And sayd thai wold there abide,
And dye ther everichon,
Er the qeun schuld fram hem gon:
Ac yete amiddes hem ful right,
The quen was oway y-twight,
With Fairi forth y-nome,
Men wizt never wher sche was become.
After this fatal catastrophe, Orfeo, distracted for the loss of his queen, abandons his throne, and, with his harp, retires into a wilderness, where he subjects himself to every kind of austerity, and attracts the wild beasts by the pathetic melody of his harp. His state of desolation is poetically described:
He that werd the fowe and griis,
And on bed the purpur biis,