Ful strong it was of plate;
And over that his cote-armour,
As whyt as is a lily flour,

In which he wold debate.
His scheld was al of gold so red,
And therinne was a bores heed,
A charbocle' by his syde;

And ther he swor on ale and bred'
How that the geaunt schal be deed,
Bytyde what betyde.

steel swords, but were distinguished like some other Oriental artificers for the beauty of their metal work. What is commonly called Damascene, steel elaborately inlaid with a thin thread of gold, is apparently what is here meant.] The aketoun was a coat of leather, sometimes padded, and worn under the armour. In this is clothed the knight, in the general Prologue. Over this Sir Thopas wears an habergeon, a piece of armour for the greater security of the breast; and over that the hauberk, or coat of mail, composed of scales or plates, which was the peculiar armour of a knight, hence called loricatus; and, finally, over all, his coat-armure or tabard, on which his arms were blazoned. It is no wonder that knights serving in a warm country like Palestine were often suffocated in their

armour.

1 A carbuncle (escarboncle, F.) was a common bearing.-Guillim's Heraldry, p. 109.-T.

2 It seems almost impossible to account for this strange custom of making vows on dishes served at table, unless it be a remnant of the idolatrous heathen ceremony of invoking the gods at feasts and pouring out a libation to them. Tyrwhitt gives the following curious instance from Matthew of Westminster:- When Edward I. was setting out upon his last expedition to Scotland in 1306, he knighted his eldest son and several other young noblemen with great solemnity. At the close of the whole (says Matthew of Westminster, p. 456),allati sunt in pompaticâ gloriâ duo cygni vel olores ante regem, phalerate retibus aureis vel fistulis deauratis, desiderabile spectaculum intuentibus. Quibus visis, Rex votum vovit Deo cœli et cygnis se proficisci in Scotiam, mortem Johannis Comyn et fidem læsam Scotorum vivus sive mortuus vindicaturus,' &c. The practice is alluded to in Dunbar's wish, that the King were John Thomsonnis man.' Maitland MS., st. 5:

'I wold gif all that ever I have

To that condition, so God me saif,

That ye had vowit to the swan

Ane yeir to be John Thomsonnis man.'

This fashion is ridiculed in the Turnament of Tottenham.-See Percy's Reliques:

'I make a vow, quoth Dudman, and sweare by the stra (straw).'

His jambeux were of quirboily,
His swerdes schethe of yvory,
His helm of latoun bright.
His sadel was of rowel boon,
His bridel as the sonne schon,
Or as the moone light;
His spere was of fine cipres,

That bodeth werre, and no thing pees,
The heed ful scharp i-grounde.

His steede was al dappul gray,
It goth an ambel in the way
Ful softely and rounde

In londe.

NOW hold your mouth for charite,

Bothe knight and lady fre,
And herkneth to my spelle;

Of batail and of chivalry,

Of ladys love and drewery,
Anoon I wol yow telle.
Men speken of romauns of pris,
Of Horn child and of Ypotis,

It was common to swear by the peacock or pheasant, and vows were, of course, constantly made to the ladies.

verses. verse.

1 According to Percy this word is used by Anglo-Saxon writers to signify a poetic strain, verse, or poem.' Thus, King Alfred, in his Boethius, having given a version of Lib. iii., metr. 5, adds, Thare wisdom tha thas fitte asungen hæfde,' when wisdom had sung these fitte, or And in the proem to the same book, Fon on fitte,' put into Now it seems evident from this that fitte is nothing more than feet, or metre, and that it was afterwards applied to the divisions of a poem. All poetry in early times being sung to music, fitte then came to be applied to a strain of music; thence, by a very obvious transition, to the division of a dance, or the chapter of a book even in prose; but, as Percy remarks, in a ludicrous or sarcastic sense.

Of Bevys and sir Gy,

Of sir Libeaux, and Pleyndamour;1
But sir Thopas bereth the flour
Of real chivalry.

1 All the romances here mentioned, except Pleyndamour, are still extant. That of Horn Child is considered by Warton to be the earliest in our language. It begins thus:

Alle heo ben blythe,

That to my songe ylythe.
A song ychulle ou singe
Of Allof the gode Kinge.
King he wes by weste,
The whiles hit yleste;
Ant Godylt his gode quene,
No feyrore myhte bene,

Ant huere sone hihte Horn,

Feyrore childe ne myhte be born.'

