, it was the hour of dinner;
so, as God would have it, he thought that he would not go his
errand at that nick of time, but would tarry till folk had done
dinner: and exceeding hot was the weather, as is wont about St.
John’s-mass.  So he entered into the garden all
a-horseback.  Great and long was the garden; so the lad took
the bridle from off his horse and unlaced the saddle-girths, and
let him graze; and thereafter he went into the nook of a tree;
and full pleasant was the place, so that presently he fell
asleep.

Now so it fell out, that when the fair daughter of the Emperor
had eaten, she went into the garden with three of her maidens;
and they fell to chasing each other about, as whiles is the wont
of maidens to play; until at the last the fair Emperor’s
daughter came under the tree whereas Coustans lay a-sleeping, and
he was all vermil as the rose.  And when the damsel saw him,
she beheld him with a right good will, and she said to herself
that never on a day had she seen so fair a fashion of man. 
Then she called to her that one of her fellows in whom she had
the most affiance, and the others she made to go forth from out
of the garden.

Then the fair maiden, daughter of the Emperor, took her fellow
by the hand, and led her to look on the lovely lad whereas he lay
a-sleeping; and she spake thus: “Fair fellow, here is a
rich treasure.  Lo thou! the most fairest fashion of a man
that ever mine eyes have seen on any day of my life.  And he
beareth a letter, and well I would see what it sayeth.”

So the two maidens drew nigh to the lad, and took from him the
letter, and the daughter of the Emperor read the same; and when
she had read it, she fell a-lamenting full sore, and said to her
fellow: “Certes here is a great grief!” 
“Ha, my Lady!” said the other one, “tell me
what it is.”  “Of a surety,” said the
Maiden, “might I but trow in thee I would do away that
sorrow!”  “Ha, Lady,” said she,
“hardily mayest thou trow in me, whereas for nought would I
uncover that thing which thou wouldst have hid.”

Then the Maiden, the daughter of the Emperor, took oath of her
according to the paynim law; and thereafter she told her what the
letter said; and the damsel answered her: “Lady, and what
wouldest thou do?”  “I will tell thee
well,” said the daughter of the Emperor; “I will put
in his pouch another letter, wherein the Emperor, my father,
biddeth his Burgreve to give me to wife to this fair child here,
and that he make great feast at the doing of the wedding unto all
the folk of this land; whereas he is to wot well that the lad is
a high man and a loyal.”

When the damsel had heard that, she said that would be good to
do.  “But, Lady, how wilt thou have the seal of thy
father?”  “Full well,” said the Maiden,
“for my father delivered to me four pair of scrolls, sealed
of his seal thereon; he hath written nought therein; and I will
write all that I will.”  “Lady,” said she,
“thou hast said full well; but do it speedily, and haste
thee ere he awakeneth.”  “So will I,” said
the Maiden.

Then the fair Maiden, the daughter of the Emperor, went to her
coffers, and drew thereout one of the said scrolls sealed, which
her father had left her, that she might borrow moneys thereby, if
so she would.  For ever was the Emperor and his folk in war,
whereas he had neighbours right felon, and exceeding mighty,
whose land marched upon his.  So the Maiden wrote the letter
in this wise:

“I King Musselin, Emperor of Greece and of Byzance the
city, to my Burgreve of Byzance greeting.  I command thee
that the bearer of this letter ye give to my fair daughter in
marriage according to our law; whereas I have heard and wot
soothly that he is a high person, and well worthy to have my
daughter.  And thereto make ye great joy and great feast to
all them of my city and of all my land.”

In such wise wrote and said the letter of the fair daughter of
the Emperor; and when she had written the said letter, she went
back to the garden, she and her fellow together, and found that
one yet asleep, and they put the letter into his pouch.  And
then they began to sing and make noise to awaken him.  So he
awoke anon, and was all astonied at the fair Maiden, the daughter
of the Emperor, and the other one her fellow, who came before
him; and the fair Maiden, daughter of the Emperor, greeted him;
and he greeted her again right debonairly.  Then she asked
of him what he was, and whither he went; and he said that he bore
a letter to the Burgreve, which the Emperor sent by him; and the
Maiden said that she would bring him straightway whereas was the
Burgreve.  Therewith she took him by the hand, and brought
him to the palace, where there was much folk, who all rose
against the Maiden, as to her who was their Lady.

Now the Maiden demanded the Burgreve, and they told her that
he was in a chamber; so thither she led the lad, and the lad
delivered the letter, and said that the Emperor greeted
him.  But the Burgreve made great joy of the lad, and kissed
the hand of him.  The Maiden opened the pouch, and fell
a-kissing the letter and the seal of her father for joy’s
sake, whereas she had not heard tidings of him a great while.

Thereafter she said to the Burgreve that she would hearken the
letter in privy council, even as if she wotted nought thereof;
and the Burgreve said that that were good to do.  Then went
the Burgreve and the Maiden into a chamber, and the Maiden
unfolded the letter and read it to the Burgreve, and made
semblance of wondering exceedingly; and the Burgreve said to her,
“Lady, it behoveth to do the will of my lord thy father,
for otherwise we shall be blamed exceedingly.”  The
Maiden answered him: “And how can this be, that I should be
wedded without my lord my father?  A strange thing it would
be, and I will do it in no manner.”

“Ha, Lady!” said the Burgreve, “what is that
thou sayest?  Thy father has bidden thus by his letter, and
it behoveth not to gainsay.”

“Sir,” said the Maiden, (unto whom it was late
till the thing were done) “thou shalt speak unto the barons
and mighty men of this realm, and take counsel thereof.  And
if they be of accord thereto, I am she who will not go against
it.”  Then the Burgreve said that she spake well and
as one wise.

Then spake the Burgreve to the barons, I and showed them the
letter, and they accorded all to that that the matter of the
letter must be accomplished, and the will of the Emperor
done.  Then they wedded the fair youth Coustans, according
to the paynim law, unto the fair daughter of the Emperor; and the
wedding endured for fifteen days: and such great joy was there at
Byzance that it was exceeding, and folk did no work in the city,
save eating and drinking and making merry.

Long while abode the Emperor in the land whereas he was: and
when he had done his business, he went his ways back towards
Byzance; and whenas he was but anigh two journeys thence, came to
him a message of the messengers who came from Byzance.  The
Emperor asked of him what they did in the city; and the varlet
said that they were making exceeding good cheer of eating and
drinking and taking their ease, and that no work had they done
therein these fifteen days.

“And wherefore is that?” said the Emperor. 
“Wherefore, Sir!  Wot ye not well
thereof?”  “Nay, forsooth,” said the
Emperor, “but tell me wherefore.”

“Sir,” said the varlet, “thou sentest a
youngling, exceeding fair, to thy Burgreve, and badest him by thy
letter to wed him to thy daughter the fair, and that he should be
emperor after thee, whereas he was a man right high, and well
worthy to have her.  But thy daughter would not take that
before that the Burgreve should have spoken to the barons. 
And he spake to all them, and showed them thy letter; and they
said that it behoved to do thy commandment.  And when thy
daughter saw that they were all of one accord thereon, she durst
not go against them, but yea-said it.  Even in such wise
hath thy daughter been wedded, and such joy has been in the city
as none might wish it better.”

The Emperor, when he heard the messenger speak thus, was all
astonied, and thought much of this matter; and he asked of the
varlet how long it was since the lad had wedded his daughter, and
whether or no he had lain by her?

“Sir,” said the varlet, “yea; and she may
well be big by now; because it is more than three weeks since he
hath wedded her.”  “Forsooth,” said the
Emperor, “in a good hour be it! for since it is so, it
behoveth me to abide it, since no other it may be.”

So far rode the Emperor till he came to Byzance, whereas they
made him much fair feast; and his fair daughter came to meet him,
and her husband Coustans, who was so fair a child that none might
better be.  The Emperor, who was a wise man, made of them
much great joy, and laid his two hands upon their two heads, and
held them there a great while; which is the manner of benison
amongst the paynims.

That night thought the Emperor much on this marvel, how it
could have come about; and so much he pondered it, that he wotted
full well that it had been because of his daughter.  So he
had no will to gain-say her, but he demanded to see the letter
which he had sent, and they showed it unto him, and he saw his
seal hanging thereto, and saw the letter which was written; and
by the manner whereby the thing had been done, he said to himself
that he had striven against the things which behoved to be.

Thereafter, the Emperor made Coustans a knight, even his new
son who was wedded unto his daughter, and he gave and granted to
him all the whole land after his death.  And the said
Coustans bore him well and wisely, as a good knight, and a
valiant and hardy, and defended him full well against his
enemies.  No long time wore ere his lord the Emperor died,
and his service was done much richly, after the paynim law. 
Then was Coustans emperor, and he loved and honoured much the
Abbot who had nourished him, and he made him his very
master.  And the Emperor Coustans, by the counsel of the
Abbot, and the will of God the all mighty, did do christen his
wife, and all they of that land were converted to the law of
Jesus Christ.  And the Emperor Coustans begot on his wife an
heir male, who had to name Constantine, who was thereafter a
prudhomme much great.  And thereafter was the city called
Constantinople, because of his father, Coustans, who costed so
much, but aforetime was it called Byzance.

Here withal endeth the Story of King Coustans the Emperor.

The said story was done out of the ancient French into English
by William Morris.

p. 25The
Friendship of Amis and Amile

In the time of Pepin King of France
was a child born in the Castle of Bericain of a noble father of
Alemaine who was of great holiness.

The father and the mother promised to God, and Saint Peter and
Saint Paul, whereas they had none other child, that if God gave
it life, they would bear it to Rome to baptism.  At the same
time came a vision to a Count of Alverne, whose wife was big with
child, whereby it seemed that the Apostle of Rome was baptizing
many children in his palace and confirming them with chrism.

So when the Count was awaken he sought of many wise folk what
might signify that which he had seen in the dream.  And when
his vision was uncovered, a wise man and ancient bespake him by
the counsel of God: “Make great joy, Count, for there shall
be born to thee a son full of great prowess and of great
holiness; and him thou shalt let bear to Rome and let baptize him
by the Apostle.”

Thereof great joy made the Count, and he and his folk praised
the counsel of the elder.

The child was born and dearly fostered, and when he had two
years, and the father after his purpose was bearing him to Rome,
he came to the city of Lucca.  And therein he found a noble
man of Almaine who was wending Romeward and bearing his son to
baptism.  They greeted one the other, and each asked other
who he was and what he sought, and when they found themselves to
be of one purpose they joined company in all friendliness and
entered Rome together.  And the two children fell to loving
one another so sorely that one would not eat without the other,
they lived of one victual, and lay in one bed.

In this wise the fathers brought them before the Apostle at
Rome, and spake to him: “Holy Father, whom we know and
believe to be in the place of Saint Peter the Apostle, the Count
of Alverne, and a noble knight of Bericain the Castle, beseech
your Holiness that ye would deign to baptize their sons which
they have brought from far away, and that ye would take their
little offering from their hands.”

And the Apostle answered them: “I hold your gifts for
right acceptable, but they are not to me of much necessity; give
them to the poor, who have need thereof.  The infants will I
baptize with a good will, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost may embrace them in the love of the Holy
Trinity.”

Forthwith then the Apostle baptized them in the Church of the
Holy Saviour, and laid for name on the son of the Count, Amile,
and on the son of the Knight, Amis; and many a knight of Rome
held them at the font with mickle joy, and raised them aloft even
as God would.  And the office of Baptism done, the Apostle
bade bring two hanaps of tree dight with gold and precious
stones, side and wide alike, and of like fashion, and gave them
to the bairns and said: “Take these gifts in token that I
have baptized you in the Church of the Holy Saviour.” 
Which gifts they took joyfully and thanked him much, and betook
them thence home in all joyance.

To the child of Bericain did God give so great wisdom, that
one might trow that he were another Solomon; and when he was of
the age of thirty years a fever took his father, and he fell to
admonishing his son in such like words: “Fair son, well
beloved, it behoveth me presently to die, and thou shalt abide
and be thine own master.  Now firstly, fair son, keep thou
the commandments of God; the chivalry of Jesus Christ do
thou.  Keep thou faith to thy lords, and give aid to thy
fellows and friends.  Defend the widows and orphans. 
Uphold the poor and needy: and all days hold thy last day in
memory.  Forget not the fellowship and friendship of the son
of the Count of Alverne, whereas the Apostle of Rome on one day
baptized you both, and with one gift honoured you.  Ye be
alike of beauty, of fashion, and stature, and whoso should see
you, would deem you to be brethren.”

So having finished these words, and received his Saviour, he
departed in our Lord, and his son did do bury him, and did do
render him his service, even as one should do for the dead.

After the death of his father evil folk bore envy against him,
and did him many a scathe, and grieved him sorely; but he loved
them all and suffered whatsoever they did to him.  What more
may I tell you, save that they cast him and his folk out of the
heritage of his fathers, and chased him forth out of his
castle.  So when he bethought him of the commandment of his
father, he said to them who went in his company: “The
wicked have wrongfully cast me forth out of mine heritage: yet
have I good hope in our Lord that he will help me; go we now to
the Court of the Count Amile, who was my friend and my
fellow.  May-happen he will make us rich with his goods and
his havings.  But if it be not so, then shall we go to
Hildegard the Queen, wife of King Charles of France, who is wont
to comfort the disinherited.”

And they answered that they were ready to follow him and do
his bidding.

Therewith they went their ways to the Court of the Count and
found him not there, because he was gone to Bericain to visit
Amis his fellow, and comfort him of the death of his
father.  And when he found him not, he departed sore
troubled, and said to himself that he would not betake him to his
own land till he had found Amis his fellow; and he sought him in
France and in Almaine, where soever he heard tell that his
kindred were, and could find no certainty of him.

Therewithal Amis together with his folk, ceased not to seek
his fellow Amile, until they came to the house of a noble man
where they were guested.  Thereat they told by order all
their adventure and the noble man said to them: “Abide with
me, Sir Knights, and I will give my daughter to your lord,
because of the wisdom that I have heard of him, and I will make
you all rich of gold and of silver, and of havings.”

That word pleased them, and they I held the bridal with mickle
joy.  But when they had abided there for a year and a half,
then said Amis to his ten fellows “We have done amiss in
that we have left seeking of Amile.”  And he left
there two of his sergeants and his hanap, and went his ways
toward Paris.

Now by this time had Amile been a-seeking for Amis two years
past without ceasing.  And whenas Amile drew nigh to Paris
he found a pilgrim and asked if he had seen Amis whom men had
chased out of his land; and that one said nay, he had not. 
But Amile did off his coat and gave it to the pilgrim and said:
“Pray thou to our Lord and his Hallows that they give me to
find Amis my fellow.”

Then he departed from the pilgrim, and went his ways to Paris,
and found no-whither Amis his fellow.

But the pilgrim went his ways forthwith, and about vespers
happened on Amis, and they greeted each the other.  And Amis
said to the pilgrim, had he seen or heard tidings in any land of
Amile, son of the Count of Alverne.  And the pilgrim
answered him all marvelling: “Who art thou, Knight, who
thus mockest a pilgrim?  Thou seemest to me that Amile who
this day asked of me if I had seen Amis his fellow.  I wot
not for why thou hast changed thy garments, thy folk, thine
horses, and thine arms.  Thou askest me now what thou didst
ask me to-day about tierce; and thou gavest me this
coat.”

“Trouble not thine heart,” said Amis, “I am
not he whom thou deemest; but I am Amis who seeketh
Amile.”  And he gave him of his silver, and bade him
pray our Lord to give him to find Amile.  And the pilgrim
said: “Go thy ways forthright to Paris, and I trow that
thou shalt find him whom thou seekest so sore
longing.”  And therewith Aims went his ways full
eagerly.

Now on the morrow Amile was already departed from Paris, and
was sitting at meat with his knights hard by the water of Seine
in a flowery meadow.  And when they saw Amis coming with his
fellows all armed, they rose up and armed them, and so went forth
before them; and Amis said to his fellows: “I see French
knights who come against us in arms.  Now fight hardily and
defend your lives.  If we may escape this peril, then shall
we go with great joy to Paris, and thereto shall we be received
with high favour at the Court of the King.”

Then were the reins let loose and the spears shaken aloft, and
the swords drawn on either side, in such wise that no semblance
was there that any should escape alive.  But God the all
mighty who seeth all, and who setteth an end to the toil of the
righteous, did to hold aback them of one part and of the other
when they were now hard on each other, for then said Amis:
“Who are ye knights, who have will to slay Amis the exile
and his fellows?”  At that voice Amile knew Amis his
fellow and said: “O thou Amis most well beloved, rest from
my travail, I am Amile, son of the Count of Alverne, who have not
ceased to seek thee for two whole years.”

And therewith they lighted down from their horses, and
embraced and kissed each other, and gave thanks to God of that
they were found.  And they swore fealty and friendship and
fellowship perpetual, the one to the other, on the sword of
Amile, wherein were relics.  Thence went they all together
to the Court of Charles, King of France; there might men behold
them young, well attempered, wise, fair, and of like fashion and
visage, loved of all and honoured.  And the King received
them much joyously, and made of Amis his treasurer, and of Amile
his server.

But when they had abided thus three years, Amis said unto
Amile: “Fair sweet fellow, I desire sore to go see my wife
whom I have left behind; and I will return the soonest that I
may; and do thou abide at the Court.  But keep thee well
from touching the daughter of the King; and above all things
beware of Arderi the felon.”  Amile answered him:
“I will take heed of thy commandment; but betake thee back
hither so soon as thou mayest.”

