Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/341

Rh sometimes lauding, and sometimes re- proving him. One of the best of these poems is his Complainte, on the death of Henry, which took place in 1183, from disease, say some accounts, from the bolt of a crossbow say others. He complains that he has lost " the best king that was ever born of mother"; and goes on to say, "King of the cour- teous, and emperor of the valiant, you would have been Seigneur if you had lived longer ; for you bore the name of the Young King, and were the chief and peer of youth. Ay ! hauberk and sword, and beautiful buckler, helmet and gonfalon, and purpoint and sark, and joy and love, there is none to maintain them ! " See Raynouard, Choix de Poésies, IV. 49.

In the Bible Guiot de Provins, Bar- bazan. Fabliaux et Contes, II. 518, he is spoken of as

" 11 Jones Rois, Li proux, li saiges, li cortois."

In the Cento Novelle Antiche, XVIIL, XIX., XXXV., he is called // Re Gio- z>ane ; and in Roger de Wendover's F bluer 5 of History, A, D. 1179- 1^83, " Henry the Young King."

It was to him that Bertrand de Born " gave the evil counsels," embroiling him with his father and his brothers. Therefore, when the commentators challenge us as Pistol does Shallow, " Under which king, Bezonian ? speak or die ! " I think we must answer as Shallow does, " Under King Harry."

137. See 2 Samuel xvii. 1, 2:—

"Moreover, Ahithophel said unto Absalom, let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pur- sue after David this night. And 1 will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid ; and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only."

Dryden, in his poem oi Absalom and Achitopbel, gives this portrait of the latter:—

"Of these the false Achitophel was first ; A name to all succeeding ages curst; For close designs and crooked counsels fit; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfix'd in principles and place ; In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace : A fiery soul, which, working out its way. Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er inform'd the tenement of clay."

Then he puts into the mouth of Achitophel the following description of Absalom:—

"Auspicious prince, at whose nativity Some royal planet rul'd the southern sky; Thy longing country's darling and desire ; Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire; Their second Moses, whose extended wand Divides the seas, and shows the promised land ; Whose dawning day, in every distant age, Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage; The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, The young men's vision, and the old men's dream."