Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/68

lx "Then cried the empress with a loud voice, aud said: Soothly dear friends, ye do now truly confess and declare the truth, wherefore I will now apply my medicine, and anon they received their healths.

"When the lady the empress had thus done, she uncovered her face to the emperor, and he forthwith knew her, and ran to her, and embraced her in his arms, and kissed her oftentimes, and for joy he wept bitterly: saying, Blessed be God, now I have found that I desired. And when he had thus said, he led her home to the palace with great joy; and after, when it pleased Almighty God, they ended both their lives in peace and rest."

"Occleve has related this story in verse, from the present work (MS. Reg. 17 D. vi.), and it is also to be found in the Patranas of Timonida (Patr. 21). The outline has been borrowed from one of the Contes devots, or miracles of the Virgin Mary. The incident of the bloody knife occurs likewise in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale, and in a story related by Gower, Confessio Amantis, fol. 32."—.

A few additional remarks upon the stories to follow, for which indulgence is bespoke, shall close, what I fear the reader may be disposed to consider, as toilsome a march as the knights of old experienced in gaining access to some enchanted castle. But let me whisper in his ear that the distressed damsels whom his intrepidity shall relieve are most of them passing fair and gentle. He cannot display resolution in a better cause; and if (de gustibus non est disputandum!) their beauty sometimes disappoint his expectations, let him remember that adoration has been offered them by past ages of heroic spirits: that bards, whose names are familiar in our mouths as household words, have condescended to adopt them; and, therefore, that they possess an undoubted claim to public consideration, if not on the ground of their own intrinsic excellence.

Much of the merit of these fables consists in the curious and interesting light which they throw upon a period necessarily involved in great obscurity. The fictions are strongly and vividly delineated; and the reader feels himself hurried back into the romantic scenes of chivalrous emprize, and busily mingling in the commotions of camp and court. The fantastic regulations of many of the tales accord with historical notices of chivalry; in which the most ridiculous commands were imposed and executed. The sports of the field, united with the pursuit of wild adventure: love, and war, and devotion; absurd penances for unimaginable crimes, and carelessness