Thuswise departed Amis.  But Amile cast his eyes upon the
King’s daughter, and knew her so soon as he might; and
right soon forgat he the commandment and the teaching of Amis his
fellow.  Yet is not this adventure strange, whereas he was
no holier than David, nor wiser than Solomon.

Amidst these things Arderi the traitor, who bore him envy,
came to him and said: “Thou wottest not, fellow, thou
wottest not, how Amis hath robbed the treasure of the King, and
therefore is fled away.  Wherefore I require of thee thou
swear me fealty and friendship and fellowship, and I will swear
the same to thee on the holy Gospel.”  And so when
that was done Amile doubted not to lay bare his secret to
Arderi.

But whenas Amile was a-giving water to the King to wash his
hands withal, the false Arderi said to the King: “Take thou
no water from this evil man, sir King: for he is more worthy of
death than of life, whereas he hath taken from the Queen’s
Daughter the flower of her virginity.”  But when Amile
heard this, he fell adown all astonied, and might say never a
word; but the benign King lifted him up again, and said to him:
“Rise up, Amile, and have no fear, and defend thee of this
blame.”  So he lifted himself up and said: “Have
no will to trow, sire, in the lies of Arderi the traitor, for I
wot that thou art a rightwise judge, and that thou turnest not
from the right way, neither for love nor for hatred. 
Wherefore I pray thee that thou give me frist of counsel; and
that I may purge me of this guilt before thee, and do the battle
against Arderi the traitor, and make him convict of his lies
before all the Court.”

So the King gave to one and the other frist of counsel till
after nones, and that then they should come before him for to do
their devoir; and they came before the King at the term which he
had given them.  Arderi brought with him the Count Herbert
for his part; but Amile found none who would be for him saving
Hildegarde the Queen, who took up the cause for him, and gat
frist of counsel for Amile, on such covenant that if Amile came
not back by the term established, she should be lacking all days
of the bed of the King.

But when Amile went to seek counsel, he happened on Amis, his
fellow, who was betaking him to the King’s Court; and Amile
lighted down from his horse, and cast himself at the feet of his
fellow, and said: “O thou, the only hope of my salvation,
evilly have I kept thy commandment; for I have run into wyte of
the King’s Daughter, and I have taken up battle against the
false Arderi.”

Then said Amis, sighing: “Leave we here our folk, end
enter into this wood to lay bare our secret.”  And
Amis fell to blaming Amile, and said: “Change we our
garments and our horses, and get thee to my house, and I will do
the battle for thee against the traitor.”  And Amile
answered: “How may I go into thine house, who have no
knowledge of thy wife and thy folk, and have never seen them face
to face?”  But Amis said to him: “Go in all
safety, and seek wisely to know them: but take good heed that
thou touch not my wife.”

And thuswise they departed each from his fellow weeping; and
Amis went his ways to the Court of the King in the semblance of
Amile, and Amile to the house of his fellow in the semblance of
Amis.  But the wife of Amis, when she saw him betake him
thither, ran to embrace him, whom she deemed was her husband, and
would have kissed him.  But he said: “Flee thou from
before me, for I have greater need to lament than to play;
whereas, since I departed from thee, I have suffered adversity
full sore, and yet have to suffer.”

And a night-time whenas they lay in one bed, then Amile laid
his sword betwixt the two of them, and said to the woman:
“Take heed that thou touch me in no manner wise, else diest
thou straightway by this sword.”  And in likewise did
he the other nights, until Amis betook him in disguise to his
house to wot if Amile kept faith with him of his wife.

Now was the term of the battle come, and the Queen abode Amile
all full of fear, for the traitor Arderi said, all openly, that
the Queen should nevermore draw nigh the bed of the King, whereas
she had suffered and consented hereto, that Amile should shame
her daughter.  Amidst these words Amis entered into the
Court of the King clad in the raiment of his fellow, Amile, at
the hour of midday and said to the King: “Right debonaire
and loyal judge, here am I apparelled to do the battle against
the false Arderi, in defence of me, the Queen, and her daughter
of the wyte which they lay upon us.”

And the King answered benignly and said: “Be thou nought
troubled, Count, for if thou vanquishest the battle, I will give
thee to wife Belisant my daughter.”

On the morrow’s morn, Arderi and Amis entered armed into
the field in the presence of the King and his folk.  And the
Queen with much company of virgins, and widows and wedded wives,
went from church to church making prayers for the Champion of her
daughter, and they gave gifts, oblations and candles.

But Amis fell to pondering in his heart, that if he should
slay Arderi, he would be guilty of his death before God, and if
he were vanquished, it should be for a reproach to him all his
days.  Wherefore he spake thuswise to Arderi: “O thou,
Count, foul rede thou hast, in that thou desirest my death so
sorely, and hast foolishly cast thy life into peril of
death.  If thou wouldest but take back the wyte which thou
layest on me, and leave this mortal battle, thou mayest have my
friendship and my service.”

But Arderi, as one out of his wit, answered him: “I will
nought of thy friendship nor thy service; but I shall swear the
sooth as it verily is, and I shall smite the head from off
thee.”

So Arderi swore that he had shamed the King’s Daughter,
and Amis swore that he lied; and straightway they dealt together
in strokes, and fought together from the hour of tierce right on
till nones.  And Arderi was vanquished, and Amis smote off
his head.

The King was troubled that he had Arderi; yet was he joyous
that his daughter was purged of her guilt.  And he gave to
Amis his daughter, and a great sum of gold and silver, and a city
hard by the sea wherein to dwell.  And Amis received the
same with great joy.  Then he returned at his speediest to
his hostel wherein he had left Amile his fellow; but whenas Amile
saw him coming with much company of horse, he deemed that Amis
was vanquished, and fell to fleeing: but Amis bade him return in
all safety, for that he had vanquished Arderi, and thereby was
wedded for him to the King’s Daughter.  Thence then
did Amile betake him, and abode in the aforesaid city with his
wife.

But Amis abode with his wife, and he became mesel by the will
of our Lord, in such wise that he might not move from his bed;
for God chastiseth him that He loveth.

And his wife, who had to name Obias, had him in sore hate, and
many a time strove to strangle him; and when Amis found that, he
called to him two of his sergeants, Azones and Horatus by name,
and said to them: “Take me out of the hands of this evil
woman, and take my hanap privily and bear me to the Castle of
Bericain.”

So when they drew nigh to the castle, folk came to meet them,
and asked of them who was the feeble sick man whom they bore; and
they said it was Amis, the master of them, who was become mesel,
and prayed them that they would do him some mercy.  But
nevertheless, they beat the sergeants of Amis, and cast him down
from the cart whereon they were bearing him, and said:
“Flee hence speedily if ye would not lose your
lives.”

Then Amis fell a-weeping, and said: “O Thou, God
debonaire and full of pity, give me death, or give me aid from
mine infirmity!”  And therewith he said to his
sergeants: “Bring me to the Church of the Father of Rome,
whereas God may peradventure of His great mercy purvey for my
poverty.”

When they came to Rome, Constantin the Apostle, full of pity
and of holiness, and many a knight of Rome of them who had held
Amis at the font, came to meet him, and gave him sustenance
enough for him and his sergeants.

But in the space of three years thereafter was so great famine
in the city, that the father had will to thrust the son away from
his house.  Then spake Azones and Horatus to Amis, and said:
“Fair sir, thou wottest how feally we have served thee
sithence the death of thy father unto this day, and that we have
never trespassed against thy commandment.  But now we may no
longer abide with thee, whereas we have no will to perish of
hunger: wherefore we pray thee give us leave to escape this
mortal pestilence.”

Then Amis answered them weeping: “O ye fair sons, and
not sergeants, my only comfort, I pray you for God’s sake
that ye leave me not here, but bear me to the city of the Count
Amile my fellow.”

And they who would well obey his commandments, bore him
thither whereas was Amile; and there they fell to sounding on
their tartavelles before the Court of Amile, even as mesel folk
be wont to do.  And when Amile heard the sound thereof he
bade a sergeant of his to bear to the sick man of bread and of
flesh, and therewithal his hanap, which was given to him at Rome,
full of good wine: and when the sergeant had done his commandment
he said to him when he came again: “By the faith which I
owe thee, sir, if I held not thine hanap in my hand, I had deemed
that it was even that which the sick man had; for one and the
same be they of greatness and of fashion.”  Then said
Amile: “Go speedily and lead him hither to me.”

But when he was before his fellow he asked of him who he was,
and how he had gotten that hanap.  Said he: “I am of
Bericain the Castle, and the hanap was given me by the Apostle of
Rome, when he baptized me.”

And when Amile heard that, he knew that it was Amis his fellow
who had delivered him from death, and given him to wife the
King’s Daughter of France; straightway he cast himself upon
him and fell to crying out strongly, and to weeping and
lamenting, and to kissing and embracing him.  And when his
wife heard the same, she ran thereto all dishevelled, and making
great dole, whereas she had in memory of how he had slain
Arderi.  And straightway they laid him in a very fair bed,
and said to him: “Abide with us, fair sir, until that God
shall do his will of thee, for whatsoever we have is for thee to
deal with.”  And he abode with them, and his sergeants
with him.

Now it befel on a night whenas Amis and Amile lay in one
chamber without other company, that God sent to Amis Raphael his
angel, who said to him: “Sleepest thou, Amis?” 
And he, who deemed that Amile had called to him, answered:
“I sleep not, fair sweet fellow.”  Then the
angel said to him: “Thou hast answered well, whereas thou
art the fellow of the citizens of Heaven, and thou hast followed
after Job, and Thoby in patience.  Now I am Raphael, an
angel of our Lord, and am come to tell thee of a medicine for
thine healing, whereas He hath heard thy prayers.  Thou
shalt tell to Amile thy fellow, that he slay his two children and
wash thee in their blood, and thence thou shalt get thee the
healing of thy body.”

Then said Amis: “Never shall it be that my fellow be a
manslayer for the healing of me.”  But the Angel said:
“Yet even so it behoveth to do.”

And when he had so said, the Angel departed; and therewith
Amile, as if a-sleeping, heard those words, and awoke, and said:
“What is it, fellow? who hath spoken unto
thee?”  And Amis answered that none had spoken:
“But I have prayed to our Lord according to my
wont.”  Then Amile said: “Nay, it is not so;
some one hath spoken to thee.”  Therewith he arose and
went to the door of the chamber, and found it shut, and said:
“Tell me, fair brother, who hath spoken to thee these words
of the night?”

Then Amis fell a-weeping sorely, and said to him that it was
Raphael the Angel of our Lord who had said to him: “Amis,
our Lord biddeth that thou tell Amile that he slay his two
children, and wash thee with the blood of them, and that then
thou wilt be whole of thy meselry.”

But Amile was sore moved with these words, and said to him:
“Amis, I have given over to thee man-servant and
maid-servant and all my goods, and now thou feignest in fraud
that the Angel hath spoken to thee that I slay my two
children!”  But forthwith Amis fell a-weeping, and
said: “I wot that I have spoken to thee things grievous, as
one constrained, and now I pray thee that thou cast me not out of
thine house.”  And Amile said that he had promised
that he would hold him till the hour of his death: “But I
conjure thee by the faith which is betwixt thee and me, and by
our fellowship, and by the baptism which we took between me and
thee at Rome, that thou tell me if it be man or Angel who hath
said this to thee.”

Then Amis answered: “As true as it was an Angel who
spake to me this night, so may God deliver me from mine
infirmity.”

Then Amile fell to weeping privily, and thinking in his heart:
“This man forsooth was apparelled before the King to die
for me, and why should I not slay my children for him; if he hath
kept faith with me to the death, why keep I not faith? 
Abraham was saved by faith, and by faith have the hallows
vanquished kingdoms; and God saith in the Gospel: ‘That
which ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to
them.’”

And Amile without more tarrying, went to the chamber of his
wife, and bade her go hear the service of our Lord; and the
Countess gat her to the church even as she was wont.

Then the Count took his sword, and went to the bed where lay
his children, and found them sleeping, and he threw himself upon
them, and fell to weeping bitterly and said: “Who hath
heard ever of a father who of his own will hath slain his
child?  Ah, alas my children!  I shall be no more your
father, but your cruel murderer!”  And therewith the
children awoke because of the tears which fell on them from their
father; and the children, who looked on the face of their father,
fell a-laughing.  And whereas they were of the age of three
years or thereabout, their father said to them: “Your
laughter shall be turned into weeping, for now shall your
innocent blood be shed.”

When he had so said he cut off their heads and then laid them
out behind the bed, and laid the heads to the bodies, and covered
them over even as they slept.  And with their blood which he
received, he washed his fellow, and said: “Sire God, Jesus
Christ, who commandest men to keep faith upon the earth, and who
cleansest the mesel by thy word, deign thou to cleanse my fellow,
for the love of whom I have shed the blood of my
children.”

Then was Amis cleansed of his meselry, and they gave thanks to
our Lord with great joy and said: “Blessed be God, the
father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who healeth them that have hope
in him.”

And Amile clad his fellow in his own right goodly raiment; and
therewith they went to the church to give thanks there, and the
bells by the grace of God rang of themselves.  And when the
people of the city heard that, they ran all together toward that
marvel.

Now the wife of the Count when she saw them both going
together, fell to asking which of the two was her husband and
said: “I know well the raiment of these twain, but I wot
not which is Amile.”

And the Count said: “I am Amile, and this my fellow is
Amis, who is whole.”  Then the Countess wondered, and
said: “I see him all whole; but much I desire to know
whereby he is healed.”  “Render we thanks to our
Lord,” said the Count, “nor disquiet us as to how it
may be.”

Now was come the hour of tierce, and neither the father nor
the mother was yet entered in to their children; but the father
sighed grievously for the death of his babes.  Then the
Countess asked for her children to make her joy, and the Count
said: “Dame let be, let the children sleep!”

Therewith he entered all alone to the children to weep over
them, and he found them playing in the bed; but the scars of
their wounds showed about the necks of each of them even as a red
fillet.

Then he took them in his arms, and bore them to their mother,
and said “Make great joy, dame, whereas thy sons whom I had
slain by the commandment of the Angel are alive again, and by
their blood is Amis cured and healed.”

And when the Countess heard it she said: “O thou, Count,
why didst thou not lead me with thee to receive the blood of my
children, and I would have washed therewith Amis thy fellow and
my Lord?”

Then said the Count: “Dame, let be these words; and let
us be at the service of our Lord, who hath done such great
wonders in our house.”

Which thing they did even unto their death and held
chastity.

And they made great joy through that same city for ten
days.

But on the selfsame day that Amis was made whole, the devils
bore off his wife; they brake the neck of her, and bore away her
soul.

After these things Amis betook him to the Castle of Bericain
and laid siege before it; and abode there before so long, that
they of the castle rendered themselves to him.  He received
them benignly, and pardoned them their evil will; and from
thenceforth he dwelt with them peaceably and he held with him the
elder son of Amile, and served our Lord with all his heart.

Thereafter Adrian, Apostle of Rome, sent word to Charles, King
of France, that he come help him against Desir, the King of the
Lombards, who much tormented the Church; and Charles was as then
in the town of Theodocion.  Thither came Peter, messenger of
the Apostle, who said to him that the Apostle prayed him to come
defend Holy Church.  Thereupon King Charles sent to the said
Desir messengers to pray him that he give back to the Holy Father
the cities and other things which he had taken from him, and that
he would give him thereto the sum of forty thousand sols of gold
in gold and in silver.  But he would give way neither for
prayers nor gifts.  Thereon the good King bade come to him
all manner folk, Bishops, Abbots, Dukes, Princes, Marquises and
other strong knights.  And he sent to Cluses certain of
these for to guard the passage of the ways.  Amongst the
which was Albins, Bishop of Angier, a man full of great
holiness.

Then the King Charles together with many warriors, drew nigh
to Cluses by the Mount of Sinense, and sent Bernhart his uncle,
and a many with him, by the Mount of Jove.  And the vanward
said that Desir, together with all his force, was already at
Cluses, the which he had do dight with bulwarks of iron and
stone.

But whenas Charles drew nigh to Cluses, he sent his messengers
to Desir, praying him to give back to the Holy Father the cities
which he had taken; but he would nought for the prayer. 
Again Charles bade him that he send three of the children of the
judges of Lombardy in hostage, until such time as he had given
back the cities of the Church, and that he would betake him to
France with all his host, without battle and without doing any
scathe.  But he neither for that, nor for aught else would
blench one whit.

Now when God the almighty had seen the hard heart and malice
of this man; and that the French were sore desirous to get them
aback home, he set so great fear and so great trembling in the
hearts of the Lombards, that they turned to flight all of them,
although none chased them, and left there behind them their tents
and all their gear.  When that saw Charles and his host,
they followed them and thrust forth into Lombardy French,
Almaines, English and all other manner of folk.

Of that host were Amis and Amile, who were the first in the
court of the King, and every way they heeded the works of our
Lord, in fasting, in praying, in alms-doing, in giving aid to
widows and orphans, in often times appeasing the wrath of the
King, in suffering the evil, and consoling the realm of the
Romans.

Now whenas Charles had much folk in Lombardy, King Desir came
to meet him with his little host; for whereas Desir had a priest,
Charles had a bishop; whereas that one had a monk, the other had
an abbot; where Desir had a knight Charles had a prince; the one
had a man afoot, the other a duke or a count.  What should I
say, where that King had one knight, Charles had thirty.  So
the two hosts fell to blows together with great cries and banners
displayed; stones and darts flying here and there, and knights
falling on every part.

