For while it was in hand, by loving of an elf, For all his wondrous skill was cozened of himself: For walking with his Fay, her to the rock he brought, In which he oft before his nigromancies wrought. And going in thereat, his magics to have shown, She stopt the cavern's mouth with an enchanted stone, Whose cunning strongly crossed, amazed while he did stand, She captive him conveyed unto the Fairy-land. Drayton, _Poly-Olb._ Song IV.--See above, p. 2. [55] La damoiselle qui Lancelot porta au lac estoit une _fée_, et en cellui temps estoient appellées _fees_ toutes celles qui sentremcloient denchantements et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principallement en la Grand Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des parolles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoi elles estoient en jeunesse, et en beaulte, et en grandes richesses, comment elles divisoient. [56] La dame qui le nourissoit ne conversoit que en forest, et estoit au plain de ung tertre plus bas assez que celui ou le roy Ban estoit mort: en ce lieu ou il sembloit que le bois fust grant et parfont (_profond_) avoit la dame moult de belles maisons et moult riches; et au plain dessoubs y avoit une gente petite riviere moult plantureuse de poissons; et estoit ce lieu si cele et secret que bien difficille estoit a homme de le trouver, car la semblance du dit lac le couvroit si que il ne pouvoit estre apperceu. And farther, La damoiselle nestoit mie seulle, mais y avoit grande compaignie de chevaliers et de dames et damoiselles. [57] Vol. i. ch. 42. [58] Vol. iii. ch. 31. [59] Tristan was written in verse by Chrestien de Troyes. The prose romance was first printed in 1489. [60] Parthenopex was written in French in the twelfth century, according to Le Grand; in the thirteenth, according to Roquefort. [61] _Composed_--for to call it, with Ellis, Ritson, and others, a translation, would be absurd. How Ellis, who had at least read Le Grand's and Way's Fabliaux, could say of Chestre, that he "seems to have given a _faithful_ as well as spirited version of this old Breton story," is surprising. It is in fact no translation, but a poem on the adventures of Sir Launfal, founded chiefly on the Lais de Lanval and de Graelent, in Marie de France, with considerable additions of Chestre's own invention, or derived from other sources. These Lais will be considered under Brittany. [62] Thus we ourselves say _the Príncess Royal, éxtreme need_, etc. This, by the way, is the cause why the Greeks put a grave and not an acute accent on words accented on the last syllable, to show that it is easily moveable. [63] As this seems to be one of the lost arts, we will here and elsewhere mark the feminine _e_ and the change of accent. [64] Rode--complexion; from _red_. [65] Occient--_occident_ or _océan_? The Gascon peasantry call the Bay of Biscay _La Mer d'Occient_. The Spaniards say _Mar Oceano_.