The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

56 THE BRIDAL OF TRIERMAIN. [CANTO II.
XVIII.
"The champions, arm'd in martial sort,
Have throng'd into the list,
And but three knights of Arthur's court
Are from the tourney miss'd.
And still these lovers' fame survives
For faith so constant shown,There were two who loved their neighbour's
wives,
And one who loved his own.1
The first was Lancelotde Lac,
The second Tristrem bold,
The third was valiant Carodac,
Who won the cup of gold,2
1 " In our forefathers' tyme, when Papistrie, as a standyng
poole, covered and overflowed all England, fewe books were
read in our tongue, savying certaine bookes of chevalrie, as
they said, for pastime and pleasure; which, as some say,
were made in the monasteries, by idle monks or wanton
chanons. As one, for example, La Morte 'Arthure; the
whole pleasure of which book standeth in two speciall poynts,
in open manslaughter and bold bawdrye; in which booke
they be counted the noblest knightes that do kill most men
without any quarrell, and commit fowlest adoulteries by
sutlest shiftes; as Sir Launcelot, with the wife of King
Arthur his master; Sir Tristram, with the wife of King
Marke, his uncle; Sir Lamerocke, with the wife of King
Lote, that was his own aunt. This is good stuffe for wise
men to laugh at, or honest men to take pleasure at, yet I
know when God's Bible was banished the court, and La
Morte d'Arthure received into the prince's chamber."AsCHAM's Schoolmaster.
2 See the comic tale of The Boy and the Mantle, in the
third volume of Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, from