Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/49

 leisure to tell it; but to the point. It happened on a time (to tell you as shortly as I may) a worthy duke that was called Perotheus, and was fellow to Duke Theseus since they were little children, was come to Athens to visit him and take his pleasure, as he was wont. For in this world he so loved no man, and Theseus loved him as tenderly; so well they loved, as old books say, that when one was dead his fellow went and sought him down in hell (but of that story I care not to speak). Duke Perotheus had known Arcite at Thebes many a year and loved him well, and finally at the prayer of Perotheus, without any ransom, Duke Theseus let him out of prison freely to go where he would, on such terms as I shall tell you. If so be that Arcite were ever found by day or night in any realm of Theseus it was accorded that by the sword he should lose his head; there was no remedy. He taketh his leave and homeward he sped him. Let him beware ; his neck lieth in pledge.

How great a sorrow he suffereth now! He feeleth the death smite through his heart, he weepeth, waileth, piteously crieth, he looketh privily to slay himself. "Alas the day that I was born!" he said. "Now is my prison worse than before, now am I doomed eternally to abide not in purgatory, but in hell. Alas, that ever I knew Perotheus, for else I had dwelt with Theseus fettered in his prison evermore! Then had I been in bliss and not in this woe; only the sight of her whom I serve, though I might never win her grace, would have well sufficed for me. O dear cousin Palamon," he cried, "thine is the victory in this adventure, full blissfully mayst thou endure in prison. In prison? Nay, but in Paradise. Well hath Fortune turned the die for thee, who hast the sight of her, and I only the longing. For it may well be, since thou hast her presence and art a knight