(_a_) Fidelity in friendship and love, then, subsists solely between equals. The fidelity which we have now to consider is relative to a superior, one more highly placed, a _master._ A fidelity of this type is to be found even among the ancients in that of servants to the family, the house of their lord. The most beautiful example of such a relation is supplied us by the swine-herd of Odysseus, who sweats by night and through tempest in order that he may look after his swine; who is full of anxiety on his master's account, to whom he finally gives loyal assistance against the suitors. Shakespeare offers us a picture of fidelity no less moving, though it is here shown entirely on the side of the feelings, in his "King Lear."[255] Lear asks Kent, "Dost thou know me, fellow?" And Kent replies: "No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master." This borders as close as possible on that which we would make clear as romantic fidelity. Fidelity at this stage is not the loyalty of slaves and churls, however true and pathetic such unquestionably may be, which is none the less devoid of the free independence of individuality and its unrestricted aims and actions, and is consequently of subordinate rank. What we, in short, have before us is the liege-service of chivalry, in which each vassal preserves intact his own free self-dependence as an essential element in the attitude of subordination to one of higher rank, whether lord, king, or emperor. This type of fidelity, however, is a principle of supreme importance in chivalry for the reason that it forms the fundamental bond of union in a common society and its social co-ordination at least in the original form of its appearance.