Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/171

 and the novelties they had observed. Among other matters, the travellers detailed so seriously the great beauty and virtue of the Lady Constance, that the Sultan was unable to dismiss her from his thoughts, but fell in love upon the bare report of her surpassing excellence. Whereupon he summoned his privy council, and commissioned them to ease his heart by devising a plan which should obtain for him in marriage the hand of the Lady Constance. Many were the arguments and the difficulties raised by the counsellors; among others, the great diversity in the religious institutions of the two countries: for they rationally concluded that no Christian prince would wed his child with a follower of Mahomet.

This objection, however, he overruled by declaring, that rather than be separated from her, he would himself become a Christian.

There is no occasion to detail all the account of the treaties and embassies which passed between the two courts: suffice to say, it was agreed that the Sultan and his chief nobles should receive baptism and embrace