To gratify the curiosity which some may feel respecting this subject, I add the whole of the original. “_La plus grande recompense, ou plus grãd loyer que les antiques Rommains estimassent faire aus Chefz d’armee, Empereurs, Capitaines, et Cheualiers victorieux, c’estoit de les gratifier & honnorer (selon toutefois leurs merites, estats, charges, & degrez) de certaines belles Couronnes: qui generalemẽt (à cette cause) furent apellees Militaires. Desquelles (pour auoir estées indice & enseignes de prouesse & vertu) les figures des principales & plus nobles, sont ci tirees en deuises: tant a la louange & memoire de l’antique noblesse, que pareillement à la recreation, consolation, & esperance de la moderne, aspirãt & desirãt aussi de paruenir aus gages & loyers apartenãs & dediez aus defenseurs de la recommendable Republique. La premiere donques mise en reng, representera la Trionfale: laquelle estant tissue du verd Laurier, auec ses bacques, estoit donnée au Trionfateur, auquel par decret du Senat, estoit licite de trionfer parmi la vile de Romme, sur chariot, comme victorieus de ses ennemis. Desquels neantmoins lui conuenoit deuant la pompe, faire aparoir de la deffaite, du nombre parfait de cinq mile, en vne seule bataille. La susdite Couronne trionfale, apres long trait de temps (declinant l’Empire) fut commẽcee à estre meslee, & variée de Perles & pierrerie, & puis entierement changée de Laurier naturel en Laurier buriné, & enleué, sus vn cercle d’or: comme se void par les Medailles, de plusieurs monnoyes antiques._”[96] Shakespeare does not add a single word of explanation, or of amplification, which he might be expected to have done, had he used an English translation; but simply, and without remark, he adopts the emblem and its motto, as is natural to anyone who, though not unskilled in the language by which they are expressed, is not perfectly at home in it. Of chivalry, however, he often speaks,—“of chivalrous design of knightly trial.” To Bolingbroke and Mowbray wager of battle is appointed to decide their differences _(Richard II._ act i. sc. 1, l. 202, vol. iv. p. 116), and the king says,— “Since we can not atone you, we shall see Justice design the victor’s chivalry.” And (vol. iv. p. 137) John of Gaunt declares of England’s kings; they were,— “Renowned for their deeds as far from home, In Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son.” But in the case of the fourth and fifth knights, it is not the simple adoption of a device which we have to consider; the very ideas, almost the very phrases in which those ideas were clothed, have also been given, pointing out that the Dramatist had before him something more than explanations in an unfamiliar tongue. The device of the fourth knight is both described and interpreted,—