The wisest knyth of hese coort he was,
He was i hoten Sire Placidas,
On huntynge out he ferde;
And never after come he hom,
Ne no tidyng of him com.
..............................
On the mouthe is a wounde."
[1] Proverb.
[The first of these fragments is obviously a portion of a religious tale (similar to the French Contes Dévots, from one of which it is probably borrowed).
The second is a portion of the Legend of St. Eustace, otherwise named Placidas, which occurs in an earlier metrical English form among the Collections of Lives of Saints in MS. Laud. 108. art. 59.; MS. Digby 86.; MS. Bodl. 779. art. 64.; MS. Vernon, fol. 170; MS. Ashm. 43. art. 73.; and MS. Cott. Cal. A. II. It occurs as prose in the Golden Legend.]