Page:Curiosities of Olden Times.djvu/265

King Robert of Sicily He inquired of a clerk the meaning of these words; and, having heard the explanation, was mightily offended:—

When he awoke he was alone in the church. An angel had assumed his likeness, and had swept out of the minster with the court. The story then runs in the same line as that of Jovinian. Robert is unrecognised, and is at last received into the palace as court fool. At the end of three years there arrived an embassy from Valmond, the emperor, requesting Robert to join him on Maundy Thursday, at Rome, whither he proposed to go on a visit to his brother Urban. The angel welcomed the ambassadors, and departed in their company to the Holy City. We place side by side the Old English metrical description of Robert's appearance, as he accompanied the false emperor, with the modern poet's rendering:

The fool Robert also went, Clothed in loathly garnement, With fox-tails riven all about: Men might him knowen in the rout. An ape rode of his clothing; So foul rode never king. 253