“When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank,
In single opposition, hand to hand,
He did confound the best part of an hour
In changing hardiment with great Glendower:
Three times they breath’d, and three times did they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,
Blood-stain’d with these valiant combatants.”
Henry IV. Part 1. Act 1. Sc. iii.
[153] Froissart liv. 1. c. 107.
[154] Froissart, liv. 2. c. 145.
[155] Froissart, liv. 2. c. 146.
[156] Froissart, liv. 1. c. 149. 233.
[157] Froissart, liv. 1. c. 235. 371. liv. 2. c. 152.
[158] Thus Don Quixote pleasantly says in his enumeration of chivalric qualities, “whoever possesses the science of knight errantry ought to be learned in the laws, and understand distributive and commutative justice, in order to right all mankind.”
[159] Fairy Queen, book iii. canto 1. st. 3.; and Tasso, with equal attention to truth, thus describes the duty of a knight.
Premer gli alteri, e sollevar gli imbelli,
Defender gli innocenti, e punir gli empi,
Fian l’arti lor.
La Ger. lib. 10. 76.
[160] Piers Ploughman, first vision.