In choice and change of thy dear loved dame;
Lest thou of her believe too lightly blame,
And rash misweening do thy heart remove;
For unto knight there is no greater shame,
Than lightness and inconstancy in love.’
The peerless Amadis passed with more than ordinary rapidity to the rank of knighthood. The youth more usually remained an esquire—the next step to that of page—till he was twenty. He attended the knight to whose person he was attached, dressed and undressed him, trained his horses, kept his arms bright and burnished, and did the honours of the household to the strangers who visited it; so that Spenser takes the squire as the type of such courtesy. Here is Chaucer’s description of the squire:
‘With him there was his son, a youngé squire,
A lover and a lusty bachelor,
With lockés curl’d as they were laid in press;
Of twenty years of age he was, I guess.