And the Lombards fought so mightily for three days, that they
slew of King Charles a very great infinity.  And after the
third day’s wearing Charles called to him the most mighty
and the strongest of his host, and said to them: “Either
die ye in battle, or gain ye the victory.”

So the King Desir and the whole host of the Lombards together
fled away to the place hight Mortara, which in those days was
called Fair-wood, whereas thereabout was the land delectable:
there they refreshed them and took heed to their horses.

On the morrow morn King Charles and his host came thither, and
found the Lombards all armed, and there they joined battle, and a
great multitude of dead there was on one side and the other, and
because of this slaughter had the place to name Mortara.

Moreover, there died Amis and Amile, for even as God had
joined them together by good accord in their life-days, so in
their death they were not sundered.  Withal many another
doughty baron was slain with them.  But Desir, together with
his judges, and a great multitude of the Lombards, fled away and
entered into Pavia; and King Charles followed after them, and
besieged the city on all sides.  Withal he sent into France
for his wife and his children.  But the holy Albins, bishop
of Angier, and many other bishops and abbots gave counsel to the
King and the Queen, that they should bury the dead and make there
a church: and the said counsel pleased much the King, and there
were made two churches, one by the commandment of Charles in
honour of St. Eusebius of Verceil, and the other by the
commandment of the Queen in honour of St. Peter.

And the King did do bear thither two arks of stone, wherein
were buried Amis and Amile; and Amile was borne into the Church
of St. Peter, and Amis into the Church of St. Eusebius; and the
other corpses were buried here and there.  But on the
morrow’s morn the body of Amile, and his coffin therewith,
was found in the Church of St. Eusebius hard by the coffin of
Amis his fellow.

Now hear ye of this marvellous fellowship which might not be
sundered by death.  This wonder wrought for them God, who
had given such might to His disciples that they had power to move
mountains and shift them.  But because of this miracle the
King and the Queen abode there thirty days, and did do the
service of them that were slain, and worshipped the said churches
with great gifts.

Meanwhile the host of Charles wrought for the taking of the
city which they had besieged; and our Lord tormented them that
were within in such wise that they were brought to nought by
great feebleness and by mortalities.  And after ten months
from the time when the city was besieged, Charles took Desir, and
all them who were with him, and laid the city and all the realm
under his subjection.  And King Desir and his wife they led
into France.

But Saint Albins, who by that time had raised the dead to
life, and given light to many blind folk, ordained clerks,
priests, and deacons in the aforesaid Church of St. Eusebius, and
commanded them that they should without ceasing guard and keep
the bodies of those two fellows, AMIS and AMILE, who suffered
death at the hands of Desir, King of Lombardy, on the fourth of
the ides of October.

Reigning our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth
without end with the Father and the Holy Ghost.  AMEN.

p. 59The
Tale of King Florus and the Fair Jehane

Here telleth the tale of a king who
had to name King Florus of Ausay.  A full good knight was he
and a gentleman of high lineage.  The said King Florus of
Ausay took to wife the daughter of the Prince of Brabant, who was
a woman very gentle, and of great line: and a right fair maid was
she when he wedded her and dainty of body and fashion; and saith
the tale that she was but of fifteen years when the King Florus
took her, and he but of seventeen.  A full good life they
lived, as for young folk who loved together dearly: but King
Florus might have no child of her, whereof he was sore grieving,
and she also was exceeding heavy-hearted thereat.  Much fair
was this lady, and much she loved God and Holy Church, and
therewith was so good almsgiver and so charitable that she fed
and clad poor people and kissed their feet.  And to mesel
folk both carles and queans was she so kind and careful, that the
Holy Ghost dwelt in her.  Her Lord King Florus went often to
tournays in Alemain and France, and in many other lands whereas
he wotted of them, when he was without war: much good he expended
thereon and much honour he gained thereby.

But now leaveth the tale to tell of him and taketh up the word
of a knight who dwelt in the marches of Flanders and
Hainault.  This said knight was full valiant and hardy, and
right trusty, and had to wife a full fair dame of whom he had a
much fair daughter, who had to name Jehane and was then of the
age of twelve years.  Much word there was of this fair
maiden; for in all the land was none so fair.  Her mother
spake often to her lord that he should give her in marriage; but
he was so given up to the following of tournays, that he was
nowise hot on the wedding of his daughter, and his wife ever
admonished him thereof when he came home from his tournays.

Now this knight had a squire who had to name Robin, and was
the valiantest squire to be found in any land, and by his prowess
and his good fame oft he bore away the prize for his lord from
the tournay whereas he wended.  Whereon it befel that his
lady thus bespake him: “Robin, my lord is so given up to
these tournays that I know not how to speak with him, whereof I
am sore at heart, for I would well that he should lay pain and
care to the wedding of my daughter; wherefore I pray thee, for
the love of me, that whenas thou seest the point thou say to him
that he doth very ill and is sore blamed that he weddeth not his
fair daughter, for there is no knight in the land how rich soever
he be who would not take her with a good will.” 
“Lady,” said Robin, “ye have said well; I will
say it right well; since forsooth he troweth me of many things,
and so will he hereof meseemeth.” 
“Robin,” said the lady, “I pray thee of this
business for all guerdon.”  “Dame,” said
Robin, “I am well prayed hereof; and wot ye that I will do
to my power herein.”  “It is enough,” said
the lady.

No long while after the knight betook him to wending to a
tournay afar from his land, and when he came there he was
retained straightway of the fellowship, he and the knight of
whose mesney he was, and his banner was borne into the hostel of
his lord.  The tournay began, and the knight did so well by
means of the good deeds of Robin, his squire, that he bore off
the praise and prize of the tournay from one party and the
other.  On the second day the knight betook him to wending
to his own land, and Robin put him to reason many times and
blamed him much in that he gave not his fair daughter in
marriage, and many times he said it to him, till at the last his
lord said to him: “Robin, thou and thy lady give me no
peace about the marrying of my daughter; but as yet I know and
see no man in my land unto whom I would give her.” 
“Ah, sir,” said Robin, “there is not a knight
in thy land who would not take her with a good will.” 
“Fair friend Robin, they are of no avail, all of them; and
to none of them shall I give her; and forsooth to no one would I
give her as now, save to one man only, and he forsooth is no
knight.”  “Sir, tell me of him,” said
Robin, “and I shall speak or let speak to him so subtilly
that the marriage shall be made.”  “Certes,
Robin,” said the knight, “from the semblance that I
see of thee thou willest well that my daughter should be
wedded.”  “Sir,” said Robin, “thou
sayest sooth, for it is well time.” 
“Robin,” said the knight, “whereas thou art so
eager that my daughter should be wedded, she shall be wedded
right soon if thou accord to the said wedding.” 
“Certes, sir,” said Robin, “of a good will
shall I accord thereto.”  “Wilt thou give me thy
word herein?”  “Yea, sir,” said
Robin.  “Robin, thou hast served me exceeding well,
and I have found thee a valiant man, and a loyal, and such as I
be thou hast made me, and great gain have I gotten by thee, to
wit, five hundred pounds of land; for it was but a little while
that I had but five hundred, and now have I a thousand, and I
tell thee that I owe much to thee: wherefore will I give my fair
daughter unto thee, if thou wilt take her.” 
“Ha, sir,” said Robin, “God’s mercy, what
is this thou sayest?  I am too poor a person to have so high
a maiden, nor one so fair and so rich as my damsel is; I am not
meet thereto.  For there is no knight in this land, be he
never so gentle a man, but would take her with a good
will.”  “Robin, know that no knight of this land
shall have her, but I shall give her to thee, if thou will it;
and thereto will I give thee four hundred pounds of my
land.”  “Ha, sir,” said Robin, “I
deem that thou mockest me.”  “Robin,” said
the knight, “wot thou surely that I mock thee
not.”  “Ha, sir, neither my lady nor her great
lineage will accord hereto.”  “Robin,”
said the knight, “nought shall be done herein at the will
of any of them.  Hold! here is my glove, I invest thee with
four hundred pounds of my land, and I will be thy warrant for
all.”  “Sir,” said Robin “I will
nought naysay it; fair is the gift since I know that is
soothfast.”  “Robin,” said the knight,
“now hast thou the rights thereof.”

Then the knight delivered to him his glove, and invested him
with the land and his fair daughter.

Then rode the knight so far by his journeys, that he came into
his land, and when he was come thither, his wife, who was a much
fair lady, made him right great joy, and said to him: “Sir,
for God’s sake think of thy fair daughter, that she be
wedded.”  “Dame,” said the lord, “so
much hast thou spoken hereof that I have wedded her.” 
“Sir,” said the lady, “unto whom?” 
“Forsooth, dame, I have given her to such a man as shall
never lack of valiancy: I have given her to Robin my
squire.”  “Robin!  Alas!” quoth the
lady; “Robin hath nought, and there is no knight so mighty
in all the land, but will take her with a good will; of a surety
Robin shall never have her.”  “Yea, but have her
he shall, dame,” said the knight, “and I have
invested him with four hundred pounds of my land; and all that I
ought to warrant him, warrant him I will.”  When the
dame heard that, she was much sorry, and said to her lord that
Robin should have her never.  “Nay, dame,” said
the lord, “have her he shall, wilt thou or wilt thou not;
for even so have I made covenant and I will hold to the
same.”

When the lady heard her lord, she entered into her chamber and
fell a-weeping and making great dole; after the dole which she
made she sent to seek her brothers and her nephews and her
cousins germain, and showed them that which her lord would do;
and they said to her: “Dame, what will ye that we do? 
We have no will to go against thy lord, for he is a knight
valiant and hardy and weighty withal: and on the other hand he
may do with his daughter according to his will, and with his land
which he hath gotten withal.  So wot thou well that we will
not hang shield on neck herein.”  “Nay? alas,
then!” said the dame, “so shall my heart never have
joy if I lose my fair daughter.  At least, fair lords, I
pray you that ye show him that if he does thus he will neither do
well nor according to his honour.” 
“Dame,” say they, “this setting forth will we
do with a good will.”

So they came unto the knight, and when they had showed him
their business he answered them right courteously: “Fair
lords, I will tell you what I will do for the love of you; if it
please you I will put off the wedding in this wise as I shall
tell you; to wit: Amongst you ye be rich and of great lands; ye
are nigh friends of my fair daughter, whom I love much.  If
ye will give her four hundred pounds of land I will set aside the
wedding, and she shall be wedded elsewhere according to your
counsel.”  “A-God’s name,” quoth
they, “we be nought fain to lay down so much.” 
“Well, then,” said the knight, “since ye will
not do this, then suffer me to do with my daughter as I
list.”  “Sir, with a good will,” said
they.

So the knight sent for his chaplain, and brought thither his
fair daughter, and let affiance her to Robin, and set a day for
the wedding.  But the third day thereafter, Robin spake to
his lord, and prayed him make him a knight, whereas it was nought
meet that he should take to him so high a wife and so fair before
he was a knight.  His lord had great joy thereof, and the
next day he was made knight, and the third day wedded the fair
maiden with great feast and joyance.

But when master Robin was made knight he spake thus to his
lord: “Sir, ye have made me knight; and true it is that
against the peril of death I vowed me to the road unto Saint
Jamesward on the morrow of my knighting; wherefore I pray thee
take it not in dudgeon if to-morrow morn I must needs go my ways
so soon as I shall have wedded thy fair daughter; whereas in
nowise will I break mine oath.”  “Forsooth,
master Robin, if thou leave thus my fair daughter and thus wise
go your ways, ye shall be much to blame.” 
“Sir,” said he, “I shall come back right soon
if God will; but this wayfaring I needs must
perforce.”  Whenas a certain knight of the court of
the lord heard these words he blamed Sir Robin much, whereas he
was leaving his fair wife at such a point, and Sir Robin said
that he needs must do it.  “Certes,” said the
knight, who had to name Raoul, “if thou goest thus to Saint
James without touching thy fair wife, I will make thee cuckold
before thine home-coming, and when thou comest home I will give
thee good tokens that I have had share of her.  Now I will
lay my land thereto against thine, which our lord hath given
thee, for I have well four hundred pounds of land even as thou
hast.”  “Forsooth,” said Sir Robin,
“my wife is not come of such blood as that she shall misdo
against me, and I may not believe in it nowise: I will make the
wager with thee, if it please thee.” 
“Yea,” said Sir Raoul, “wilt thou pledge thee
thereto?”  “Yea, verily,” said Sir Robin,
“and thou?”  “Yea, and I also.  Now
go we to my lord and make record of our covenant.” 
“That will I well,” said Sir Robin.  Therewith
they go unto the lord, and the wager was recorded, and they
pledged them to hold thereto.  On the morrow betimes Sir
Robin wedded the fair maiden, and straightway after mass was
said, he departed from the house and left the wedding, and took
the road for St. Jakem.

But now leaveth the tale to tell of him and telleth of Sir
Raoul, who was in great imagination how he might win his wager
and lie by the fair lady.  And saith the tale that the lady
held her much simply while her lord was on pilgrimage, and was
going to the minster with a good will, and prayed God that he
would bring back her lord.  But Sir Raoul pained him on the
other hand how he might win his wager, for great doubt he had to
lose his land.  He spake with the carline who dwelt with the
fair lady, and said to her, that if she could so bring it about
that she might set him in place and at point that he might speak
privily with my lady Jehane, and have his will of her, he would
give her much good, so that there would be no hour when she
should not be rich.  “Sir, forsooth,” said the
carline, “thou art so fair a knight, and so wise and
courteous that my lady should well ought to love thee par amours,
and I will put myself to the pain herein to the utmost of my
might.”  Then the knight drew out straightway a forty
sols, and gave it to her to buy a gown.  The carline took
them with a goodwill, and set them away surely, and said that she
would speak with the lady.  The knight departed from the
carline, and the carline abode and took her lady to task when she
came back from the minster, and said to her: “In
God’s name, lady, tell me true!  My lord, when he went
to Saint Jakem, had he ever lain by thee?” 
“Wherefore dost thou say this, dame Hersent?” 
“Lady, because I trow that thou be yet a clean
maid.”  “Certes, dame Hersent, so am I verily;
for of no woman wot I who would do such a deed.” 
“Lady,” said dame Hersent, “great damage it is;
for if ye wotted how great is the joy that women have when they
be with a man who loveth them, ye would say that there is no joy
so great; and for this cause I marvel much that ye love not par
amours even as these other ladies who all love.  But if it
pleaseth thee the matter is ready to hand; whereas I wot of a
knight, fair and valiant and wise, who will love thee with a good
will; a much rich man is he, and fairer by far than the coward
recreant who hath left thee.  And if ye dare love ye may
have whatso ye dare ask; and so much joy shall ye have as never
lady had more.”  So much spake the carline by her
words that the needle of nature stirred somewhat.  The lady
asked who the knight might be.  “Who is it,
lady?  A-God’s name!  I may well name him. 
It is the lovely, the valiant, the hardy Sir Raoul, who is one of
the mesney of thy father; the kindest heart men wot
of.”  “Dame Hersent,” said the lady,
“thou wert best let such words be; for I have no desire to
misdo of my body, of no such blood am I come.” 
“Dame,” said the carline, “I wot well. 
But never shalt thou know the worthy joy when a man wendeth with
a woman.”

Thuswise abode the matter.  Sir Raoul came back to the
carline, and she told him how she had talked with the lady, and
what she had answered.  “Dame Hersent,” said the
knight, “thus wise should a good lady answer; but ye shall
speak with her again, for one doeth not the business at the first
stroke: and hold, here be twenty sols to buy thee a cloth to thy
surcoat.”  The carline took the silver, and spake with
the lady often, but nought it availed.

Wore the time till at last they heard news that Sir Robin was
wending back from Saint Jakem, and that he was already hard on
Paris.  Soon was known the tidings, and Sir Raoul, who had
fear of the losing of his lands, returned to the carline, and
spake with her; and she said that she might not bring the
business to an end: but that she would do so much for the love of
him, if she should earn her service, that she would so bring it
about as that there should be none in the house save he and this
lady: and then he might do his will on her, will she nill she:
and he said that he asked for nought else. 
“Then,” said the carline, “ye, my lord, shall
come within eight days, and I will do my lady to bathe her in her
chamber, and I will send all the mesney out of the house and out
of the castle; then can ye come to her bathing in the chamber,
and may have your desire of her, either with her good will or
maugre.”  “Ye have well said,” quoth
he.

Abode matters thus till Sir Robin sent word that he was coming
to hand, and would be at the house on the Sunday.  Then the
carline let bathe the lady the Thursday before, and the bath was
in her chamber, and the fair lady entered therein.  But the
carline sent after Sir Raoul, and he came.  Thereafter she
sent all the folk of the household out of the house.  Sir
Raoul came his ways to the chamber and entered therein, and
greeted the lady, but she greeted him not again, but said
thus:

“Sir Raoul, thou art nowise courteous.  Whether
wottest thou forsooth that it is well with me of thy coming?
accursed be thou, villain knight!”  But Sir Raoul
said: “My lady, mercy, a-God’s name!  I am but
dying for grief of thee.  For God’s sake have pity of
me!”  “Sir Raoul,” said she, “I will
have no mercy in such wise that I will ever be thy darling. 
And wot thou well that if thou leave me not in peace I will tell
my lord, my father, the honour thou requirest of me: for I am
none such as that.”  “Nay, lady, is it so,
then?”  “Yea, verily,” said she.

