Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/474

 the translation in the text with that executed by the venerable patriarch of the press, William Caxton, in the fifteenth century, I am tempted to transcribe it. There are many little additional touches of manners which the antiquary will value; and while the general reader smiles at the primitive simplicity with which the story is narrated, he will, it is presumed, derive some pleasure from the strong contrast afforded by the past and the present æra—from the elevated situation on which he may seem to stand: a being, as it were, of another sphere; asserting the pre-eminence of civilization over uncultivated life: the polite refinement of modern manners, over the rude character of remote and barbarous times.

And fyrst of his name.

Alexis is as moche as to saye as goynge out of the lawe of maryage for to keep virginite for