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“With his heart on his lips he kissed her,
But never her cheek grew red,
And the words the living long for
He spake in the ear of the dead.”
John Greenleaf Whittier, Marguerite.
Marhaus (Sir), a knight of the Round Table, a king’s son, and brother of the queen of Ireland. When Sir Mark, king of Cornwall, refused to pay truage to Anguish, king of Ireland, Sir Marhaus was sent to defy Sir Mark and all his knights to single combat. No one durst go against him; but Tristram said, if Mark would knight him, he would defend his cause. In the combat, Sir Tristram was victorious. With his sword he cut through his adversary’s helmet and brain-pan, and his sword stuck so fast in the bone that he had to pull thrice before he could extricate it. Sir Marhaus contrived to get back to Ireland, but soon died.—Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, ii. 7, 8 (1470).
⁂ Sir Marhaus carried a white shield; but as he hated women, twelve damsels spat thereon, to show how they dishonored him.—Ditto, pt. i. 75.
Maria, a lady in attendance on the princess of France. Mongaville, a young lord in the suite of Ferdinand, king of Navarre, asks her to marry him, but she defers her answer for twelve months. To this Longaville replies, “I’ll stay with patience, but the time is long;” and Maria makes answer, “The liker you; few taller are so young.”—Shakespeare, Love’s Labor’s Lost (1594).
Maria, the waiting-woman of the Countess Olivia.—Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (1614).