book i

. canto 4. st. 1.

[234]

"E se la us fa gelos E us en dona razo, E us ditz c'ancre no fo De so que dels huelhs vis, Diguatz Don. En suy fiz Que vos disetz vertat, Mas yeu vay simiat."

The name of the gentleman who thus consented to distrust the evidence of his senses was Amanieu des Escas, a favourite troubadour in Spain during the thirteenth century. One of the "statutes" in the Court of Love is, according to Chaucer's report of it, pretty much in the same strain:

"But think that she, so bounteous and fair, Could not be false, imagine this algate, And think that tongues wicked would her appair, Slandering her name, and worshipful estate, And lovers true to settin at debate, And though thou seest a fault, right at thine eye, Excuse it blith, and gloss it prettily." Chaucer, Urry's edit. fol. 563.

[235] Mr. Skottowe, in his Essays on Shakspeare (essays which have done more for the right understanding of the great dramatist than all the works of his commentators from Theobald to Malone), observes that, in the play of Troilus and Cressida, a courtly knight of chivalry is often seen under the name of a Trojan hero. The following challenge of Hector is conceived and executed in the true chivalric spirit.

"Kings, princes, lords, If there be one, among the fair'st of Greece, That holds his honour higher than his ease; That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril; That knows his valour, and knows not his fear; That loves his mistress more than in confession, (With truant vows to her own lips he loves,) And dare avow her beauty and her worth, In other arms than hers,--to him this challenge. Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks, Shall make it good, or do his best to do it. He hath a lady, wiser, fairer, truer, Than ever Greek did compass in his arms; And will to-morrow with his trumpet call, Midway between yon tents and walls of Troy, To rouse a Grecian that is true in love: If any come, Hector shall honour him; If none, he'll say in Troy, when he retires, The Grecian dames are sun-burn'd, and not worth The splinter of a lance." Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc. 3.

[236] Cronique de Saintré, vol. iii. c. 65.

[237] This society of the Penitents of Love is mentioned by the Chevalier of the Tower, whose