The spousals of Hippolyta the queen;
What tilts and turneys at the feast were seen;
The storm at their return, the ladies' fear:
But these and other things I must forbear.
The field is spacious I design to sow,
With oxen far unfit to draw the plough:
The remnant of my tale is of a length

To tire your patience, and to waste my strength;

And trivial accidents shall be forborne,

30

That others may have time to take their turn,
As was at first enjoined us by mine host,
That he whose tale is best, and pleases most,
Should win his supper at our common cost.
And therefore where I left, I will pursue
This ancient story, whether false or true,
In hope it may be mended with a new.
The prince I mentioned, full of high renown,
In this array drew near the Athenian town;
When, in his pomp and utmost of his pride
Marching, he chanced to cast his eye aside,
And saw a quire of mourning dames, who lay
By two and two across the common way:
At his approach they raised a rueful cry,

And beat their breasts, and held their hands on high,
Creeping and crying, till they seized at last

His courser's bridle and his feet embraced.

40

24. I, the knight, the chief in rank of the pilgrims to Canterbury. 29. Accidents, happenings, occurrences.

forbear, line 24.

Forborne. Compare

31. Mine host, the proprietor of the Tabard in Southwark, who accompanied the pilgrims to Canterbury and was general director of their story-telling.

36. Mended with a new, made better by a story to follow.

39. Utmost, highest degree of. Chaucer has "In his moste pryde" (K. T., 37).

41. Quire, choir; a body of people, usually (but not here) singers. Cf. II., 313.

46. Embraced, i.e., as suppliants.

"Tell me," said Theseus," what and whence you are, And why this funeral pageant you prepare?

Is this the welcome of my worthy deeds,
To meet my triumph in ill-omened weeds?
Or envy you my praise, and would destroy
With grief my pleasures, and pollute my joy?
Or are you injured, and demand relief?

Name your request, and I will ease your grief.”

The most in years of all the mourning train
Began; but sounded first away for pain;
Then, scarce recovered, spoke: "Nor envy we
Thy great renown, nor grudge thy victory;
"Tis thine, O king, the afflicted to redress,

And fame has filled the world with thy success:
We wretched women sue for that alone,
Which of thy goodness is refused to none;
Let fall some drops of pity on our grief,
If what we beg be just, and we deserve relief;
For none of us, who now thy grace implore,
But held the rank of sovereign queen before;
Till, thanks to giddy Chance, which never bears
That mortal bliss should last for length of years,
She cast us headlong from our high estate,

And here in hope of thy return we wait,

50

60

70

And long have waited in the temple nigh,

Built to the gracious goddess Clemency.

But reverence thou the power whose name it bears,
Relieve the oppressed, and wipe the widows' tears.
I, wretched I, have other fortune seen,

The wife of Capaneus, and once a queen:

At Thebes he fell; cursed be the fatal day!
And all the rest thou seest in this array

50. Weeds, garments of mourning; originally, simply garments. 51. Or, an archaic or poetic use for "either."

56. Sounded, an old form of "swooned."

To make their moan, their lords in battle lost
Before that town besieged by our confederate host.
But Creon, old and impious, who commands
The Theban city, and usurps the lands,
Denies the rites of funeral fires to those
Whose breathless bodies yet he calls his foes.
Unburned, unburied, on a heap they lie;
Such is their fate, and such his tyranny;
No friend has leave to bear away the dead,
But with their lifeless limbs his hounds are fed."
At this she shrieked aloud; the mournful train
Echoed her grief, and grovelling on the plain,
With groans, and hands upheld, to move his mind,
Besought his pity to her helpless kind.

The prince was touched, his tears began to flow,
And, as his tender heart would break in two,
He sighed; and could not but their fate deplore,
So wretched now, so fortunate before.

Then lightly from his lofty steed he flew,
And raising one by one the suppliant crew,
To comfort each, full solemnly he swore,

That, by the faith which knights to knighthood bore,
And whate'er else to chivalry belongs,

He would not cease, till he revenged their wrongs;
That Greece should see performed what he declared,
And cruel Creon find his just reward.

