“And whether he or thou
Shall with his hundred as I speak of now
Slay his contrary or out of listes drive,
Him shall I given Emilie to wive.”
Each of the rivals rode through the country far and near during the fifty weeks, to enlist valiant knights to make up his hundred; and on the eve of the appointed day each party rode into Athens; and, says Chaucer, “never did so small a band comprise so noble a company of knights”:—
“For every wight that loved chevalrie,
And wolde, his thankes, have a lasting name,
Hath praied that he might ben of that game,
And well was he that thereto chosen was.”
And the poet goes on with this testimony to the chivalrous feeling of his own time:—
“For if there fell to-morrow such a case,
Ye knowen well that every lusty knyght
That loveth par amour, and hath his might,
Were it in Engleland or elleswhere,
They wolde, hir thankes, willen to be there.”
At length the day arrives:—
“Gret was the feste in Athens thilke day.
******
And on the morrow when the day gan spring,
Of horse and harness, noise and clattering
There was in all the hostelries about:
And to the palace rode there many a rout
Of lordes upon stedes and palfries.
There mayst thou see devising of harness
So uncouth and so riche, and wrought so well,
Of goldsmithry, of brouding, and of steel;
The shieldes bright, testeres, and trappours;
Gold-hewen helms, hawberks, cote-armures;
Lordes in parements on their coursers,
Knyghts of retenue and eke squires,
Nailing the speares and helms buckeling,
Gniding of shields with lainers lacing;
There, as need is, they were nothing idle.
The foaming steedes on the golden bridle
Gnawing, and fast the armourers also
With file and hammer pricking to and fro;
Yeomen on foot, and commons many a one,
With shorte staves thick as they may gon;
Pipes, trompes, nakeres, and clariouns,
That in the battaille blowen bloody sounes.
The palais full of people up and down.
******
Duke Theseus is at a window sette,
Arraied right as he were a god in throne;
The people presseth thitherward full soon
Him for to see, and do him reverence,
And eke to hearken his heste and his sentence.
An herauld on a scaffold made an O[395]
Till that the noise of the people was ydo;
And when he saw the people of noise all still,
Thus shewed he the mighty Dukes will.”
The Duke’s will was, that none of the combatants should use any shot (i.e. any missile), or poleaxe, or short knife, or short pointed sword, but they were to run one course with sharp spears and then—
“With long sword or with mace to fight their fill.”
However, any one who was forcibly drawn to a stake—of which one was planted at each end of the lists—should be hors de combat; and if either of the leaders was slain or disabled or drawn to the stake, the combat should cease.