Therewith Sir Raoul drew nigh to her, and embraced her in his
arms, which were strong enow, and drew her all naked out of the
bath and bore her toward her bed; and so soon as he drew her
forth of the bath he saw a black spot which she had on her right
groin hard by her natural part; and he thought therewithal that
that were a good token that he had lain by her.  Thus as he
bore her off to her bed, his spurs hooked them into the serge at
the bed’s edge toward the foot thereof, and down fell the
knight, he and the lady together, he below and she above; but she
rose up straightway and caught up a billet of wood, and smote Sir
Raoul therewith amidst the face, and made him a wound both deep
and wide, so that the blood fell to earth.  So when Sir
Raoul felt himself hurt he had no great desire to play, wherefore
he arose and got him gone out of the chamber straightway: he did
so much that he came to his hostel, where he dwelt a good league
thence, and there he had his wound dealt with.  But the good
dame entered into her bath again, and called dame Hersent, and
told the adventure of the knight.

Much great array made the father of the fair lady against the
coming of Sir Robin, and he summoned much folk, and sent and bade
Sir Raoul to come; but he sent word that he might not come, for
that he was sick.  On the Sunday camel Sir Robin, and was
received right fairly; and the father of the fair lady went to
seek Sir Raoul and found him wounded, and said that now for
nought might he abide behind from the feast.  So he dight
his face and his hurt the best wise he might, and went to the
feast, which was great and grand day long of drinking and of
eating, and of dancing and carolling.

When night was come Sir Robin went to bed with his wife, who
received him much joyously as a good dame ought to her lord; so
abode they in joy and in feast the more part of the night. 
On the morrow great was the feast, and the victual was dight and
they ate.  But when it was after dinner, Sir Raoul bore on
hand Sir Robin, and said that he had won his land, whereas he had
known his wife carnally, by the token, to wit, that she had a
black spot on her right thigh and a pearlet hard by her
jewel.  “Thereof I wot not,” said Sir Robin,
“for I have not looked on her so close.” 
“Well, then, I tell thee,” said Sir Raoul, “by
the oath that thou hast given me that thou take heed thereof, and
do me right.”  “So will I, verily,” said
Sir Robin.

When night was, Sir Robin played with his wife, and found and
saw on her right thigh the black spot, and a pearlet hard by her
fair jewel: and when he knew it he was sore grieving.  On
the morrow he went to Sir Raoul, and said before his lord that he
had lost his wager.  Heavy of heart was he day long, and
when it was night he went to the stable, and set the saddle on
his palfrey, and went forth from the house, bearing with him what
he might get him of silver.  So came to Paris, and when he
was at Paris he abode there three days.  But now leaveth the
tale to tell of him, and taketh up the word concerning his
wife.

Here saith the tale that much sorrowful was the fair lady and
heavy of heart, when she called to mind how she had cast her lord
out of his house.  Much she thought of the wherefore thereof
and wept and made great dole; till her father came to her, and
said that he were fainer if she were yet to wed, whereas she had
done him shame and all them of his lineage; and he told her how
and wherefore.  When she heard that, she was sore grieved
and denied the deed downright; but nought availed.  For it
is well known that shame so sore is contrary to all women, that
if a woman were to burn all, she would not be trowed of such a
misdoing, once it were laid on her.

On the first hour of the night the lady arose, and took all
pennies that she had in her coffer, and took a nag and a harness
thereto, and gat her to the road; and she had let shear her fair
tresses, and was otherwise arrayed like to an esquire.  So
much she went by her journeys that she came to Paris, and went
after her lord; and she said and declared that she would never
make an end before she had found him.  Thus she rode like to
a squire.  And on a morning she went forth out of Paris, and
wended the way toward Orleans until she came to the Tomb Isory,
and there she fell in with her lord Sir Robin.  Full fain
she was when she saw him, and she drew up to him and greeted him,
and he gave her greeting back and said: “Fair friend, God
give thee joy!”  “Sir,” said she,
“whence art thou?”  “Forsooth, fair
friend, I am of old Hainault.”  “Sir, whither
wendeth thou?”  “Forsooth, fair friend, I wot
not right well whither I go, nor where I shall dwell. 
Forsooth, needs must I where fortune shall lead me; and she is
contrary enough; for I have lost the thing in the world that most
I ever loved: and she also hath lost me.  Withal I have lost
my land, which was great and fair enough.  But what hast
thou to name, and whither doth God lead thee?” 
“Certes, sir,” said Jehane, “I am minded for
Marseilles on the sea, where is war as I hope.  There would
I serve some valiant man, about whom I shall learn me arms if God
will.  For I am so undone in mine own country that therein
for a while of time I may not have peace.  But, sir,
meseemeth that thou be a knight, and I would serve thee with a
right good will if it please thee.  And of my company wilt
thou be nought worsened.”  “Fair friend,”
said Sir Robin, “a knight am I verily.  And where I
may look to find war, thitherward would I draw full
willingly.  But tell me what thou hast to name?” 
“Sir,” said she, “I have to name
John.”  “In a good hour,” quoth the
knight.  “And thou, sir, how hight thou?” 
“John,” said he, “I have to name
Robin.”  “Sir Robin, retain me as thine esquire,
and I will serve thee to my power.”  “John, so
would I with a good will.  But so little of money have I
that I must needs sell my horse before three days are worn. 
Wherefore I wot not how to do to retain thee.” 
“Sir,” said John, “be not dismayed thereof, for
God will aid thee if it please him.  But tell me where thou
wilt eat thy dinner?”  “John, my dinner will
soon be made; for not another penny have I than three sols of
Paris.”  “Sir,” said John, “be
nought dismayed thereof, for I have hard on ten pounds Tournais,
whereof thou shalt not lack, if thou hast not to spend at thy
will.”  “Fair friend John, have thou mickle
thanks.”

Then made they good speed to Montlhery: there John dight meat
for his lord and they ate.  When they had eaten, the knight
slept in a bed and John at his feet.  When they had slept,
John did on the bridles, and they mounted and gat to the
road.  They went so far by their journeys that they came to
Marseilles-on-sea; but of war they heard no word there, whereof
were they much sorry.  But now leaveth the tale to tell of
them two, and returneth to tell of Sir Raoul, who had by
falsehood gained the land of Sir Robin.

Here telleth the tale that so long did Sir Raoul hold the land
of Sir Robin without righteous cause, for seven years’
wearing.  Then he took a great sickness and of that sickness
was sore beaten down, insomuch that he was on the point of
death.  Now he doubted much the transgression which he had
done against the fair lady the daughter of his lord, and against
her husband also, whereby they were undone, both of them by
occasion of his malice.  Exceeding ill at ease was he of his
wrongdoing, which was so great that he durst not confess it.

Came a day when he was sore undone by his sickness, so he sent
for his chaplain whom he loved much, for he had found him a man
valiant and loyal; and he said to him: “Sir, thou who art
my father before God, know that I look to die of this sickness,
wherefore I pray thee for God’s sake that ye aid me with
your counsel, for great is my need thereof, for I have done an
ill deed so hideous and dark that scarce shall I have mercy
therefor.”  The chaplain bade him tell it out hardily,
and that he would aid him with counsel to his power; till at last
Sir Raoul told him all as ye have heard afore.  And he
prayed him for God’s sake give him counsel, so great as was
his misdoing.  “Sir,” said he, “be nought
dismayed, for if thou wilt do the penance which I enjoin thee, I
will take thy transgression on me and on my soul, so that thou
shalt be quit.”  “Yea, tell me then,” said
the knight.  “Sir,” said he, “thou shalt
take the cross far over sea, and thou shalt get thee thereto
within the year wherein thou art whole, and shalt give pledges to
God that thou shalt so do: and in every place where men ask thee
the occasion of thy journey, thou shalt tell it to all who shall
ask it of thee.”  “All this will I well
do,” said the knight.  “Then, sir, give thou
good pledge.”  “With a good will,” said
the knight; “thou thyself shalt abide surety for me, and I
swear to thee on my knighthood that I shall quit thee
well.”  “A-God’s name, sir!” quoth
the chaplain, “I will be thy surety.”  Now
turned the knight to amendment, and was all whole; and a year
wore wherein he went not over sea.  The chaplain spake to
him often thereof, but he held the covenant as but a jest; till
at last the chaplain said that but if he acquitted him before God
of his pledge, he would tell the tale to the father of the fair
damsel, who had been thus undone by him.  When the knight
heard that, he said to the chaplain that within half a year he
would set about the crossing of the sea, and so swore to
him.  But now leaveth the tale to tell of the knight, and
returneth to telling of King Florus of Ausaye, of whom for a
great while it hath been silent.

Now saith the tale that a much good life led King Florus of
Ausay and his wife, as of young folk who loved each other; but
much sorry and heavy-hearted were they that they might have no
child.  The lady made great prayers to God, and let sing
masses; but whereas it was not well pleasing to God, it might not
be.  But on a day came thither into the house of King Florus
a good man who had his dwelling in the great forest of Ausaye in
a place right wild; and when the queen knew that he was come she
came unto him and made him right great joy.  And because he
was a good man she confessed to him and told him all her ailing,
and how that she was exceeding heavy of heart, because she had
had no child by her lord.  “Ah, lady,” said the
good man, “since it pleaseth not our Lord, needs must thou
abide it; and when it pleaseth him thou shalt have one, or
two.”  “Certes, sir,” said the lady,
“I were fain thereof; for my lord holdeth me the less dear,
and the high barons of this land also.  Withal it hath been
told to me that they have spoken to my lord to leave me and take
another.”  “Verily, dame,” said the good
man, “he would do ill; it would be done against God and
against Holy Church.”  “Ah, sir, I pray thee to
pray to God for me that I may have a child of my lord, for great
fear I have lest he leave me.”  “Dame,”
said the good man, “my prayer shall avail but little, but
if it please God; nevertheless I will pray heartily.”

The good man departed from the lady, and the barons of the
land and of the country came to the King Florus, and bade him
send away his wife and take another, since by this he might have
no child.  And if he did not after their counsel, they would
go and dwell otherwhere; for in no case would they that the realm
should be without an heir.  King Florus feared his barons
and trowed their word, and he said that he would send away his
wife, and that they should seek him another, and they trusted him
therein.  When the lady knew it she was exeeeding heavy of
heart; but nought durst she do, for she knew that her lord would
leave her.  So she sent for the hermit who had been her
confessor, and he came to her.  Then the lady told him all
the tale of the matter of the barons, who would seek for their
lord another woman.  “And I pray thee, good father,
that thou wouldst aid me, and counsel me what I should
do.”  “Dame,” said the good man, “if
it be so as thou sayest, ye must needs suffer it; for against thy
lord and against his barons ye may do nought
perforce.”  “Sir,” said the good lady,
“thou sayest sooth: but if it please God, I were fain to be
a recluse nigh unto thee; whereby I may be at the service of God
all the days of my life, and that I may have comfort of
thee.”  “Dame,” said the good man,
“that would be over strange a thing, whereas thou art too
young a lady and too fair.  But I will tell thee what thou
shalt do.  Hard by my hermitage there is an abbey of White
Nuns, who are right good ladies, and I counsel you go thither;
and they will have great joy of thee for thy goodness and thy
high dignity.”  “Sir,” said she,
“thou hast well said; I will do all that thou counsellest
me.”

On the morrow King Florus spake to his wife, and said thus:
“Needs must thou and I sunder, for that thou mayst have no
child by me.  Now I say thee soothly that the sundering lies
heavy on me, for never shall I love woman as I have loved
thee.”  Therewith fell King Florus to weep sorely, and
the lady also.  “Sir,” said she,
“a-God’s mercy!  And whither shall I go, and
what shall I do?”  “Dame, thou shalt do well, if
it please God, for I will send thee back well and richly into thy
country to thy kindred.”  “Sir,” said the
lady, “it shall not be so: I have purveyed me an abbey of
nuns, where I will be, if it please thee; and there I will serve
God all my life; for since I lose thy company I am she that no
man shall go with any more.”  Thereat King Florus wept
and the lady also.  But on the third day the queen went to
the abbey; and the other queen was come, and had great feast made
her, and great joy of her friends.  King Florus held her for
three years, but never might have child of her.  But here
the tale holdeth peace of King Florus, and betaketh it again to
Sir Robin, and to John who were at Marseilles.

Here telleth the tale that much sorry was Sir Robin when he
came to Marseilles, whereas he heard tell of nought toward in the
country; so he said to John: “What do we?  Thou hast
lent me of thy moneys, whereof I thank thee: I will give them
back to thee, for I will sell my palfrey, and quit me toward
thee.”  “Sir,” said John, “if it
please thee, believe me, and I shall tell thee what we shall
do.  I have yet well an hundred sols of Tournay, and if it
please thee, I will sell our two horses, and make money thereby:
for I am the best of bakers that ye may wot of; and I will make
French bread, and I doubt me not but I shall earn my spending
well and bountifully.”  “John,” said Sir
Robin, “I grant it thee to do all as thou wilt.”

So on the morrow John sold the two horses for ten pounds
Tournays, and bought corn and let grind it, and bought baskets,
and fell to making French bread, so good and so well made that he
sold it for more than the best baker of the town might do; and he
did so much within two years that he had well an hundred pounds
of chattels.  Then said John to his lord: “I rede thee
well that we buy us a very great house, and that we buy us wine
and take to harbouring good folk.” 
“John,” said Sir Robin, “do according to thy
will, for I grant it thee, and moreover I praise thee
much.”  So John bought a house, great and fair, and
harboured good folk, and earned enough plenteously; and he
arrayed his lord well and richly; and Sir Robin had his palfrey,
and went to eat and drink with the most worthy of the town, and
John sent him wine and victual, so that all they that haunted his
company marvelled thereat.  So much he gained that in three
years’ time he had gotten him more than three hundred
pounds of garnishment, out-taken his plenishing, which was well
worth fifty pounds.  But here leaveth the tale to tell of
Sir Robin and of John, and goeth back to tell of Sir Raoul.

For, saith the tale, that the chaplain held Sir Raoul right
short that he should go over sea, and quit him of the pledge he
had laid down; for great fear he had lest he yet should leave it;
and so much he did that Sir Raoul saw well that he needs must
go.  So he dight his journey, and arrayed him right richly,
as he that hath well enough thereto; and so he betook him to the
road with three squires: and went so much by his journeys that he
came into Marseilles-on-sea and took lodging in the French
hostel, whereas dwelt Sir Robin and John.  So soon as John
saw him she knew him by the scar of the wound she had made him,
and because she had seen him many times.  The knight
sojourned in the town fifteen days, and hired him passage. 
But the while he sojourned, John drew him in to privy talk, and
asked of him the occasion of his going over sea, and Sir Raoul
told him all the occasion, as one who had little heed thereof,
even as the tale hath told afore.  When John heard that, he
held his peace.  Sir Raoul set his goods aboard ship, and
went upon the sea; but tarried so much the ship wherein he was
that he abode in the town for eight days; but on the ninth day he
betook him to go his ways to the holy sepulchre, and did his
pilgrimage, and confessed him the best he might: and his
confessor charged him in penance that he should give back the
land which he held wrongfully to the knight and his wife. 
Whereon he said to his confessor, that when he came into his own
country he would do what his heart bade him.  So he departed
from Jerusalem and came to Acre, and dight his passage as one who
had great longing to repair to his own country.  He went up
on to the sea, and wended so diligently, as well by night as by
day, till in less than three months he came to the port of
Aigues-mort.  Then he departed from the port and came
straight to Marseilles, wherein he sojourned eight days in the
hostel of Sir Robin and John, which hight the French house. 
Never did Sir Robin know him, for on that matter he thought
nothing.  At the end of eight days he departed from
Marseilles, he and his squires, and went so long by his journeys
that he came into his own country, where he was received with
great joy, as one who was a knight rich in land and
chattels.  Thereon his chaplain took him to task, and asked
of him if any had demanded the occasion of his journey; and he
said: “Yea, in three places, to wit: Marseilles, Acre, and
Jerusalem: and he of whom I took counsel bade me to give back the
land to Sir Robin, if I hear tidings of him, or to his wife else,
or to his heir.”  “Certes,” said the
chaplain; “he bade thee good counsel.”  Thus was
Sir Raoul in his own country a great while in rest and good
ease.  But here leaveth the tale to tell of him, and
returneth to Sir Robin and John.

Here saith the tale that when Sir Robin and John had been at
Marseilles for six years that John had gotten to the value of six
hundred pounds, and they were come into the seventh year, and
John might gain eke what he would, and so sweet he was, and so
debonaire that he made himself loved of all the neighbours, and
therewithal he was of good hap as he might not be of more, and
maintained his lord so nobly and so richly that it was wonder to
behold.  When the end of the seven years drew nigh, John
fell to talk with his lord Sir Robin, and spake thus: “Sir,
we have now been a great while in this country, and so much have
we gained, that we have hard on six hundred pounds of chattels,
what of money, what of vessel of silver.” 
“Forsooth, John,” said Sir Robin, “they be not
mine, but thine; for it is thou hast earned them.” 
“Sir,” said John, “saving thy grace, it is not
so, but they are thine: for thou art my rightful lord, and never,
if it please God, will I change.”  “Gramercy,
John, I hold thee not for servant, but for companion and
friend.”  “Sir,” said John, “all
days I have kept thee loyal company, and shall do from
henceforth.”  “By my faith,” said Sir
Robin, “I will do what so pleaseth thee: but to go into my
country, I wot not to say thereof: for I have lost so much there
that hardly shall my scathe be righted to me.” 
“Sir,” said John, “be thou never dismayed of
that matter; for when thou art come into thine own country thou
shalt hear good tidings, please God.  And doubt thou
nothing, for in all places whereas we shall be, if it please God,
I shall earn enough for thee and for me.” 
“Certes, John,” said Sir Robin, “I will do as
it pleaseth thee, and where thou wilt that I go, thither will
I.”  “Sir,” said John, “I shall sell
our chattels, and dight our journey, and we will go within
fifteen days.”  “A-God’s name,
John,” said Sir Robin.

