Up sprengen speres on twenty foot on hight;
Out goon the swerdes as the silver bright.
The balance is, however, greatly in favour of Chaucer, whose lines, if properly accented, beat the original Spanish on its own ground, and this notwithstanding the absurd remark of Swinburne that “Chaucer and Spenser scarcely made a good poet between them.”
Chapter III: “Amadis de Gaul”
There stands a castle on a magic height
Whose spell-besetten pathways ye may climb
If that ye love fair chivalry sublime.
Come, its enchanted turrets yield the sight,
As long ago to demoiselle and knight,