Part VIII.
Early on the morrow Sir Lybius sets out for the inchanted palace. He alights in the court: enters the hall: the wonders of which are described in strong Gothic painting. He sits down at the high table: on a sudden all the lights are quenched: it thunders, and lightens; the palace shakes; the walls fall in pieces about his ears. He is dismayed and confounded: but presently hears horses neigh, and is challenged to single combat by the sorcerers. He gets to his steed: a battle ensues, with various turns of fortune: he loses his weapon; but gets a sword from one of the necromancers, and wounds the other with it: the edge of the sword being secretly poisoned, the wound proves mortal.
Part IX.
He goes up to the surviving sorcerer, who is carried away from him by inchantment: at length he finds him, and cuts off his head; he returns to the palace to deliver the lady; but cannot find her: as he is lamenting, a window opens, through which enters a horrible serpent with wings and a woman's face: it coils round his neck and kisses him; then is suddenly converted into a very beautiful lady. She tells him she is the Lady of Sinadone, and was so inchanted, till she might kiss Sir Gawain, or some one of his blood: that he has dissolved the charm, and that herself and her dominions may be his reward. The knight (whose descent is by this means discovered) joyfully accepts the offer; makes her his bride, and then sets out with her for King Arthur's court.
Such is the fable of this ancient piece: which the reader may observe, is as regular in its conduct, as any of the finest poems of classical antiquity. If the execution, particularly as to the diction and sentiments, were but equal to the plan, it would be a capital performance; but this is such as might be expected in rude and ignorant times, and in barbarous unpolished language.
IV. I shall conclude this prolix account, with a list of such old metrical romances as are still extant; beginning with those mentioned by Chaucer.
1. The romance of Horne Childe is preserved in the British Museum, where it is intitled þe ᵹeste kyng Horne. See Catalog. Harl. MSS. 2253, p. 70. The language is almost Saxon, yet from the mention in it of Sarazens, it appears to have been written after some of the Crusades. It begins thus:
"All heo ben blyþe
þat to my sonȝ ylyþe:
A sonȝ ychulle ou sinȝ
Of Allof þe ȝode kynȝe,"[515] &c.
Another copy of this poem, but greatly altered, and somewhat modernized, is preserved in the Advocates Library at Edinburgh, in a MS. quarto volume of old English poetry [W. 4. 1.] Num. XXXIV. in seven leaves or folios[516], intitled, Horn-child and Maiden Rinivel, and beginning thus: