Bid her remember what she dreamt, In her bed where as she lay; How, when the grype and the grimly beast, Would have carried her crown away, Even then, there came the little grey hawk, Then bid the queen be merry at heart, Back then rode that fair damsel, And her heart it leapt for glee; But when the appointed day was come, Then woeful, woeful, was her heart, And now a fire was built of wood, No knight stood forth, no knight there came, No help appeared nigh; And now the fire was lighted up, Queen Elinore she must die. Three times the Herald he waved his hand, Giff any good knight will 'fend this dame, And now the fire was lighted up, When riding upon a little white steed, Away with that stake! away with those brands! And loose our comely queen! I am come to fight with Sir Aldingar, Forth then stood Sir Aldingar; But when he saw the child, He laughed and scoffed, and turned his back, Now turn, now turn thee, Aldingar, I trust that I shall avenge the wrong, The boy pulled forth a well good sword, The first stroke stricken at Aldingar, Stand up, stand up, thou false traitor, For, an' thou thrive as thou beginn'st, A priest! a priest! says Aldingar, A priest! a priest! says Aldingar, I would have lain by our comely queen, Then I thought to betray her unto our king, * Ee-eyen-or eyn, the ancient plural of eye. * Administer the Eucharist, or extreme unction from the Saxon, husl. To shrive-confess. There came a lazar to the king's gates, A lazar both blind and lame,- Then ran I to our comely king, Forgive, forgive me, queen, madam, Here take thy queen, our King Harry, For never had a king in Christenty, A truer and a fairer wife. King Henry ran to clasp his queen, And loosed her full soon; But first he had touched the lazar-man, The lazar under the gallows tree King Henry made him his head steward, PERCY. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAINE. THE original of this story is supposed to be as old as the beginning of the fourteenth century, and to have supplied Chaucer with a theme for one of his tales- The Wife's Tale." As it stands here, it contains all the amendments and supplementary stanzas by Dr. Percy; every alternate leaf, containing nine stanzas, being wanting in his folio MS. As a general answer, however, to all the charges against him, he has printed the old fragment literally and exactly at the end of his first volume, "that such austere antiquaries as complain that the ancient copies have not been always rigidly adhered to, may see how unfit for publication many of the pieces would have been, if all the blunders, corruptions, and nonsense of illiterate reciters and transcribers had been superstitiously retained, without some attempt to correct and amend them." It should be added, that on a comparison of the two, there is as little difference as could be expected or wished. KING Arthur lives in merry Carlile, And there with him Queen Guenever, And there with him Queen Guenever, The king a royal Christmass kept, And when they were to dinner set, A boon! a boon! O King Arthur! Who hath shent my love and me. At Tearn-Wadling* his castle stands, And proudly rise the battlements, No gentle knight, nor lady gay, But from that foul discourteous knight He's twice the size of common men, With thews and sinews strong! This grim baron 'twas our hard hap When to his bower he bare my love, And sore misused me. * Tearn (i. e. lake) Wadling is a small lake, near Hesketh in Cumberland, on the road from Penrith to Carlisle. It is reported that the remains of an old castle, near the lake, were visible at no remote period.-Dr. PERCY. |