The romance of Sir Bevis of Hampton is given in Ellis's Specimens. It is found in Provençal among the MSS. of the Queen of Sweden in the Vatican, and is said by Carew (Survey of Cornwall) to have been written by Walter of Exeter, a Franciscan friar of Carocus, in Cornwall, in 1292. Guy of Warwick is also to be found in Ellis's Specimens. There is a very old version in French in the Harleian collection, No. 3775. In the romance, the hero's combat with the dragon in Northumberland is said to be represented in tapestry in Warwick Castle :'In Warwike the truth shall ye see,

In arras wrought full craftely.'

This piece of arras is specially mentioned in a grant from Richard II., dated 1398, conveying that suit of arras hangings in Warwick Castle, which contains the story of the famous Guy, Earl of Warwick,' together with the castle itself, to Holland, Earl of Kent. The fame of the celebrated hero of English romance reached even Palestine; for Dugdale relates that in the reign of Henry IV., about 1410, a Lord Beauchamp, travelling in the East, was hospitably received at Jerusalem by the Soldain Lieutenant, who, hearing that he was descended from the famous Guy of Warwick, whose story they had in books of their own language, invited him to his palace,' &c.-See Warton, Hist. Engl. Poetry, sect. iii. Libeaux disconus is in the Cotton. MSS., Calig. ii. In the twelfth stanza, as Tyrwhitt observes, we find his true name with its meaning:

Now clepeth him alle thus

Ly beau desconus

For the love of me.

Than may ye wete arowe

The fayre unknowe,

Certes so hatte he.'

Ypotis is rather a religious poem, than a romance.-See Warton, Hist Engl. Poetry, s. v.

His goode steede he bistrood,
And forth upon his way
he glood,

As spark out of the bronde;1
Upon his crest he bar a tour,
And therin stiked a lily flour:—

God schilde his corps fro schonde!
And for he was a knyght auntrous,
He nolde slepen in noon hous,
But liggen in his hood.

His brighte helm was his wonger,
And by him baytith his destrer
Of herbes fyne and goode.

Him self drank water of the welle,
As dede the knight sir Percivelle2
So worthy under wede,
Til on a day-

'No

PROLOGE TO MELIBEUS.

O mor of this, for Goddes dignite !'
Quod our Hoste, 'for thou makest me

3

So wery of thy verray lewednesse,
That, al so wisly God my soule blesse,
Myn eeres aken for thy drasty speche.
Now such a rym the devel I byteche!
This may wel be rym dogerel,' quoth he.
'Why so?' quod I, 'why wilt thou lette me

1 The same simile is in Isambras, fol. 130, 6:—

'He spronge forth as sparke of glede.'-T.

2 The romance of Perceval le Gallois is attributed to Chrestien de Troyes, and is supposed by Warton to have been written before 1191. It belongs to the story of the Quest of the Sangraal (the cup, or chalice, of the Gospel); which appears to be a religious allegory, representing the sinner's pursuit of justification through the blood of Christ (sang réel) by the adventures of the knights in their quest of the sangraal. If this interpretation be correct, the real gist of the story has hitherto escaped the antiquaries.

3 [Drasty means full of dregs, from the old word drastis or drestis, the dregs or lees of wine. In the former edition the reading drafty, given by Speght and Tyrwhitt, was wrongly adopted here and a few lines lower.W. W. S.]

6

More of my tale than another man,
Syn that it is the beste rym that I can?'
'By God!' quod he, for pleinly at o word,
Thy drasty rymyng is not worth a tord;
Thou dost nought elles but despendist tyme.
Sir, at o word, thou schalt no lenger ryme.
Let se wher thou canst tellen ought in gest,
Or telle in prose som what atte lest,

In which ther be som merthe or doctrine.'

6

Gladly,' quod I, 'by Goddes swete pyne,
I wol yow telle a litel thing in prose,
That oughte like yow, as I

suppose,
Or elles certes ye be to daungerous.
It is a moral tale vertuous,

Al be it told som tyme in sondry wise
Of sondry folk, as I schal yow devyse.
As thus, ye woot that every evaungelist,
That telleth us the peyne of Jhesu Crist,
Ne saith not alle thing as his felawes doth;
But natheles here sentence is al soth,
And alle accorden as in here sentence,
Al be ther in her tellyng difference.1
For some of hem sayn more, and some lesse,
Whan thay his pitous passioun expresse;-
I mene of Mark and Mathew, Luk and Johan
But douteles her sentence is al oon.
Therfor, lordynges alle, I yow biseche,
If yow think that I varye as in my speche,
As thus, though that I telle som what more
Of proverbes, than ye have herd bifore
Comprehended in this litel tretys here,
To enforcen with theffect of my matiere,
And though I not the same wordes say
As ye have herd, yit to yow alle I pray,

All agree in the sense, though the manner of telling be different Ye has been adopted from the Lansd. MS. rather than I, the reading of the Harl. MS.