The White Knight: Tirant Lo Blanc

by Joanot Martorell; Martí Joan de Galba

When the Widow had done this and had left Tirant in the room, she went quickly to the palace, and found the princess sleeping in her bed. The Widow said to her:

"Get up, my lady. My lord, the emperor, sent me to tell you that the doctors want you to get out of your bed and not to sleep so long. After you stayed up so late last night, and having eaten lunch, if you sleep now with this warm weather it could endanger your health."

She opened the windows of the chamber so that she would not sleep, and the princess permitted her to because of her father's tender words.

When she was up she put on a brocade tunic with the top completely unbuttoned, no kerchief over her breast, and her hair hanging loose over her shoulders. Then the Widow said to her:

"The doctors think it would be good for you to go down to the garden and see all the greenery, and we'll entertain ourselves there with some games so that your drowsiness will pass. I have a costume for the festival of Corpus Christi that looks like your gardener. Plaerdemavida likes these things very much and she will put it on, and will tell you her usual witty things."

The princess went down to the garden with the Widow and two maidens while Tirant was watching the mirror carefully. He saw the princess coming with the maidens, and watched as they sat down near a small stream. The Widow had foreseen everything, and she had sent the black gardener to the city of Pera so that he would not be in the garden.

The Widow helped dress Plaerdemavida, and put the mask on her that had been made to look exactly like the black gardener; and she went into the garden wearing his clothing. When Tirant saw her coming he thought that it was in fact the Moorish gardener, carrying a spade over his shoulder. He began to dig, and soon approached the princess. He sat at her side, and took her hands and kissed them. Then he put his hands on her breasts and touched her nipples, and made overtures of love. The princess broke into great peals of laughter, and all her weariness left her. Then he drew her even closer and put his hands under her skirts, while all the maidens laughed, as they listened to Plaerdemavida's amusing words. The Widow turned toward Tirant and twisted her hands as she spat on the ground, indicating the loathing and pain she felt for what the princess was doing.

Imagine poor, miserable Tirant, who the day before had been so pleased at having won a lady of such high rank as his betrothed, the thing he desired most in the world, and then to see his misery, his affliction and his pain with his own eyes. And when he began to think, he wondered if the mirrors were reflecting a false image, and he broke them and looked inside to see if they contained something evil made by the art of necromancy, but he found nothing of the sort. He wanted to get up to the window to find out if he could see more, and to discover how those games would end, and he saw that there was no ladder, because the Widow had been afraid that he might do this and she had hidden it. Tirant, finding no other recourse, took the bench from in front of the bed and stood it up. Then, taking a cord that he cut from the curtains, he passed it over a beam and pulled himself up by it. He saw how the black gardener had taken the princess by the hand, and was leading her to a hut in the garden where he kept his gardening tools and a bed to sleep on. Plaerdemavida led her into that room, where they looked through everything, including the clothing which the black man kept in a chest. After a time the princess came out, as the Widow and a maiden were walking near the hut. When they saw her, the Widow went over to the maiden and gave her a scarf. To go ahead with the game and make everyone laugh, she said to her:

"Put it under the princess's skirts."

When she was in front of Her Highness, the maiden knelt on the ground as the Widow had instructed her, and put the rag under her skirts. And the princess' naivete played into the hands of the Widow's malice. When Tirant saw such a heinous thing, he was completely aghast, and with a voice full of anguish, he began to lament: