“When this mortal message from his mouthe past,
Great was the noyse bothe in hall and in bower,
The king fum’d; the queen screecht; ladies were aghast;
Princes puff’d; barons blustered; lords began lower;
Knights stormed; squires startled, like steeds in a stower;
Pages and yeomen yell’d out in the hall;
Then in came Sir Kay, the king’s seneschal.
“Silence, my soveraignes, quoth this courteous knight,
And in that stound the stowre began still:
Then the dwarfe’s dinner full deerely was dight;
Of wine and wassel he had his wille:
And when he had eaten and drunken his fill,
An hundred pieces of fine coyned gold
Were given this dwarfe for his message bold.
“But say to Sir Ryence, thou dwarfe, quoth the king,
That for his bold message I do him defye;
And shortly with basins and pans will him ring
Out of North Gales; where he and I
With swords, and not razors, quickly shall trye
Whether he or King Arthur will prove the best barbor:
And therewith he shook his good sword Excalábor.”
Drayton thus alludes to the same circumstance:—
“Then told they, how himselfe great Arthur did advance,
To meet (with his Allies) that puissant force in France,
By Lucius thither led; those Armies that while ere
Affrighted all the world, by him strooke dead with feare:
Th’ report of his great Acts that over Europe ran,
In that most famous field he with the Emperor wan:
As how great Rython’s selfe hee slew in his repaire,
Who ravisht Howell’s Neece, young Helena the faire;
And for a trophy brought the Giant’s coat away,
Made of the beards of kings.”[60]——
And Spenser is too uncourteous in his adoption of the incident; for he not only levels tolls on the gentlemen’s beards, but even on the flowing and golden locks of the gentle sex:—
“Not farre from hence, upon yond rocky hill,
Hard by a streight there stands a castle strong,
Which doth observe a custom lewd and ill,
And it hath long mayntaind with mighty wrong:
For may no knight nor lady passe along
That way, (and yet they needs must passe that way,
By reason of the streight, and rocks among,)
But they that Ladies locks doe shave away,
And that knight’s berd for toll, which they for passage pay.
“A shamefull use, as ever I did heare,
Said Calidore, and to be overthrowne.
But by what means did they at first it reare,
And for what cause, tell, if thou have it knowne.
Sayd then that Squire: The Lady which doth owne
This Castle is by name Briana hight;
Then which a prouder Lady liveth none;
She long time hath deare lov’d a doughty knight,
And sought to win his love by all the meanes she might.
“His name is Crudor, who through high disdaine
And proud despight of his selfe-pleasing mynd,
Refused hath to yeeld her love againe,
Untill a Mantle she for him doe fynd,
With beards of knights and locks of Ladies lynd,
Which to provide, she hath this Castle dight,
And therein hath a Seneschall assynd,
Cald Maleffort, a man of mickle might,
Who executes her wicked will, with worse despight.”[61]
“To pluck the beard” of another has ever been held the highest possible sign of scorn and contumely; but it was certainly a refinement on the matter, for which we are indebted to the Morte Arthur, or rather probably, according to Bishop Percy, to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history originally, for the unique and ornamental purpose to which these despoiled locks were applied. So particularly anxious was Charlemagne to shew this despite to an enemy that, as we read in Huon de Bordeaux, he despatched no less than fifteen successive messengers from France to Babylon to pull the beard of Admiral Gaudisse. And this, by no means pleasant operation, was to be accompanied by one even still less inviting.