The Canterbury tales and Faerie queene &c., &c., &c., ed. for popular perusal with current illustrations and explanatory notes, by D. Laing Purves.

THE KNIGHT'S TALE. 29
As to my cousin, and my brother sworn. In any country of this Theseus,
I posi,l that thou loved'st her beforn: And he were caught, it was accorded thus,
Wost 2 thou not well the olde clerki's saw,3 That with a sword he shoulde lose his head;
That who shall give a lover any law? There was none other remedy nor rede.l2
Love is a greater lawe, by my pan,4 But took his leave, and homeward he him sped;
Than may be giv'n to any earthly man: Let him beware, his necke lieth to wed.'
Therefore positive law, and such decree, How great a sorrow suff'reth now Arcite!
Is broke alway for love in each degree. The death he feeleth through his hearte smite;
A man must needes love, maugr6 his head.5 He weepeth, waileth, crieth piteously;
He may not flee it, though he should be dead, To slay himself he waiteth privily.
All be she 6 maid, or widow, or else wife. He said; " Alas the day that I was born!
And eke it is not likely all thy life Now is my prison worse than beforn:
To standen in her grace, no more than I: Now is me shape 14 eternally to dwell
For well thou wost thyselfe verily, Not in purgatory, but right in hell.
That thou and I be damned to pris6n Alas! that ever I knew Perithous.
Perpetual, us gaineth no ranson. For ellis had I dwelt with Theseus
We strive, as did the houndes for the bone; Y-fettered in his prison evermo'.
They fought all day, and yet their part was Then had I been in bliss, and not in woe.
none. Only the sight of her, whom that I serve,
There came a kite, while that they were so Though that I never may her grace deserve,
wroth, Would have sufficed right enough for me.
And bare away the bone betwixt them both. O deare cousin Palamon," quoth he,
And therefore at the kinge's court, my brother, " Thine is the vict'ry of this &ventfre,
Each man for himselfi, there is none other. Full blissfully in prison to endure:
Love if thee list; for I love and aye shall: In prison? nay certes, in paradise.
And soothly, leve brother, this is all. Well hath fortune y-turned thee the dice,
Here in this prison musten we endure, That hast the sightof her, and I th' absence.
And each of us take his aventhre." For possible is, since thou hast her presence,
Great was the strife and long betwixt them And art a knight, a worthy and an able,
tway, That by some cas,15 since fortune is changeable,
If that I hadde leisure for to say; Thou may'st to thy desire sometime attain.
But to the effect: it happen'd on a day But I that am exiled, and barren
(To tell it you as shortly as I may), Of alll grace, and in so great despair,
A worthy duke that hight Perithous, That there n'is earthe, water, fire, nor air,
That fellow was to this Duke Theseus 7 Nor creature, that of them maked is,
Since thilke 8 day that they were children lite,9 That may me helpe nor comfort in this,
Was come to Athens, his fellow to visite, Well ought I sterve in wanhope 16 and distress.
And for to play, as he was wont to do; Farewell my life, my lust,l7 and my gladn6ss.
For in this world he loved no man so: Alas, why plainen men so in commfine
And he lov'd him as tenderly again. Of purveyance of God,l8 or of Fortfne,
So well they lov'd, as o]de bookes sayn, That giveth them full oft in many a guise
That when that one was dead, soothly to tell, Well better than they can themselves devise?
His fellow went and sought him down in hell: Some man desireth for to have richess,
But of that story list me not to write. That cause is of his murder or great sickness.
Duke Perithous loved well Arcite, And some man would out of his prison fain,
And had him known at Thebes year by year: That in his house is of his meinie 19 slain.
And finally at request and prayere Infinite harmes be in this mattere.
Of Perithous, withouti rans6n * We wot never what thing we pray for here,
Duke Theseus him let out of pris6n, We fare as he that drunk is as a mouse.
Freely to go, where him list over all, A drunken man wot well he hath an house,
In such a guise, as I you tellen shall. But he wot not which is the right way thither,
This was the forword,l0 plainly to indite, And to a drunken man the way is slither.20
Betwixte Theseus and him Arcite: And certes in this world so fard we.
That if so were, that Arcite were y-found We seeke fast after felicity,
Ever in his life, by day or night, one stound 1 But we go wrong full often truely.
1 Suppose. 2 Know'st. rule applies in such words as " creature" and "con3 The saying of the old scholar-Boethius, in his trea- science," which are trisyllables.
tise "De Consolatione Philosophiae," which Chaucer 8 That. 9 Little. 10 Covenant, promise.
translated, and from which he has freely borrowed in 11 Moment, short space of time; from Anglo-Saxon,
his poetry. The words are "stund;" akin to which is German, "Stunde," an
" Quis legem det amantibus? hour. 1' Counsel. 13 In pledge, pawn.
Major lex amor est sibi." 14 It is shaped, decreed, fixed for me.
4 Head. 5 In spite of his head. 15 Chance.
6 Whether the woman he loves be. 16 Die in despair; in want of hope. 17 Pleasure.
7 " Perithous " and " Theseus " must, for the metre, 18 Why do men so often complain of God's providence?
be pronounced as words of four and three syllables 19 Household; menials, or servants, &c., dwelling
respectively-the vowels at the end not being diph- together in a house; from an Anglo-Saxon word
thongated, but enunciated separately, as if the words meaning a crowd. Compare German, "Menge,"
were printed "Perithios," "Theseus." Thl same multitude, 20 Or "slider," slippery.
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