"Now shall the service of treasure, and the gifts of swords, all joy of paternal inheritance, all support of all your kin depart; every one of your family must go about deprived of his rights of citizenship; when far and wide the nobles shall learn your flight, your dishonourable deed. Death is better to every warrior than disgraced life." Mr. Kemble remarks on this passage, that it is not improbable that the whole denunciation is a judicial formula, such as we know early existed, and in regular rhythmical measure.[129] These early examples may be followed up by others preserved to modern times. The most significant of these occurs in the Church ceremony of marriage, which preserves in the vernacular the ancient rhythmical formula of the marriage laws, and the antiquity of the Church ritual is proved from the fact that it is accompanied and enforced by the old rhythmical verse, which is indicative of early legal or ceremonious usage. "With this rynge I the wed And this gold and silver I the geve, and with my body I the worshipe, and with all my worldely cathel I the endowe."[130] Sir Francis Palgrave has noticed the subject, and points out that the wife is taken "to have and to hold[131] from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,[132] in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part and thereto I plight thee my troth." These words are inserted in our service according to the ancient canon of England, and even when the Latin mass was sung by the tonsured priest, the promises which accompany the delivery of the symbolical pledge of union were repeated by the blushing bride in a more intelligible tongue.[133] This is a curious and significant fact, and as we trace out these rhythmical lines farther back in their original vernacular, the more clearly distinct is their archaic nature. According to the usage of Salisbury the bride answered:-- "I take thee, John, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold fro' this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sycknesse, in hele, to be bonere and buxom [obedient] in bedde and at borde till death do us part and thereto I plight thee my trothe."[134] The Welsh manual in the library of the Dean and Chapter of Hereford has a slight variation in the form, and an older spelling:-- "Ich N. take thee N. to my weddid wyf, for fayroure for foulore, for ricchere for porer, for betere for wers, in sicknesse and in helthe, forte deth us departe, and only to the holde and tharto ich plygtte my treuthe."[135]