John sold all his plenishing, whereof he had good store and
goodly, and bought three horses, a palfrey for his lord, another
for himself, and a sumpter horse.  Then they took leave of
the neighbours, and the most worthy of the town, who were sore
grieved of their departure.

Wore the way Sir Robin and John, insomuch that in three
weeks’ space they came into their country.  And Robin
made known to his lord, whose daughter he had had, that he was at
hand.  The lord was much joyful thereof, for he was deeming
well that his daughter would be with him.  And she indeed it
was, but in the guise of an esquire.  Sir Robin was well
received of his lord, whose daughter he had erewhile
wedded.  When the lord could have no tidings of his
daughter, he was right sorrowful; nevertheless he made good feast
to Sir Robin, and bade thereto his knights and his neighbours;
and thither came Sir Raoul, who held the land of Sir Robin
wrongfully.  Great was the joy that day and the morrow, and
that while Sir Robin told to John the occasion of the wager, and
how Sir Raoul held his land wrongfully.  “Sir,”
said John, “do thou appeal him of treason, and I will do
the battle for thee.”  “Nay, John,” said
Sir Robin, “thou shalt not do it.”

So they left it till the morrow, when John came to Sir Robin
and did him to wit that he would speak to the father of his wife;
and thus he said to him: “Sir, thou art lord to my lord Sir
Robin after God, and he wedded thy daughter time was.  But
there was a wager betwixt him and Sir Raoul, who said that he
would make him cuckold by then he returned from St. Jakeme;
whereof Sir Raoul hath made false report, whereas he hath had nor
part nor lot in thy fair daughter.  And he hath done
disloyal treason.  All which things I am ready to prove on
his body.”  Then leapt forth Sir Robin and said:
“John, fair friend, none shall do the battle save I; nowise
shalt thou hang shield on neck herein.”  Therewith Sir
Robin reached his pledge to his lord; and Sir Raoul was sore
grieving of the pledging, but needs must he defend him, or cry
craven; so he reached for this pledge right cowardly.  So
were the pledges given, and day of battle appointed on that day
fifteen days without naysay.

Now hear ye marvels of John what he did.  John who had to
name my Lady Jehane, had in the house of her father a cousin
germain of hers, who was a fair damsel, and of some five and
twenty years.  Jehane came to her, and laid all the whole
truth bare to her, and told her the whole business from point to
point, and showed her all openly; and prayed her much that she
would hide all the matter until the time and hour came when she
should make herself known to her father.  Wherefore her
cousin, who knew her well, said to her that she would keep all
well hidden, so that by her it should never be discovered. 
Then was the chamber of her cousin dight for the Lady Jehane; and
the said lady, the while of the fortnight before the battle
should be, let bathe her and stove her; and she took her ease the
best she might, as one who well had therewithal.  And she
let cut and shape for her duly four pair of gowns, of Scarlet, of
Vair, of Perse, and of cloth of silk; and she took so well her
ease that she came back to her most beauty, and was so fair and
dainty as no lady might be more.

But when it came to the end of the fifteen days, then was Sir
Robin sore grieving of John his esquire, because he had lost him,
and knew not where he was become.  But none the more did he
leave to apparel him for the fight as one who had heart enough
and hardihood.

On the morn of the day whenas the battle was appointed, came
both the knights armed.  They drew apart one from the other,
and then they fell on each other with the irons of their glaives,
and smote on each other with so great heat that they bore down
each other’s horses to the earth beneath their
bodies.  Sir Raoul was hurt a little on the left side. 
Sir Robin rose up the first, and came a great pace on Sir Raoul,
and smote him a great stroke on the helm in such wise that he
beat down the head-piece and drave in the sword on to the
mail-coif, and sheared all thereto; but the coif was of steel so
strong that he wounded him not, howbeit he made him to stagger,
so that he caught hold of the arson of the saddle; and if he had
not, he had fallen to earth.  Then Sir Raoul, who was a good
knight, smote Sir Robin so great a stroke upon the helm that he
all to astonied him; and the stroke fell down to the shoulder,
and sheared the mails of the hawberk, but hurt him not. 
Then Sir Robin smote him with all his might, but he threw his
shield betwixt, and Sir Robin smote off a quarter thereof. 
When Sir Raoul felt his strong strokes, he misdoubted him much,
and wished well that he were over sea, if he were but quit of the
battle, and Sir Robin back on the land which he held. 
Nevertheless he put forth all his might and drew nigh, and fell
on Sir Robin much hardly, and gave him a great stroke upon his
shield so that he sheared it to the boss thereof.  But Sir
Robin laid a great stroke upon his helm, but he threw his shield
betwixt and Sir Robin sheared it amidst, and the sword fell upon
the neck of the horse, and sheared it amidst, and beat down
straightway both horse and man.  Then Sir Raoul leapt to his
feet, as one who was in a stour exceeding heavy.  Then Sir
Robin lighted down, whereas he would not betake him to his horse
while the other was afoot.

Now were both knights come unto the skirmish and they hewed in
pieces each other’s shields and helms and haw—berks,
and drew the blood from each other’s bodies with their
trenchant swords; and had they smitten as great strokes as at
first, soon had they slain each other, for they had so little of
their shields that scarce might they cover their fists
therewith.  Yet had neither of them fear of death or shame:
nevertheless the nighness of them to each other called on them to
bring the battle to an end.  Sir Robin took his sword in
both hands, and smote Sir Raoul with all his might on the helm,
and sheared it amidst, so that one half thereof fell upon the
shoulders, and he sheared the steel coif, and made him a great
wound on the head; and Sir Raoul was so astonied of the stroke
that he bent him to the earth on one knee; but he rose up
straightway and was in great misease when he thus saw his head
naked, and great fear of death he had.  But he came up to
Sir Robin and fetched a stroke with all his might on what he had
of shield and he sheared it asunder and the stroke came on the
helm and cut into it well three fingers, so that the sword came
on the iron coif, which was right good, so that the sword brake
a-twain.  When Sir Raoul saw his sword broken and his head
naked, he doubted much the death.  Nevertheless he stooped
down to the earth, and took up a great stone in his two hands,
and cast it after Sir Robin with all his might; but Sir Robin
turned aside when he saw the stone coming, and ran on Sir Raoul,
who took to flight all over the field; and Sir Robin said to him
that he would slay him but if he cried craven.  Whereon Sir
Raoul thus bespake him: mercy on me, gentle knight, and ere my
sword, so much as I have thereof, and I render it to thee, and
all of me therewith unto thy mercy; and I pray thee have pity of
me, and beg of thy lord and mine to have mercy on me and that
thou and he save my life, and I render and give both thy land and
mine.  For I have held it against right and against
reason.  And I have wrongfully defamed the fair lady and
good.

When Sir Robin heard this, he said that he had done enough,
and he prayed his lord so much that he pardoned Sir Raoul of his
misdeed, in such wise that he was quit thereof on the condition
that he should go over seas and abide there lifelong.

Thuswise conquered Sir Robin his land and the land of Sir
Raoul to boot for all his days.  But he was so sore grieving
and sad at heart of his good dame and fair, whom he had thus
lost, that he could have no solace; and on the other hand, he was
so sore grieving for John his esquire whom he had so lost, that
marvel it was.  And his lord was no less sad at heart for
his fair daughter whom he had thus lost, and of whom he might
have no tidings.

But dame Jehane, who was in the chamber of her cousin germain
for fifteen days in good ease, when she wotted that her lord had
vanquished the battle, was exceeding much at ease.  Now she
had done make four pair of gowns, as is aforesaid, and she clad
her with the richest of them which was of silk bended of fine
gold of Araby.  Moreover she was so fair of body and of
visage, and so dainty withal, that nought in the world might be
found fairer, so that her cousin germain all marvelled at her
great beauty.  And she had been bathed, and attired and had
ease at all points for the fifteen days, so that she was come
into so great beauty as wonder was.  Much fair was the Lady
Jehane in her gown of silk bended of gold.  So she called
her cousin to her and said: “How deemest thou of
me?”  “What, dame!” said her cousin,
“thou art the fairest lady of the world.” 
“I shall tell thee, then, fair cousin, what thou shalt do:
go thou tell so much before my father as that he shall make dole
no more, but be glad and joyful, and that thou bearest him good
news of his daughter who is whole and well; and that he come with
thee and thou wilt show him.  Then bring him hither, and
meseemeth he will see me with a good will.”  The
damsel said that she would well do that errand and she came to
the father of the Lady Jehane, and said him what his daughter had
said.  When her sire heard thereof great wonder he wist it,
and went with the damsel, and found his daughter in her chamber,
and knew her straightway, and put his arms about her neck, and
wept over her for joy and pity, and had so great joy that scarce
might he speak to her.  Then he asked her where she had been
so long a while.  “Fair father,” said she,
“thou shalt know it well anon.  But a-God’s sake
do my lady mother to come to me, for I have great longing to see
her.”  The lord sent for his wife, and when she came
into the chamber where was her daughter, and saw her and knew
her, she swooned for joy, and might not speak a great while, and
when she came out of her swooning none might believe the great
joy that she made of her daughter.

But whiles they were in this joy, the father of the fair lady
went to seek Sir Robin and bespake him thus: “Sir Robin,
fair sweet son, tidings can I say thee exceeding joyous us
between.”  “Certes,” said Sir Robin,
“of joy have I great need, for none save God can set rede
to it whereby I may have joy.  For I have lost thy fair
daughter, whereof have I sore grief at heart.  And thereto
have I lost the swain and the squire, who of all in the world
hath done me most good; to wit, John the good, my
squire.”  “Sir Robin,” said the lord,
“be ye nought dismayed thereof, for of squires thou shalt
find enough.  But of my fair daughter I could tell thee good
tidings; for I have seen her e’en now; and, wot ye well,
she is the fairest lady that may be in the world.” 
When Sir Robin heard that, he trembled all with joy and said to
his lord: “Ah, sir, for God’s sake bring me where I
may see if this be true!”  “With a good
will,” said the lord; “come along now.”

The lord went before and he after, till I they were come to
the chamber, where the mother was yet making great feast of her
daughter, and they were weeping with joy one over the
other.  But when they saw their rightful lords a-coming,
they rose up; and so soon as Sir Robin knew his wife, he ran to
her with his arms spread abroad, and they clipped and kissed
together dearly, and wept of joy and pity; and they were thus
embracing together for the space of the running of ten acres, or
ever they might sunder.  Then the lord commanded the tables
to be laid for supper, and they supped and made great joy.

After supper, when the feast had been right great, they went
to bed, and Sir Robin lay that night with the Lady Jehane his
wife, who made him great joy, and he her in likewise; and they
spake together of many things, and so much that Sir Robin asked
of her where she had been; and she said: “Sir, long were it
to tell, but thou shalt know it well in time.  Now tell to
me what thou couldest to do, and where thou hast been so long a
while.”  “Lady,” said Sir Robin,
“that will I well tell thee.”

So he fell to telling her all that she well knew, and of John
his esquire, who had done him so much good, and said that he was
so troubled whereas he had thus lost him, that he would make
never an end of wandering till he had found him, and that he
would bestir himself thereto the morrow’s morn. 
“Sir,” said the lady, “that were folly; and how
should it be then; wouldst thou leave me, then?” 
“Forsooth, dame,” said he, “e’en so it
behoveth me.  For none did ever so much for another as he
did for me.”  “Sir,” said the dame,
“wherein he did for thee, he did but duly.  Even so he
was bound to do.”  “Dame,” said Sir Robin,
“by what thou sayest thou shouldst know him.” 
“Forsooth,” said the lady, “I should ought to
know him well, for never did he anything whereof I wotted
not.”  “Lady,” said Sir Robin, “thou
makest me to marvel at thy words.”  “Sir,”
said the lady, “never marvel thou hereof!  If I tell
thee a word for sooth and for certain, wilt thou not believe
me?”  “Dame,” said he, “yea,
verily.”

“Well, then, believe me in this,” said she;
“for wot of a verity that I am the very same John whom thou
wouldest go seek, and I will tell thee how.  For I knew that
thou wert gone for the great sorrow thou hadst for my misdoing
against thee, and for thy land which thou deemedst thou hadst
lost for ever.  Whereas I had heard tell of the occasion of
the wager, and of the treason Sir Raoul had done, whereof I was
so wroth as never woman was more wroth.  Straightway I let
shear my hair, and took the money in my coffer, about ten pounds
of Tournais, and arrayed me like an esquire, and followed thee
away to Paris, and found thee at the tomb of Ysore; and there I
fell into company with thee, and we went together into
Marseilles, and were there together seven years long, where I
served thee unto my power as my rightful lord, and I hold for
well spent all the service that I did thee.  And know of a
truth that I am innocent and just of that which the evil knight
laid upon me; as well appeareth whereas he hath been shamed in
the field, and hath acknowledged the treason.”

Therewith my lady Jehane embraced Sir Robin, her lord, and
kissed him on the mouth right sweetly; for Sir Robin understood
well that it was she that had so well served him; and so great
joy he had, that none could say it or think it; and much he
wondered in his heart how she could think to do that which so
turned to her great goodness.  Wherefore he loved her the
more all the days of his life.

Thus were these two good persons together; and they went to
dwell upon their land, which they had both wide and fair. 
Good life they led as for young folk who loved dearly
together.  Sir Robin went often to tournays with his lord,
of whose mesney he was, and much worship he won, and great prize
he conquered and great wealth, and did so much that he gat him as
much land again as he had had.  And when the lord and his
lady were dead, then had he all the land.  And he did so
well by his prowess that he was made a double banneret, and he
had well four thousand pounds of land.  But never might he
have child by his wife, whereof he was much grieved.  Thus
was he with his wife for ten years after he had conquered the
battle with Sir Raoul.

After the term of ten years, by the will of God, to whom we be
all subject, the pain of death took hold of him, and he died like
a valiant man, and had all his rights, and was laid in earth with
great worship.  His wife the fair lady made so great sorrow
over him, that all they that saw her had pity of her; but in the
end needs must she forget her mourning and take comfort, for as
little as it were.  Much abode the lady in her widowhood as
a good dame and a holy, for she loved much God and Holy
Church.  She held her much humbly and much she loved the
poor, and did them much good, and was so good a lady that none
knew how to blame her or to say of her aught save great
good.  Therewithal was she so fair, that each one said who
saw her, that she was the mirror of all ladies in the world for
beauty and goodness.  But here leaveth the tale a little to
speak of her, and returneth to tell of the King Florus, of whom
it hath been silent a great while.

For saith the tale, that King Florus of Ausay was in his own
country sore grieving, and ill at ease for the departure of his
first wife.  Notwithstanding the other was brought unto him,
and was both fair and dainty, but he could not hold her in his
heart like as he did the first one.  Four years was he with
her, but never child might he have of her; and when the said time
was ended the pains of death took the a lady, and she was buried,
whereof her friends were sore grieving.  But service was
done unto her, as was meet to a queen.

Then abode King Florus in widowhood more than two years, and
he was still a young man, whereas he was not of more than
five-and-forty winters, wherefore the barons said to him that he
behoved to marry again.  “Forsooth,” said King
Florus, “so to do have I no great longing, for two wives
have I had, and never child might I have by either.  And on
the other hand, the first that I had was so good and so fair, and
so much I loved her in my heart for the great beauty that was in
her, that I may not forget her.  And I tell you well that
never woman will I wed but may have her as fair and as good as
was she.  Now may God have mercy on her soul, for she hath
passed away in the abbey where she was, as folk have done me to
wit.”  “Ha, sir,” said a knight, who was
of his privy counsel, “there be many good dames up and down
the country side, of whom ye know not all; and I know one who
hath not for goodness and beauty her peer in the world.  And
if thou knew her goodness, and saw but her beauty, thou wouldst
say well that happy were the king who held the danger of such a
lady.  And wot well that she is a gentle lady, and valiant,
and rich, and of great lands.  And I will tell thee a part
of her goodness so please thee.”

So the king said that he would well he should tell him. 
Wherefore the knight fell to telling how she had bestirred her to
go seek her lord, and how she found him and brought him to
Marseilles, and the great goodness and great services which she
did him, even as the tale hath told afore, so that King Florus
wondered much thereat; and he said to the knight privily that
such a woman he would take with a good will.

“Sir,” said the knight, who was of the country of
the lady, “I will go to her, if it please thee, and I will
so speak to her, if I may, that the marriage of you two shall be
made.”  “Yea,” said King Florus, “I
will well that thou go, and I pray thee to give good heed to the
business.”

