“Up goe the trumpets and the melodie
And to the listes rode the compaynie.
By ordinance throughout the city large
Hanged with cloth of gold, and not with serge.
******
And thus they passen through the citie
And to the listes comen they be-time
It was not of the day yet fully prime,
When set was Theseus full rich and high,
Ipolita the queen and Emilie,
And other ladies in degrees about,
Unto the seates presseth all the rest.”
Then Arcite and his hundred knights enter through the western side of the lists under a red banner, and Palamon and his company at the same moment, under a white banner, enter by the eastern gates.
“And in two ranges fayre they hem dresse,
When that their names read were every one,
That in their number guile were there none.
Then were the gates shut, and cried was loud,
‘Do now your devoir, young knyghtes proud.’
The herauldes left there pricking up and down;
Then ringen trompes loud and clarioun;
There is no more to say, but east and west,
In go the speres quickly into rest,
In goeth the sharpe spur into the side;
There see men who can juste and who can ride;
There shiver shafts upon sheldes thick,
He feeleth through the herte-spoon the prick.
Up springen speres, twenty foot in hyhte,
Out go the swords as the silver bright
The helmes they to-hewen and to-shred;
Out bursts the blood with sterne streames red.
With mighty maces the bones they to-brest.
He through the thickest of the throng gan thrust,
There stumble steedes strong, and down goth all.
He rolleth under foot as doth a ball!
He foineth on his foe with a truncheon,
And he him hurteth, with his horse adown;
He through the body is hurt and sith ytake,
Maugre his head, and brought unto the stake.”
At last it happened to Palamon—
“That by the force of twenty is he take
Unyolden, and drawen to the stake.
And when that Theseus had seen that sight,
Unto the folk that foughten thus eche one
He cried ‘Ho! no more, for it is done!’
The troumpors with the loud minstralcie,
The herauldes that so loude yell and crie,
Been in their joy for wele of Don Arcite.
******
This fierce Arcite hath off his helm ydone,
And on a courser, for to show his face,
He pusheth endilong the large place,
Looking upward upon this Emilie,
And she towards him cast a friendly eye;”
when, alas! his horse started, fell, and crushed the exulting victor, so that he lay bruised to death in the listes which had seen his victory. After a decent time of mourning, by Theseus’s good offices, Emily accepts her surviving lover:
“And thus with alle blisse and melodie
Hath Palamon ywedded Emelie.”
The two curious woodcuts[396] on pages 425 and 426 show the style of carriage associated—grotesquely associated, it seems to our eyes—with the armour and costume of the Middle Ages. No. 1 might represent Duke Theseus going in state through the streets of Athens, hung with tapestry and cloth of gold, to the solemn deed of arms of Palamon and Arcite. No. 2 may represent to us the merry Sir Dinadan driving to the tournament of the Castle of Maidens.