A doughty dwarfe to the uppermost deas[49]
Right pertlye gan pricke, kneeling on knee;
With steven[50] fulle stoute amids all the preas,[51] 10
Sayd, Nowe sir king Arthur, God save thee, and see!
Sir Ryence of North-gales[52] greeteth well thee,
And bids thee thy beard anon to him send,
Or else from thy jaws he will it off rend.
For his robe of state is a rich scarlet mantle, 15
With eleven kings beards bordered[53] about,
And there is room lefte yet in a kantle,[54]
For thine to stande, to make the twelfth out:
This must be done, be thou never so stout;
This must be done, I tell thee no fable, 20
Maugre[55] the teethe of all thy round table.
When this mortal message from his mouthe past,
Great was the noyse bothe in hall and in bower:
The king fum'd; the queene screecht; ladies were aghast;
Princes puffd; barons blustred; lords began lower;
Knights stormed; squires startled, like steeds in a stower; 26
Pages and yeomen yell'd out in the hall,
Then in came sir Kay, the 'king's' seneschal.
Silence, my soveraignes, quoth this courteous knight,
And in that stound the stowre[56] began still: 30
'Then' the dwarfe's dinner full deerely was dight;[57]
Of wine and wassel he had his wille:
And, when he had eaten and drunken his fill,
An hundred pieces of fine coyned gold
Were given this dwarf for his message bold. 35
But say to sir Ryence, thou dwarf, quoth the king,
That for his bold message I do him defye;
And shortlye with basins and pans will him ring
Out of North-gales; where he and I
With swords, and not razors, quickly shall trye, 40
Whether he, or king Arthur will prove the best barbor:
And therewith he shook his good sword Excalàbor.
* * * * *
†‡† Strada, in his Prolusions, has ridiculed the story of the Giant's Mantle, made of the Beards of Kings.
FOOTNOTES:
[47] [party-coloured coats.]
[48] Largesse, Largesse. The heralds resounded these words as oft as they received of the bounty of the knights. See Memoires de la Chevalerie, tom. i. p. 99.—The expression is still used in the form of installing knights of the garter.