So the knight bestirred him, and went so much by his journeys
that he came to the country where dwelt the fair dame, whom the
tale calleth my Lady Jehane, and found her abiding at a castle of
hers, and she made him great joy, as one whom she knew.  The
knight drew her to privy talk, and told her of King Florus of
Ausay, how he bade her come unto him that he might take her to
wife.  When the lady heard the knight so speak, she began to
smile, which beseemed her right well, and she said to the knight:
“Thy king is neither so well learned, nor so courteous as I
had deemed, whereas he biddeth me come to him and he will take me
to wife: forsooth, I am no wageling of him to go at his
command.  But say to thy king, that, so please him, he come
to me, if he prize me so much and loveth me, and it seem good to
him that I take him to husband and spouse, for the lords ought to
beseech the ladies, and not ladies the lords.” 
“Lady,” said the knight, “all that thou hast
said to me, I will tell him straight; but I doubt that he hold
not with pride.”  “Sir knight,” said the
lady, “he shall take what heed thereof may please him but
in the matter whereof I have spoken to thee, he hath neither
courtesy nor reason.”  “Lady,” said the
knight, “so be it, a-God’s name!  And I will get
me gone, with thy leave, to my lord the king, and will tell him
what thou hast told me.  And if thou wilt give me any word
more, now tell it me.”  “Yea,” said the
lady, “tell him that I send him greeting, and that I can
him much good will for the honour he biddeth me.”

So the knight departed therewith from the lady, and came the
fourth day thereafter to King Florus of Ausay, and found him in
his chamber, whereas he was speaking with his privy
counsel.  The knight greeted the king, who returned the
greeting, and made him sit by his side, and asked tidings of the
fair lady, and he told all her message how she would not come to
him, whereas she was not his wageling to come at his command: for
that lords are bound to beseech ladies how she had given him word
that she sent him greeting, and could him goodwill for the honour
he bade her.  When the King Florus had heard these words, he
fell a-pondering, and spake no word for a great while.

“Sir,” said a knight who was of his most privity,
“what ponderest thou so much?  Forsooth, all these
words well befit a good lady and wise to say; and so, may help me
God, she is both wise and valiant.  Wherefore I counsel thee
in good faith that thou look to a day when thou canst be there;
that thou send greeting to her that thou wilt be there on such
day to do her honour, and take her to wife.” 
“Forsooth,” said King Florus, “I will send word
that I will be there in the month of Paske, and that she apparel
her to receive such a man as I be.”  Then said King
Florus to the knight who had been to the lady, that within three
days he should go his ways to tell the lady these tidings. 
So on the third day the knight departed, and went so much that he
came to the lady, and said that the king sent word that he would
be with her in the month of Paske; and she answered that it was
so by God’s will, and that she would speak with her
friends, and that she would be arrayed to do his will as the
honour of a good lady called on her.  After these words
departed the knight, and came to his lord King Florus, and told
him the answer of the fair lady, as ye have heard it.  So
King Florus of Ausay dight his departure, and went his ways with
a right great folk to come to the country of the fair lady; and
when he was come thither, he took her and wedded her, and had
great joy and great feast thereof.  Then he led her into his
country where folk made exceeding great joy of her.  But
King Florus loved her much for her great beauty, and for the
great wit and great valiancy that was in her.

And within the year that he had taken her to wife, she was big
with child, and she bore the fruit of her belly so long as right
was, and was delivered of a daughter first, and of a son
thereafter, who had to name Florence and the daughter had to name
Floria.  And the child Florence was exceeding fair, and when
he was a knight he was the best that knew arms in his time, so
that he was chosen to be Emperor of Constantinople.  A much
valiant man was he, and wrought much wrack and dole on the
Saracens.  But the daughter became queen of the land of her
father, and the son of the King of Hungary took her to wife, and
lady she was of two realms.

This great honour gave God to the fair lady for the goodness
of her and her loyalty.  A great while abode King Florus
with that fair lady; and when it pleased God that his time came,
he had such goodly knowledge that God had in him a fair
soul.  Thereafter the lady lived but a half year, and passed
away from the world as one good and loyal, and had fair end and
good knowledge.

Here endeth the tale of King Florus and the Fair Jehane.

p. 117The
History of Over Sea

In years bygone was a Count of
Ponthieu, who loved much chivalry and the world, and was a much
valiant man and a good knight.

In the same times was a Count of St. Pol, who held all the
country, and was lord thereof, and a man much valiant.  He
had no heir of his flesh, whereof he was sore grieving; but a
sister he had, a much good dame, and a valiant woman of much
avail, who was Dame of Dontmart in Ponthieu.  The said dame
had a son, Thibault by name, who was heir of the country of St.
Pol, but a poor man so long as his uncle lived; he was a brave
knight and a valiant, and good at arms: noble he was, and goodly,
and was much honoured and loved of good folk; for a high man he
was, and gentle of blood.

Now the Count of Ponthieu, with whom beginneth this tale, had
a wife, a much good dame: of the said dame he had a daughter,
much good and of much avail, the which waxed in great beauty and
multiplied in much good; and she was of well sixteen years of
age.  But within the third year of her birth, her mother
died, whereof sore troubled she was and much sorrowful.

The Count, her father, wedded him right speedily thereafter,
and took a high lady and a gentle; and in a little while the
Count had of the said lady a son, whom he loved much.  The
said son waxed in great worth and in great goodness, and
multiplied in great good.

The Count of Ponthieu, who was a valiant man, saw my lord
Thibault of Dontmart, and summoned him, and retained him of his
meney; and when he had him of his meney he was much joyous
thereat, for the Count multiplied in great good and in great
avail by means of him.

As they returned from a tournament, the Count called to him
Messire Thibault, and asked of him and said: “Thibault, as
God may help thee, tell me what jewel of my land thou lovest the
best?”  “Sir,” said Messire Thibault,
“I am but a poor man, but, as God may help me, of all the
jewels of thy land I love none so much as my damosel, thy
daughter.”  The Count, when he heard that, was much
merry and joyful in his heart, and said: “Thibault, I will
give her to thee if she will.”  “Sir,”
said he, “much great thank have thou; God reward
thee.”

Then went the Count to his daughter, and said to her:
“Fair daughter, I have married thee, save by thee be any
hindrance.”  “Sir,” said she, “unto
whom?”  “A-God’s name,” said he,
“to a much valiant man, of much avail: to a knight of mine,
who hath to name Thibault of Dontmart.” 
“Ha,” sir, said she, “if thy country were a
kingdom, and should come to me all wholly, forsooth I should hold
me right well wedded in him.”  “Daughter,”
said the Count, “blessed be thine heart, and the hour
wherein thou wert born.”

So the wedding was done; the Count of Ponthieu and the Count
of St. Pol were thereat, and many another good valiant man. 
With great joy were they assembled, in great lordship and in
great mirth: and in great joy dwelt those together for five
years.  But it pleased not our Lord Jesus Christ that they
should have an heir of their flesh, which was a heavy matter to
both of them.

On a night lay Messire Thibault in his bed and pondered sore,
and said: “God! of whom it cometh that I love so much this
dame, and she me, and forsooth no heir of our flesh may we have,
whereby God might be served, and good be done to the
world.”  Therewith he thought on my lord St. Jakeme,
the apostle of Galicia, who would give to such as crave aright
that which by right they crave, and he behight him the road
thither in his heart.

The dame was a-sleeping yet, and whenas she awoke he held her
betwixt his arms, and prayed her that she would give him a
gift.  “Sir,” said the dame, “and what
gift?”  “Dame,” said he, “thou shalt
wot that when I have it.”  “Sir,” she
said, “if I may give it, I will give it, whatso it may
be.”  “Dame,” he said, “I crave
leave of thee to go to my lord St. Jacque the Apostle, that he
may pray our Lord Jesus Christ to give us an heir of our flesh,
whereby God may be served in this world, and the Holy Church
refreshed.”  “Sir,” said the dame,
“the gift is full courteous, and much debonairly will I
grant it thee.”

In much great joy were they for long while: wore one day, and
another, and a third; and it befell that they lay together in bed
on a night, and then said the dame: “Sir, I pray and
require of thee a gift.”  “Dame,” said he,
“ask, and I will give it, if give it I may.” 
“Sir,” she said, “I crave leave of thee to go
with thee on thy journey.”

When Messire Thibault heard that, he was much sorrowful, and
said: “Dame, grievous thing would it be to thine heart, for
the way is much longsome, and the land is much strange and much
diverse.”  She said: “Sir, doubt thou nought of
me, for of such littlest squire that thou hast, shalt thou be
more hindered than of me.”  “Dame,” said
he, “a-God’s name, I grant it thee.”

Day came, and the tidings ran so far till the Count of
Ponthieu knew it, and sent for Messire Thibault, and said:
“Thibault, thou art vowed a pilgrim, as they tell me, and
my daughter also?”  “Sir,” said he,
“that is sooth.”  “Thibault,” said
the Count, “concerning thee it is well, but concerning my
daughter it is heavy on me.”  “Sir,” said
Messire Thibault, “I might not naysay her.” 
“Thibault,” said the Count, “bestir ye when ye
will; so hasten ye your palfreys, your nags, and your
sumpter-beasts; and I will give you pennies and havings
enow.”  “Sir,” said Messire Thibault,
“great thank I give thee.”

So then they arrayed them, and departed with great joy; and
they went so far by their journeys, that they drew nigh to St.
Jacque by less than two days.

On a night they came to a good town, and in the evening
Messire Thibault called his host, and asked him concerning the
road for the morrow, what road they should find, and what like it
might be; and he said to him: “Fair sir, at the going forth
from this town ye shall find somewhat of a forest to pass
through, and all the day after a good road.” 
Therewith they held their peace, and the bed was apparelled, and
they went to rest.

The morrow was much fair, and the pilgrims rose up at daybreak
and made noise.  Messire Thibault arose, and found him
somewhat heavy, wherefore he called his chamberlain, and said:
“Arise now, and do our meyney to truss and go their ways,
and thou shalt abide with me and truss our harness: for I am
somewhat heavy and ill at ease.”  So that one
commanded the sergeants the pleasure of their lord, and they went
their ways.

But a little while was ere Messire Thibault and his wife arose
and arrayed them, and got to the road.  The chamberlain
trussed their bed, and it was not full day, but much fair
weather.  They issued out of the town, they three, without
more company but only God, and drew nigh to the forest; and
whenas they came thither, they found two ways, one good, and the
other bad.  Then Messire Thibault said to his chamberlain:
“Prick spur now, and come up with our folk, and bid them
abide us, for ugly thing it is for a dame and a knight to wend
the wild-wood with little company.”

So the chamberlain went his ways speedily; and Messire
Thibault came into the forest, and came on the sundering ways,
and knew not by which to wend.  So he said: “Dame, by
which way go we?”  “Sir,” said she,
“by the good way, so please God.”

But in this forest were certain strong-thieves, who wasted the
good way, and made the false way wide and side, and like unto the
other, for to make pilgrims go astray.  So Messire Thibault
lighted down, and looked on the way, and found the false way
bigger and wider than the good; so he said: “Come dame,
a-God’s name, this is it.”  So they entered
therein, and went a good quarter of a league, and then began the
way to wax strait, and the boughs to hang alow; so he said:
“Dame, meseemeth that we go not well.”

When he had so said, he looked before him, and saw four
strong-thieves armed, upon four big horses, and each one held
spear in hand.  And when he beheld them, he looked behind
him, and saw other four in other fashion armed and arrayed; and
he said: “Dame, be not abashed at anything thou mayst see
now from henceforward.”  Then Messire Thibault greeted
those first come, but they held them all aloof from his
greeting.  So thereafter he asked them what was their will
toward him; and one thereof said: “That same shall we tell
thee anon.”

Therewith the strong thief came against Messire Thibault with
glaive in rest, and thought to smite him amidst of the body; and
Messire Thibault saw the stroke a-coming, and if he doubted
thereof, no marvel was it; but he swerved from the stroke as best
he might, and that one missed him; and as he passed by him
Messire Thibault threw himself under the glaive, and took it from
the strong thief, and bestirred him against those three whence
that one was come, and smote one of them amidst the body, and
slew him; and thereafter turned about, and went back, and smote
him who had first come on him amidst of the body, and slew
him.

Now it pleased God that of the eight strong-thieves he slew
three, and the other five encompassed him, and slew his palfrey,
so that he fell adown on his back without any wound to grieve
him: he had neither sword nor any other armour to help him. 
So the strong-thieves took his raiment from him, all to his
shirt, and his spurs and shoon; and then they took a sword-belt,
and bound his hands and his feet, and cast him into a
bramble-bush much sharp and much rough.

And when they had thus done, they came to the Lady, and took
from her her palfrey and all her raiment, right to her smock; and
she was much fair, and she was weeping tenderly, and much and of
great manner was she sorrowful.

Then one of the strong-thieves beheld her, and said thus to
his fellows: “Masters, I have lost my brother in this
stour, therefore will I have this Lady in atonement
thereof.”  Another said: “But I also, I have
lost my cousin-german; therefore I claim as much as thou herein:
yea, and another such right have I.”  And even in such
wise said the third and the fourth and the fifth; but at last
said one: “In the holding of this Lady ye have no great
getting nor gain; so let us lead her into the forest here, and do
our will on her, and then set her on the road again and let her
go.”  So did they even as they had devised, and set
her on the road again.

Messire Thibault saw it well, and much sorrowful he was, but
nought might he do against it; nor none ill will had he against
the Lady for that which had befallen her; for he wotted well that
it had been perforce and against the will of her.  The Lady
was much sorrowful, and all ashamed.  So Messire Thibault
called to her and said: “Dame, for God’s sake come
hither and unbind me, and deliver me from the grief wherein I am;
for these brambles grieve me sore and anguish me.”

So the Lady went whereas lay Messire Thibault, and espied a
sword lying behind there of one of the strong-thieves who had
been slain.  So she took it, and went toward her lord, full
of great ire and evil will of that which was befallen.  For
she doubted much that he would have her in despite for that he
had seen her thus, and that he would reprove her one while and
lay before her what had her betid.  She said: “Sir, I
will deliver thee anon.”

Therewith she hove up the sword and came to her lord, and
thought to smite him amidst of the body; and when he saw the
stroke coming he doubted it much, for he was all naked to his
shirt and breeches, and no more.  Therefore so hardly he
quaked, that the hands and the fingers of him; were sundered; and
in such wise she smote him that she but hurt him a little, and
sheared the thongs wherewith he was bound; and when he felt the
bonds slacken, he drew to him and brake the thongs, and leapt to
his feet, and said: “Dame, so please God, no more to-day
shalt thou slay me.”  But she said: “Of a
surety, sir, I am heavy thereof.”

He took the sword of her, and put it back into the scabbard,
and thereafter laid his hand on her shoulder, and brought her
back on the road whereby they had come.  And when he came to
the entry of the wood, there found he a great part of his
company, which was come to meet him and when they saw them thus
naked, they asked of him: “Sir, who hath thus arrayed
you?”  But he told them that they had fallen in with
strong-thieves, who had thus ensnared them.  Much great dole
they made thereof; but speedily were they clad and arrayed, for
they had well enough thereto so they gat to horse and went their
ways.

That day they rode, and for nought that had befallen Messire
Thibault made no worser semblance unto the Lady.  That night
they came unto a good town, and there they harboured. 
Messire Thibault asked of his host if there were any house of
religion anigh thereto, where one might leave a lady, and the
host said: “Sir, it befalleth well to thee; hard by without
is a house much religious and of much good dames.”

Wore the night, and Messire Thibault went on the morrow into
that house and heard mass, and thereafter spake to the abbess,
and the convent, and prayed them that they would guard that Lady
there till his coming back; and they granted it to him much
willingly.  Messire Thibault left of his meney there to
serve the Lady, and went his ways, and did his pilgrimage the
best he might.  And when he had done his pilgrimage fair and
well, he returned, and came to the Lady.  He did good to the
house, and gave thereto of his havings, and took the Lady unto
him again, and led her into his country with as much great honour
as he had led her away, save the lying a-bed with her.

When he was gotten aback into his land, much great joy did
they make of him, and of the Lady.  At his homecoming was
the Count of Ponthieu, the father of the Lady, and there also was
the Count of St. Pol, who was uncle unto my lord Thibault. 
A many was there of good folk and valiant at their coming. 
The Lady was much honoured of dames and of damsels.

That day the Count of Ponthieu sat, he and Messire Thibault,
they two together, at one dish, and so it fell out that the Count
said to him: “Thibault, fair son, he who long way wendeth
heareth much, and seeth of adventures, whereof nought they know
who stir not; tell me tale, then, if it please thee, of some
matter which thou hast seen, or heard tell of, since ye departed
hence.”

Messire Thibault answered him that he knew of no adventure to
tell of; but the Count prayed him again, and tormented him
thereto, and held him sore to tell of some adventure, insomuch
that Messire Thibault answered him: “Sir, since tell I
needs must, I will tell thee; but so please thee, let it not be
within earshot of so much folk.”  The Count answered
and said that it so pleased him well.  So after dinner,
whenas they had eaten, the Count arose and took Messire Thibault
by the hand, and said to him: “Now would I that thou say
thy pleasure, for here is not a many of folk.”

And Messire Thibault fell to telling how that it had betid to
a knight and a lady, even as ye have heard in the tale told; but
he told not the persons unto whom it had befallen: and the Count,
who was much sage and right thoughtful, asked what the knight had
done with the Lady; and he answered that the knight had brought
and led the Lady back to her own country, with as much great joy
and as much great honour as he had led her thence, save lying in
the bed whereas lay the Lady.

