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Rh Damoiselles de halt paraiges

Filles à Roi gentis et aaiges

Ne n'i a nul qui n'ait ami

Chevalier vaillant et hardi

Qui toet dearainer la voldroit

Ou fust à torty ou fust à droit

Que oele qui li atalente

Ert la plus bele et la plus gente.

Li Rois respont ce sal ge bien

Mais porce nel lairrai jo rien;

Mais De puest estre coutredite

Parole, puisque Rois Ta dite."

This recalls the words which Chaucer puts into the mouth of "Pluto, that is the King of Faerie" when urged by his Queen to deviate from a resolution once declared:

"I am a king, it sit me not to lie."Cant. Tales, 1. 10189.

—Page 143.

the son of Porthawr Gandwy appears to have been a very courtly personage, and a man of most polished manners; as in one Triad we find him ranked with the courteous Gwalchmai for his urbanity towards guests and strangers; and in another he is said to have preferred residing with King Arthur to exercising the sovereignty over his own dominions, which was, doubtless, in some measure because the refined habits of the Court were more congenial to a person of his cultivation and taste.

"The three sovereigns of the Court of Arthur, Goronwy the son of Echel Yorddwytwll, and Cadreith the son of Porthfetwr Gadw, and Ffleidwr Fflam the son of Godo; because they were princes possessing territory and dominion, and in preference to which they remained as knights in the Court of Arthur, as that was considered the chief of honour and gentility in the opinion of the Three Just Knights."

Nor is this characteristic lost sight of in the present Tale, for, a little further on, while every one else is engrossed by the pleasures of the chase, we find all Cadymerth's ideas of propriety violated by Gwenhwyvar's riding up with no other retinue than a single