He said no more, but shunning all delay
Rode on, nor entered Athens on his way;
But left his sister and his queen behind,
And waved his royal banner in the wind,

80

90

100

79. To make their moan. In our modern form of the construction we should omit the to of the infinitive, e.g., Thou seest them make their moan.

92. Kind, race, kindred. Cf. II., 319, 324.

94. As, as if.

98. Crew, company, assemblage, not necessarily of seamen.

Where in an argent field the God of War
Was drawn triumphant on his iron car;

Red was his sword, and shield, and whole attire,
And all the godhead seemed to glow with fire;
Even the ground glittered where the standard flew,
And the green grass was dyed to sanguine hue.
High on his pointed lance his pennon bore
His Cretan fight, the conquered Minotaur:
The soldiers shout around with generous rage,
And in that victory their own presage.
He praised their ardour, inly pleased to see
His host the flower of Grecian chivalry.

110

120

All day he marched, and all the ensuing night,
And saw the city with returning light.

The process of the war I need not tell,

How Theseus conquered, and how Creon fell;
Or after, how by storm the walls were won,
Or how the victor sacked and burned the town;
How to the ladies he restored again
The bodies of their lords in battle slain;
And with what ancient rites they were interred;
All these to fitter time shall be deferred:
I spare the widows' tears, their woful cries,
And howling at their husbands' obsequies;

130

109. Argent field, i.e., the surface of his banner was white, the argent of heraldry. God of War, Mars.

66

115. His pennon bore, etc. 'The poet here introduces a distinction well-known in heraldry. The banner [line 108] was a square flag, which only barons of great lineage and power had a right to display. The pennon was a forked streamer borne by a knight: Theseus carried both to the field, each bearing a separate device."-Scott.

116. Cretan fight. Theseus's famous fight with the Minotaur in the labyrinth of Minos, in Crete, is referred to.

117. Generous, spirited, courageous. Cf. III., 443. Rage, eagerness, excitement, madness. For construction, cf. II., 188.

132. Howling. Dryden follows Chaucer in his frequent use of the word. Palamon, for example, "howleth" at the death of Arcite

How Theseus at these funerals did assist,

And with what gifts the mourning dames dismissed.
Thus when the victor chief had Creon slain,
And conquered Thebes, he pitched upon the plain
His mighty camp, and when the day returned,
The country wasted and the hamlets burned,
And left the pillagers, to rapine bred,
Without control to strip and spoil the dead.
There, in a heap of slain, among the rest

140

Two youthful knights they found beneath a load oppressed
Of slaughtered foes, whom first to death they sent,
The trophies of their strength, a bloody monument.
Both fair, and both of royal blood they seemed,
Whom kinsmen to the crown the heralds deemed;
That day in equal arms they fought for fame;
Their swords, their shields, their surcoats were the same.
Close by each other laid they pressed the ground,

Their manly bosoms pierced with many a grisly wound;150
Nor well alive nor wholly dead they were,

But some faint signs of feeble life appear:

The wandering breath was on the wing to part,

Weak was the pulse, and hardly heaved the heart.
These two were sisters' sons; and Arcite one,
Much famed in fields, with valiant Palamon.
From these their costly arms the spoilers rent,

And softly both conveyed to Theseus' tent:

(K. T., 1959. But compare P. and A., III., 848). The word cannot be regarded, as in modern times, as undignified.

133. Did assist, was present at as a spectator.

138. Wasted, burned. He (I., 136) is the subject.

139. To rapine bred, trained or accustomed to plunder and spoil the dead after a battle.

143. Whom, the foes. They, the youthful knights.

146. Whom. The antecedent is they of the preceding line.

147. In equal arms, in similar armour, here, rather than with equal prowess, as in II., 198.

148. Surcoats, loose garments worn by knights over their armour. 158. Softly, gently.