“Thibault,” said the Count, “otherwise
deemed the knight than I had deemed; for by the faith which I owe
unto God, and unto thee, whom much I love, I would have hung the
Lady by the tresses to a tree or to a bush, or by the very
girdle, if none other cord I might find.” 
“Sir,” said Messire Thibault, “nought so
certain is the thing as it will be if the Lady shall bear witness
thereto with her very body.”  “Thibault,”
said the Count, “knowest thou who was the
knight?”  “Sir,” said Messire Thibault,
“yet again I pray thee that thou acquit me of naming the
knight to whom this adventure betid: know of a verity that in
naming him lieth no great gain.” 
“Thibault,” said the Count, “know that it is
not my pleasure that thou hide it.” 
“Sir,” said Thibault, “then will I tell the
same, since I may not be acquitted thereof, as willingly I would
be if it were your pleasure; for in telling thereof lieth not
great avail, nor great honour.” 
“Thibault,” said the Count, “since the word has
gone so far, know that I would wot straightway who was the knight
unto whom this adventure betid; and I conjure thee, by the faith
which thou owest to God and to me, that thou tell me who was the
knight, since thou knowest thereof.”

“Sir,” said Messire Thibault, “by that
wherewith thou hast conjured me withal, I will tell thee. 
And I would well that thou shalt know of a verity that I am the
knight unto whom this adventure betid.  And wot thou that I
was sore grieving and abashed in my heart; and wot thou well that
never erst have I spoken thereof to any man alive; and, moreover,
with a good will had I put aside the telling of it, if it had but
pleased thee.”

But when the Count had heard tell this adventure, much
grieving was he, and abashed, and held his peace a great while,
and spake no word; and when he spoke, he said: “Thibault,
then to my daughter it was that this adventure
betid?”  “Sir,” said he, “of a
verity.”  “Thibault,” said the Count,
“well shalt thou be avenged, since thou hast brought her
back to me.”

And because of the great ire which the Count had, he called
for his daughter, and asked of her if that were true which
Messire Thibault had said; and she asked, “What?” and
he answered: “This, that thou wouldest have slain him, even
as he hath told it?”  “Sir,” she said,
“yea.”  “And wherefore,” said the
Count, “wouldst thou have done it?” 
“Sir,” said she, “hereto, for that yet it
grieveth me that I did it not, and that I slew him
not.”

So the Count let all that be, and abode till the Court was
departed.  Thereafter was he at Rue-on-Sea, and Messire
Thibault with him, and the son of the Count; and the Count let
lead with him the Lady.  Then the Count let array a strong
craft and a trim, and did do the Lady enter therein; and withal
let lay therein a tun, all new, strong, and great, and
thick.  Then they entered into the said ship, all three,
without fellowship of other folk, save the mariners who rowed the
ship.  Then did the Count cause them to row a full two
leagues out to sea; and much marvelled each one of what he
thought to do, but none durst ask him.

But when they were so far forth in the sea as ye have heard,
the Count let smite out one head of the tun, and took the Lady,
who was his daughter, and who was much fair and well attired, and
made her to enter in the tun, would she, would she not; and then
let head up the tun again straightway, and dight it well, and let
redo the staves, and stop it well, that the water might not enter
in no manner.  Then the Count let put it overboard the ship,
and he laid hand thereto with his very own body, and thrust the
tun into the sea, and said: “I commend thee unto the winds
and the waves.”

Much grieving was Messire Thibault thereat, and the brother of
the Lady withal; yea, and all they that saw the same; and they
fell all at the feet of the Count, and prayed him mercy, that
from out of that tun they might take her and deliver her. 
But the Count, who was much wroth and full of ire, would not
grant it them for any thing that they might do or pray.  So
they let it be, and prayed to Jesus Christ, the Sovereign Father,
that he, of his exceeding great goodness, would have pity of her
soul, and do her pardon of her sins.

Thus have they left the Lady in great mischief and great
peril, even as ye have heard the tale tell afore, and thus they
returned thence.  But our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the
Sovereign Father of us all, and who willeth not the death of
sinners, be they he or she, but that they may turn them from
their sins and live (every day he showeth it unto us openly by
works, by examples, and by miracles), sent succour unto the Lady,
even as ye may hear further on.

For the history testifieth us, and telleth of a verity, that a
merchant ship which came from the parts of Flanders, before the
Count and his fellows were well come aland, saw the tun floating
even as the winds and waves led it.  So said one of the
merchants to his fellows: “Masters, lo there a tun, and it
shall come our way, meseemeth; and if we draw it aboard, well
shall we have some avail of it in any case.”

Now know ye that this ship was wont to go to the Land of the
Saracens for cheaping.  So the mariners drew thither where
was the tun, and did so much, what by wile, what by force, that
they gat the tun on to their ship.  And when the tun was
laid on their ship, they looked much thereon, and much marvelled
what it might be; and so much, that they beheld how one of the
heads of the said tun was newly arrayed.  Wherefore they
unheaded it, and found the Lady therein, in such case as though
her hour were waning, for air failed her.  Her body was big,
her visage all swollen, and her eyes ugly and troubled.  But
when she saw the air, and felt the wind, she sighed a little, and
the merchants stood about her and called unto her, but she had no
might to speak.  But at last the heart came aback to her,
and speech withal, and she spoke to the merchants and other folk
whom she saw around her; and much she marvelled when she found
herself in such wise amidst of the merchants; but when she saw of
them that they were Christians and merchants, the more at ease
she was, and much she praised Jesus Christ therefor in her heart,
and thanked him of his goodness, whereas he had so done by her
that she yet had a space of life.  For she had much great
devotion in her heart, and much great desire to amend her life
toward God, and toward others, of the misdeeds she had done,
whereof she doubted mightily.

The merchants asked her of whence she was, and she hid the
matter from them, and said that a wretched thing she was, and a
poor sinner, even as they might behold; and that by much cruel
adventure was she thither come; and for God’s sake let them
have mercy upon her: and they answered that even so would
they.  And she ate and drank, and became much fair.

Now so far went the ship of the merchants, that they came to
the Land of the Saracens, and took haven by Aumarie. 
Galleys of the Saracens came to meet them, and they answered that
they were merchants who led divers merchandise by many lands; and
that they had the safe-conduct of princes and high barons, and
that they might go into all lands surely, to seek chaffer and
lead their goods.

So they brought the Lady aland, and were with her.  And
one asked the other what they should do with her; and one said
that they should sell her; and another said: “If I may be
trowed, we shall give her as a gift to the rich Soudan of
Aumarie, and then will our matter be mightily amended.”

Thereto they accorded all, and they took the Lady and brought
her to the Soudan, who was a young man: but first they did do
attire and array the Lady much richly, and so gave her to the
Soudan, who received the Lady much joyously and with much
good-will, for right fair was she.  The Soudan asked of them
what she was, and they said: “Sir, we wot not; but by
marvellous adventure did we find her.”

Much good-will had the Soudan to them of this gift, and much
good he did to them therefor.  Much he loved the Lady
withal, and he let serve her honourably.  Well was she
heeded, and the colour came again unto her, and she became
marvellous fair.

The Soudan fell to coveting the Lady and to loving of her; and
he let ask her by Latiners of what folk she was, but no sooth
thereof would she tell him or let him know.  Thereof was he
heavy, whereas he saw of her that she was a high woman, and of
gentle lineage.  He let ask of her if she were Christian,
and that if she would leave her law he would take her to wife,
for no wife had he as yet.  She saw well that better it were
to come thereto by love than by force, so she answered that so
would she do of a good will; and when she had renied her, and had
left her law, the Soudan took her to wife according to the manner
and wont of the Land of the Saracens.  He held her right
dear, and honoured her much, and waxed of great love towards
her.

But a little while was she with the Soudan ere she was big of
a son, and lay in at her time; the Soudan was right glad, and
made much great joy.  And the dame was ever of good
fellowship with the folk, and much courteous and of good will
toward them, and learnt so much that she knew the Saracen
tongue.

But a little while wore in the years whereas she had the son,
ere she conceived and had a daughter, who anon became much fair
and much wise, and in all lordliness she let nourish her. 
Thus was the Lady abiding a two years in much joy and mirth.

But now the story leaves telling of the Lady and the Soudan
till after, as ye shall come to hear, and returneth to the Count
of Ponthieu, and to the son of the Count, and to Messire Thibault
of Dontmart, who were sore grieving for the Lady who had been
thuswise cast into the sea, even as ye have heard, and knew no
tidings of her, what was become of her, and trowed more that she
were dead than alive.

Now saith the history, and the sooth beareth witness thereto,
that the Count was in Ponthieu, and his son, and Messire
Thibault.  The Count was in sore great sadness, and heavy
thought of his daughter, and much he doubted him of the sin which
he had done.  Messire Thibault durst not to wed him; nor did
the son of the Count either, because of the dolour wherein he saw
his friends abiding.  Neither would the son of the Count
become knight, though he were well of an age thereto, had he the
will.

On a day the Count forthought him much of the sin which he had
done to his daughter, and he betook him to the Archbishop of
Rheims and confessed to him, and said to him all the deed, as he
had done it.  He took the cross of Over Sea, and crossed
him.  And whenas Messire Thibault saw his lord the Count
crossed, he confessed him and crossed him withal.  Likewise,
when the son of the Count saw his father crossed, and Messire
Thibault also, whom he loved much, he also crossed himself. 
And when the Count saw his son crossed, he was much grieved, and
said: “Fair son, wherefore art thou crossed?  Now
shall the land abide void of lord.”  But the son
answered and said: “Father, I am crossed for God’s
sake first before all things, and for the saving of my soul, and
to serve God and honour him to my power, so long as I shall have
the life in my body.”

So the Count arrayed him speedily and bestirred him, and went
and took leave; but withal he looked to it who should ward his
land.  And Messire Thibault and the son of the Count dight
their matters, and they took to the way with much great
safe-conduct.  They came in the Land of Over Sea safe of
body and havings, and there they did their pilgrimage much holily
in all the places whereas they wotted that it ought to be done,
and God to be served.

And when the Count had so done, he bethought him that he would
well to do yet more: so he gave himself to the service of the
Temple for one year, him and his company; and then when it came
to the end of the year, deemed that he would go visit his land
and his country.  Wherefore he sent unto Acre and let array
his journey, and he took leave of them of the Temple, and of the
land, and much they thanked him for the honour which he had
brought them.  He came to Acre with his fellows, and they
went aboard ship, and departed from the haven with right good
wind at will; but it endured but for a little; for when they were
on the high sea, then did a wind mighty and horrible fall upon
them unawares; and the mariners knew not whitherward they went,
and every hour they looked to be drowned; and so great was their
distress that they bound themselves together, the son to the
father, the nephew to the uncle, yea, one to the other, even as
they were intermingled.  The Count and his son and Messire
Thibault bound themselves together so that they might not
sunder.

But a little way had they gone in this wise ere they saw land;
and they asked the mariners what land it was, and they answered
that it was the Land of the Saracens; and they called it the Land
of Aumarie, and said unto the Count: “Sir, what is thy
pleasure that we do? for if we go yonder, we shall be all taken
and fall into the hands of the Saracens.”  The Count
said to them: “Let go according to the will of Jesus
Christ, who shall take heed to our bodies and our lives; for of
an eviller or uglier death we may not die than to die in this
sea.”

So they let run along Aumarie, and galleys and craft of the
Saracens came against them.  Wot ye well that this was an
evil meeting; for they took them and brought them before the
Soudan, who was lord of that land and country.  So they made
him a present of the Christians and of all their havings: the
Soudan departed them, and sent them to divers places of his
prisons.  The Count of Ponthieu and his son and Messire
Thibault were so strongly bound together that they might not be
sundered.  The Soudan commanded that they should be laid in
a prison by themselves, where they should have but little to eat
and little to drink; and it was done even as he commanded. 
There were they a while of time in great misease, and so long
that the son of the Count was much sick, insomuch that the Count
and Messire Thibault had fear of his dying.

Thereafter it fell out that the Soudan held court much
mightily, and made great joy for his birthday; and this was after
the custom of the Saracens.

After dinner came the Saracens unto the Soudan, and said to
him: “Sir, we require of thee our right.”  He
asked them what it was, and they said: “Sir, a captive
Christian to set up at the butts.”  So he granted it
to them whereas it was a matter of nought, and he said to them:
“Go ye to the gaol, and take him who has the least of life
in him.”

To the gaol they went, and drew out the Count, all bedone with
a thick beard; and when the Soudan saw him in so poor estate, he
said to them: “This one hath little might to live; go ye,
lead him hence, and do ye your will on him.”

The wife of the Soudan, of whom ye have heard, who was
daughter of the Count, was in the place whereas the Count who was
her father was being led to the death, and so soon as she saw
him, the blood and the heart was stirred within her, not so much
for that she knew him, but rather that nature constrained
her.  Then said the Lady to the Soudan: “Sir, I am
French, wherefore I would willingly speak to yonder poor man
before he dieth, if it please thee.”  “Yea,
dame,” said the Soudan, “it pleaseth me
well.”

So the Lady came to the Count, and drew him apart, and caused
the Saracens to draw aback, and asked him of whence he was, and
he said: “Lady, I am of the kingdom of France, of a land
which is called Ponthieu.”

When the Lady heard that, all the blood of her stirred within
her, and straightway she asked of what kindred he was. 
“Certes, dame,” said he, “it may not import to
me of what kin I be, for I have suffered so many pains and griefs
since I departed, that I love better to die than to live; but so
much can I tell thee of a sooth, that I was the Count of
Ponthieu.”

When the Lady heard that, she made no semblance, but forthwith
departed from the Count and came to the Soudan, and said:
“Sir, give me this captive, if it please thee, for he
knoweth the chess and the tables, and fair tales withal, which
shall please thee much; and he shall play before thee and learn
thee.”  “Dame,” said the Soudan, “by
my law, wot that with a good will I will give him thee; do with
him as thou wilt.”

Then the Lady took him and sent him into her chamber, and the
jailers went to seek another, and led out Messire Thibault, who
was the husband of the Lady; and in sorry raiment was he, for he
was dight with long hair, and had a great beard; he was lean and
fleshless, as one who had suffered pain and dolour enough. 
When the Lady saw him, she said unto the Soudan: “Sir,
again with this one would I willingly speak, if it please
thee.”  “Dame,” said the Soudan, “it
pleaseth me well.”  So the Lady came to Messire
Thibault, and asked him of whence he was, and he said: “I
am of the land of the old warrior whom they led before thee
e’en now: and I had his daughter to wife; and I am a
knight.”

The Lady knew well her lord, so she went back unto the Soudan,
and said to him: “Sir, great goodness wilt thou do unto me
if thou wilt give me this one also.” 
“Dame,” said he, “with a good will I will give
him to thee.”  So she thanked him, and sent him into
her chamber with the other.

But the archers hastened and came to the Soudan, and said:
“Sir, thou doest us wrong, and the day is
a-waning.”  And therewith they went to the gaol and
brought out the son of the Count, who was all covered with his
hair and dishevelled, as one who had not been washen a
while.  Young man he was, so that he had not yet a beard;
but so lean he was, and so sick and feeble, that scarce might he
hold him up.  And when the Lady saw him, she had of him much
great pity.  She came to him and asked of him whose son, and
whence he was, and he said he was the son of the first
worthy.  Then she wotted well that he was her brother, but
no semblance she made thereof.

“Sir, certes,” said she to the Soudan, “thou
wilt now do me great goodness if thou wilt give me this one also;
for he knows the chess and the tables, and all other games, which
much shall please thee to see and to hear.”  But the
Soudan said: “Dame, by my law, were there an hundred of
them I would give them unto thee willingly.”

The Lady thanked him much, and took her brother, and sent him
straightway into her chamber.  But the folk betook them anew
to the gaol, and brought forth another; and the Lady departed
thence, whereas she knew him not.  So was he led to his
martyrdom, and our Lord Jesus Christ received his soul.  But
the Lady went her ways forthwith; for it pleased her not, the
martyrdoms which the Saracens did on the Christians.

She came to her chamber wherein were the prisoners, and when
they saw her coming, they made as they would rise up, but she
made sign to them to hold them still.  Then she went close
up to them, and made them sign of friendship.  And the
Count, who was right sage, asked thereon: “Dame, when shall
they slay us?”  And she answered that it would not be
yet.  “Dame,” said they, “thereof are we
heavy; for we have so great hunger, that it lacketh but a little
of our hearts departing from us.”

Thereat she went forth and let array meat; and then she
brought it, and gave to each one a little, and a little of
drink.  And when they had taken it, then had they yet
greater hunger than afore.  Thuswise she gave them to eat,
ten times the day, by little and little; for she doubted that if
they ate all freely, that they would take so much as would grieve
them.  Wherefore she did them to eat thus attemperly.

Thuswise did the good dame give them might again; and they
were before her all the first seven days, and the night-tide she
did them to lie at their ease; and she did them do off their evil
raiment and let give them good and new.  After the eighth
day, she had strengthened them little by little and more and
more; and then she let bring them victuals and drink to their
contentment, and in such wise that they were so strong that she
abandoned to them the victual and the drink withal.  They
had chequers and tables, and played thereon, and were in all
content.  The Soudan was ofttimes with them, and good will
he had to see them play, and much it pleased him.  But the
dame refrained her sagely toward them, so that never was one of
them that knew her, neither by word nor deed of hers.

But a little while wore after this matter, as telleth the
tale, ere the Soudan had to do, for a rich soudan, who marched on
him, laid waste his land, and fell to harrying him.  And he,
to avenge his trouble, summoned folk from every part, and
assembled a great host.  When the Lady knew thereof she came
into the chamber whereas were the prisoners, and she sat down
before them, and spoke to them, and said: “Lords, ye have
told me of your matters a deal; now would I wot whether that
which ye have told me be true or not: for ye told me that thou
wert Count of Ponthieu on the day that thou departedst therefrom,
and that that man had had thy daughter to wife, and that the
other one was thy son.  Now, I am Saracen, and know the art
of astronomy: wherefore I tell you well, that never were ye so
nigh to a shameful death as now ye be, if ye tell me not the
truth.  Thy daughter, whom this knight had, what became of
her?”

“Lady,” said the Count, “I trow that she be
dead.”  “What wise died she?” quoth
she.  “Certes, Lady,” said the Count, “by
an occasion which she had deserved.”  “And what
was the occasion?” said the Lady.

Then the Count fell to tell, sore weeping, how she was wedded,
and of the tarrying, whereby she might not have a child; and how
the good knight promised his ways to St. Jakeme in Galicia, and
how the Lady besought him that she might go along with him, and
he granted it willingly.  And how they bestirred them with
great joy, and went their ways, and so far that they came unto a
place where they were without company.  Then met they in a
forest robbers well armed, who fell upon them.  The good
knight might do nothing against all them, for he was lacking of
arms; but amidst all that he slew three, and five were left, who
fell upon him and slew his palfrey, and took the knight and
stripped him to the shirt, and bound him hand and foot, and cast
him into a briar-bush: and the Lady they stripped, and took from
her her palfrey.  They beheld the Lady, and saw that she was
full fair, and each one would have her.  At the last, they
accorded betwixt them hereto, that they should lie with her, and
they had their will of her in her despite; and when they had so
done they went their ways, and she abode, much grieving and much
sad.  The good knight beheld it, and said much sweetly:
“Dame, now unbind me my hands, and let us be
going.”  Now she saw a sword, which was of one of the
slain strong-thieves; she took it, and went towards her lord, who
lay as aforesaid; she came in great ire by seeming, and said:
“Yea, unbind thee I will.”  Then she held the
sword all bare, and hove it up, and thought to smite him amidst
the body, but by the good mercy of Jesus Christ, and by the
valiancy of the knight, he turned upso down, and she smote the
bonds he was bound withal, and sundered them, and he leapt up,
for as bound and hurt as he was, and said: “Dame, if God
will, thou shalt slay me not to-day.”

At this word spake the Lady, the wife of the Soudan:
“Ha, sir! thou sayest the sooth; and well I know wherefore
she would to do it.”  “Dame,” said the
Count, “and wherefore?”  “Certes,”
quoth she, “for the great shame which had befallen
her.”

When Messire Thibault heard that, he fell a-weeping much
tenderly, and said: “Ha, alas! what fault had she therein
then, Lady?  So may God give me deliverance from this prison
wherein I am, never should I have made worse semblance to her
therefor, whereas it was maugre her will.”

“Sir,” said the Lady, “that she deemed
nought.  Now tell me,” she said, “which deem ye
the rather, that she be quick or dead?” 
“Dame,” said he, “we wot not.” 
“Well wot I,” said the Count, “of the great
pain we have suffered, which God hath sent us for the sin which I
did against her.”  “But if it pleased
God,” said the Lady, “that she were alive, and that
ye might have of her true tidings, what would ye say
thereto?”  “Lady,” said the Count,
“then were I gladder than I should be to be delivered out
of this prison, or to have so much riches as never had I in my
life.”  “Dame,” said Messire Thibault,
“may God give me no joy of that which I most desire, but I
were not the gladder than to be king of France.” 
“Dame,” said the varlet who was her brother,
“certes none could give me or promise me thing whereof I
should be so glad as of the life of my sister, who was so fair a
dame, and so good.”

But when the Lady heard these words, then was the heart of her
softened and she praised God, and gave him thanks therefor, and
said to them: “Take heed, now, that there be no feigning in
your words.”  And they answered and said that none
there was.  Then fell the Lady a-weeping tenderly, and said
to them: “Sir, now mayest thou well say that thou art my
father, and I thy daughter, even her on whom thou didest such
cruel justice.  And thou, Messire Thibault, thou art my lord
and my baron.  And thou, sir varlet, art my
brother.”

Therewith she told them how the merchants had found her, and
how they gave her as a gift to the Soudan.  And when they
heard that, they were much glad, and made much great joy, and
humbled them before her; but she forbade them that they should
make any semblance, and said: “I am Saracen, and renied,
for otherwise I might never endure, but were presently
dead.  Wherefore I pray you and bid you, for as dear as ye
hold your lives and honours, and your havings the greater, that
ye never once, whatso ye may hear or see, make any more fair
semblance unto me, but hold you simply.  So leave me to deal
therewith.  Now shall I tell you wherefore I have uncovered
me to you.  The Soudan, who is now my lord, goeth presently
a-riding; and I know thee well” (said she to Messire
Thibault), “that thou art a valiant man and a good knight:
therefore I will pray the Soudan to take thee with him; and then
if ever thou wert valiant, now do thou show it, and serve the
Soudan so well that he may have no evil to tell of
thee.”

Therewith departed the Lady, and came unto the Soudan, and
said: “Sir, one of my prisoners will go with thee, if it
please thee.”  “Dame,” said he, “I
would not dare trust me to him, lest he do me some
treason.”  “Sir,” she said, “in
surety mayest thou lead him along; for I will hold the
others.”  “Dame,” said he, “I will
lead him with me, since thou counsellest me so, and I will give
him a horse much good, and arms, and all that is meet for
him.”

So then the Lady went back, and said to Messire Thibault:
“I have done so much with the Soudan, that thou shalt go
with him.  Now bethink thee to do well.”  But her
brother kneeled before her, and prayed her that she would do so
much with the Soudan that he also should go.  But said she:
“I will not do it, the matter be over open
thereby.”

The Soudan arrayed his matters and went his ways, and Messire
Thibault with him, and they went against the enemy.  The
Soudan delivered to Messire Thibault arms and horse.  By the
will of Jesus Christ, who never forgetteth them who have in him
trust and good faith, Messire Thibault did so much in arms, that
in a little while the enemy of the Soudan was brought under,
whereof much was the Soudan rejoiced; he had the victory, and led
away much folk with him.  And so soon as he was come back,
he went to the Lady, and said: “Dame, by my law, I much
praise thy prisoner, for much well hath he served me; and if he
will cast aside his law and take ours, I will give him wide
lands, and richly will I marry him.” 
“Sir,” she said, “I wot not, but I trow not
that he will do it.”  Therewith they were silent, so
that they spake not more.  But the Lady dighted in her
business straightway after these things the best she might, and
she came to her prisoners, and said:

“Lords, now do ye hold ye wisely, that the Soudan
perceive not our counsel; for, if God please, we shall yet be in
France and the land of Ponthieu.”

Now came a day when the Lady moaned much, and complained her,
and came before the Soudan, and said: “Sir, I go with
child, well I wot it, and am fallen into great infirmity, nor
ever since thy departure have I eaten aught wherein was any
savour to me.”  “Dame,” said he, “I
am heavy of thy sickness, but much joyous that thou art with
child.  But now command and devise all things that thou
deemest might be good for thee, and I will let seek and array
them, whatsoever they may cost me.”

When the Lady heard that, she had much great joy in her heart;
but never did she show any semblance thereof, save that so much
she said: “Sir, my old prisoner hath said to me, that but I
be presently upon earth of a right nature, I am but dead and that
I may not live long.”  “Dame,” said the
Soudan, “nought will I thy death: look to it, then, on what
land thou wouldest be, and I will let lead thee
thereto.”  “Sir,” she said, “it is
of no matter to me, so that I be out of this city.”

Then the Soudan let array a ship fair and stout, and let
garnish her well with wine and victual.  “Sir,”
said the Lady to the Soudan, “I will have with me my old
prisoner and my young one, and they shall play at the chess and
the tables; and my son will I take to pleasure me.” 
“Dame,” said he, “it pleaseth me well that thou
do thy will herein.  But what hap with the third
prisoner?”  “Sir,” said she, “thou
shalt do thy will herein.”  “Dame,” said
he, “I will that thou take him with thee; for he is a
valiant man, and will heed thee well on land and sea, if need
thou have thereto.”

Therewith she prayed leave of the Soudan, and he granted it,
and much he prayed her to come back speedily.  The ship was
apparelled, and they were alboun; and they went aboard, and
departed from the haven.

Good wind they had, and ran much hard: and the mariners called
to the Lady, and said to her: “Dame, this wind is bringing
straight to Brandis; now command us thy pleasure to go thither or
elsewhere.”  And she said to them: “Let run
hardily, for I know well how to speak French and other tongues,
and I will lead you through all.”

Now so much they ran by day and by night, through the will of
Jesus Christ, that they are come to Brandis there they took
harbour in all safety, and lighted down on the shore, and were
received with much great joy.  The Lady, who was much wise,
drew towards the prisoners, and said to them: “Lords, I
would that ye call to mind the words and agreements which ye said
to me, and I would be now all sure of you, and have good surety
of your oaths, and that ye say to me on all that ye hold to be of
God if ye will to hold to your behests, which ye have behight me,
or not; for yet have I good might to return.”

They answered: “Lady, know without doubt that we have
covenanted nought with you which shall not be held toward you by
us loyally; and know by our Christendom and our Baptism, and by
whatsoever we hold of God, that we will hold to it; be thou in no
doubt thereof.”

“And I will trow in you henceforth,” said the
Lady.  “Now, lords,” said she, “lo here my
son, whom I had of the Soudan; what shall we do with
him?”  “Dame, let him come to great honour and
great gladness.”  “Lords,” said the Lady,
“much have I misdone against the Soudan, for I have taken
from him my body, and his son whom he loved much.”

Then she went back to the mariners, and called and said to
them: “Masters, get ye back and tell to the Soudan that I
have taken from him my body, and his son whom he loved much, and
that I have cast forth from prison my father, my husband, and my
brother.”  And when the mariners heard that, they were
much grieving; but more they might not do; and they returned, sad
and sorrowful for the Lady, and for the youngling, whom they
loved much, and for the prisoners, who were thus lost without
recoverance.

But the Count apparelled himself, whereto he had well enough,
by means of merchants and by Templars, who lent him of their good
full willingly.  And when the Count and his company had
sojourned in the town so long as their pleasure was, they arrayed
them and went their ways thence, and came to Rome.  The
Count went before the Apostle, and his fellowship with him. 
Each one confessed him the best that he could; and when the
Apostle heard it, he was much glad, and much great cheer he made
of them.  He baptized the child, and he was called
William.  He reconciled the Lady, and set her again in right
Christendom, and confirmed the Lady and Messire Thibault, her
baron, in right marriage, and joined them together again, and
gave penitence to each of them, and absolved them of their
sins.

After that, they abode no long while ere they departed from
Rome and took their leave of the Apostle, who much had honoured
them; and he gave them his blessing, and commended them to
God.  So went they in great joy and in great pleasance, and
praised God and his mother and the hallows, both carl and quean,
and gave thanks for the goods which they had done them.

And so far they journeyed, that they came into the land where
they were born, and were received in great procession by the
bishops and the abbots, and the people of religion and the other
clerks, who much had desired them.

But above all other joys made they joy the Lady who was thus
recovered, and who had thus delivered her father, her husband,
and her brother from the hands of the Saracens, even as ye have
heard.  But now leave we of them in this place, and tell we
of the mariners who had brought them, and of the Saracens who had
come with them.

The mariners and the Saracens who had brought them to Brandis
returned at their speediest; they had good wind, and ran till
they came off Aumarie.

They lighted down on shore sad and sorrowful, and went to tell
the tidings to the Soudan, who was much sorrowful thereof, and in
great dole abode; and for this adventure the less he loved his
daughter, who had abided there, and honoured her the less. 
Notwithstanding, the damsel became much sage, and waxed in great
wit, so that all honoured her and loved her, and prized her for
the good deeds which they told of her.

But now the history holds its peace of the Soudan, who made
great dole for his wife and his prisoners who thus had escaped,
and it returneth to the Count of Ponthieu, who was received into
his land with great procession, and much honoured as the lord
that he was.

No long while wore ere his son was made knight, and great
cheer folk made of him.  He was a knight much worthy and
valiant, and much he loved the worthies, and fair gifts he gave
to poor knights and poor gentle dames of the country, and much
was prized and loved of poor and of rich.  For a worthy he
was, and a good knight, and courteous, and openhanded, and kind,
and nowise proud.  Yet but a little while he lived, which
was great damage, and much was he bemoaned of all.

After this adventure it befell that the Count held a great
court and a great feast, and had a many of knights and other folk
with him; and therewithal came a very noble man and knight, who
was a much high man in Normandy, who was called my lord Raoul de
Preaux.  This Raoul had a daughter much fair and much
wise.  The Count spake so much to my lord Raoul and to his
friends, that he made the wedding betwixt William his nephew, son
to the Soudan of Aumarie, and the daughter of my lord Raoul, for
no heir had he save that daughter.  William wedded the
damsel, and the wedding was done much richly, and thereafter was
the said William lord of Preaux.

Long time thence was the land in peace and without war: and
Messire Thibault was with the Lady, and had of her sithence two
man-children, who thereafter were worthies and of great
lordship.  The son of the Count of Ponthieu, of whom we have
told so much good, died but a little thereafter, whereof was made
great dole throughout all the land.  The Count of St. Pol
lived yet, and now were the two sons of my lord Thibault heirs of
those two countries, and thereto they attained at the last. 
The good dame their mother lived in great penitence, and much she
did of good deeds and alms; and Messire Thibault lived as the
worthy which he was, and much did he of good whiles he was in
life.

Now it befell that the daughter of the Lady, who had abided
with the Soudan her father, waxed in great beauty and became much
wise, and was called the Fair Caitif, because her mother had left
her thus as ye have heard: but a Turk, much valiant, who served
the Soudan (Malakin of Baudas was he called), this Malakin saw
the damsel to be courteous and sage, and much good had heard tell
of her; wherefore he coveted her in his heart, and came to the
Soudan and said to him: “Sir, for the service which I have
done thee, give me a gift.”  “Malakin,”
said the Soudan, “what gift?” 
“Sir,” said he, “might I dare to say it,
because of her highness, whereof I have nought so much as she,
say it I would.”

The Soudan, who wise was and clear-seeing, said to him:
“Speak in all surety that which thou willest to speak; for
much I love thee and prize thee; and if the thing be a thing
which I may give thee, saving my honour, know verily that thou
shalt have it.”  “Sir,” said he,
“well I will that thine honour shall be safe, and against
it nought would I ask of thee: but if it please thee, give me thy
daughter, for I pray her of thee, and right willingly would I
take her.”

The Soudan held his peace and thought awhile; and he saw well
that Malakin was a worthy, and wise, and might well come to great
honour and great good, and that well he might be worthied; so he
said: “Malakin, by my law, thou hast craved me a great
thing, for I love much my daughter, and no heir else have I, as
thou wottest well, and as sooth is.  She is born and come
from the most highest kindred and the most valiant of France; for
her mother is daughter of the Count of Ponthieu; but whereas thou
art valiant, and much well hast served me, I will give her to
thee with a good will, if she will grant it.” 
“Sir,” said Malakin, “against her will would I
do nothing.”

Then the Soudan let call the damsel, and she came, and he said
to her: “My fair daughter, I have married thee, if so it
please thee.”  “Sir,” she said,
“well is my pleasure therein, if thou will it.” 
Then the Soudan took her by the hand, and said: “Hold,
Malakin!  I give her to thee.”  He received her
gladly, and in great joy and in great honour of all his friends;
and he wedded her according to the Saracen law; and he led her
into his land in great joy and in great honour.  The Soudan
brought him on his road a great way, with much company of folk,
so far as him pleased; then returned, and took leave of his
daughter and her lord.  But a great part of his folk he sent
with her to serve them.

Malakin came into his country, and much was he served and
honoured, and was received with great joy by all his friends; and
they twain lived together long and joyously, and had children
together, as the history beareth witness.

Of this dame, who was called the Fair Caitif, was born the
mother of the courteous Turk Salahadin, who was so worthy and
wise and conquering.

Here ends the Story of Over Sea, done out of ancient French
into English by William Morris.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.

London & Edinburgh

Footnotes

[1]  Nouvelles françaises en
prose du xiii ^ième siecle,
par MM. L. Moland et C. D’Hericault.  (Paris: Janet,
1856.)

[2]  I have given a version of it in my
English Fairy Tales, and there is a ballad on the subject
entitled The Cruel Knight.

[3]  See Clouston, Book of
Sindibad, p. 279.

[4]  Figured in M. Ulysse Robert,
Signes d’infamie au moyen âge, Paris,
1891.  Lovers of Stevenson will remember the effective use
made of this in The Black Arrow.

[5]  It has been suggested that the
names of our heroes have given rise to the proverbial saying:
“A miss (Amis) is as good as a mile (Amile),” but
notwithstanding the high authority from which the suggestion
emanates, it is little more than a pun.

[6]  For occurrences of this incident
in sagas, etc., see Grimm, Deutsche
Rechtsalterthümer, 168–70; in folk-tales, Dasent,
Tales from the Norse, cxxxiv.–v., n.
xviii

[7]  Mr. Hartland has studied the
“Lifetoken” in the eighth chapter of his elaborate
treatise on the Legend of Perseus.