there are little bits of almost Chaucerian vividness and terseness here and there, contrasting oddly with the chevilles—the stock phrases and epithets—elsewhere. When the tourney actually comes off and Partenopeus is supposed to be prisoner of a felon knight afar off, the two sisters and Persewis take their places at the entrance of the tower crossing the bridge at Melior's capital, "Chef d'Oire."[65] Melior is labelled only "whom all the world loves and prizes," but Urraca and her damsel "have their faces pale and discoloured—for they have lost much of their beauty—so sorely have they wept Partenopeus." On the contrary, when, at the close of the first day's tourney, the usual "unknown knights" (in this case the Count of Blois himself and his friend Gaudins) ride off triumphant, they "go joyfully to their hostel with lifted lances, helmets on head, hauberks on back, and shields held proudly as if to begin jousting."
Bel i vinrent et bel s'en vont,
says King Corsols, one of the judges of the tourney, but not in the least aware of their identity. This may occur elsewhere, but it is by no means one of the commonplaces of Romance, and a well hit-off picture is motived by a sharply cut phrase.[66]
It is this sudden enlivening of the commonplaces of Romance with vivid picture and phrase which puts Partenopeus high among its fellows. The story is very simple, and the variation and multiplication of episodic adventure unusually scanty; while the too common genealogical preface is rather exceptionally superfluous. That the Count of Blois is the nephew of Clovis can interest—outside of a peculiar class of antiquarian commentator—no mortal; and the identification of "Chef-d'Oire," Melior's enchanted capital, with Constantinople, though likely enough, is not much more important. Clovis and Byzantium (of which the enchantress is Empress) were well-known names and suited the abonné of those times. The actual "argument" is of the slightest. One of Spenser's curious doggerel common measures—say:
A fairy queen grants bliss and troth
On terms, unto the knight:
His mother makes him break his oath,
Her sister puts it right—
would almost do; the following prose abstract is practically exhaustive.
Partenopeus, Count of Blois, nephew of King Clovis of France, and descendant of famous heroes of antiquity, including Hector, the most beautiful and one of the most valiant of men, after displaying his prowess in a war with the Saracen Sornagur, loses his way while hunting in the Ardennes. He at last comes to the seashore, and finds a ship which in fifteen days takes him to a strange country, where all is beautiful but entirely solitary. He finds a magnificent palace, where he is splendidly guested by unseen hands, and at last conducted to a gorgeous bedchamber. In the dark he, not unnaturally, lies awake speculating on the marvel; and after a time light footsteps approach the bed, and a form, invisible but tangible, lies down beside him. He touches it, and finds it warm and soft and smooth, and though it protests a little, the natural consequences follow. Then the lady confesses that she had heard of him, had (incognita) seen him at the Court of France, and had, being a white witch as well as an Empress, brought him to "Chef d'Oire," her capital, though she denies having intentionally or knowingly arranged the shepherd's hour itself.[67] She is, however, as frank as Juliet and Miranda combined. She will be his wife (she makes a most interesting and accurate profession of Christian orthodoxy) if he will marry her; but it is impossible for the remainder of a period of which two and a half years have still to run, and at the end of which, and not till then, she has promised her vassals to choose a husband. Meanwhile, Partenopeus must submit to an ordeal not quite so painful as hot ploughshares. He must never see her or attempt to see her, and he must not, during his stay at Chef d'Oire, see or speak to any other human being. At the same time, hunting, exploring the palace and the city and the country, and all other pastimes independent of visible human companionship, are freely at his disposal by day.
Et moi aurès cascune nuit
says Melior, with the exquisite simplicity which is the charm of the whole piece.
One must be very inquisitive, exceedingly virtuous (the mediaeval value of consummated betrothal being reckoned), superfluously fond of the company of one's miscellaneous fellow-creatures, and a person of very bad taste[68] to boot, in order to decline the bargain. Partenopeus does not dream of doing so, and for a whole year thinks of nothing but his fairy love and her bounties to him. Then he remembers his uncle-king and his country, and asks leave to visit them, but not with the faintest intention of running away. Melior gives it with the same frankness and kindness with which she has given herself—informing him, in fact, that he ought to go, for his uncle is dead and his country in danger. Only, she reminds him of his pledges, and warns him of the misfortunes which await his breach of them. He is then magically wafted back on ship-board as he came.
He has, once more, no intention of playing the truant or traitor, and does his duty bravely and successfully. But the new King has a niece and the Count himself has a mother, who, motherlike, is convinced that her son's mysterious love is a very bad person, if not an actual maufès or devil, and is very anxious that he shall marry the niece. She has clerical and chemical resources to help her, and Partenopeus has actually consented, in a fit of aberration, when, with one of the odd Wemmick-like flashes of reflection,[69] not uncommon with knights, he remembers Melior, and unceremoniously makes off to her. He confesses (for he is a good creature though foolish) and is forgiven, Melior being, though not in the least insipid or of a put-up-with-anything disposition, full of "loving mercy" in every sense. But the situation is bound to recur, and now, though the time of probation (probation very much tempered!) is nearly over, the mother wins her way. Partenopeus is deluded into accepting an enchanted lantern, which he tries on his unsuspecting mistress at the first possible moment. What he sees, of course, is only a very lovely woman—a woman in the condition best fitted to show her loveliness—whom he has offended irreparably, and lost.
Melior is no scold, but she is also no milksop. She will have nothing more to do with him, for he has shamed her with her people (who now appear), broken her magic power, and, above all, been false to her wish and his word. The entreaties of her sister Urraca (whose gracious figure is now elaborately introduced) are for the time useless, and Partenopeus is only saved from the vengeance of the courtiers and the household by Urraca's protection.[70]
To halt for a moment, the scene of the treason and discovery is another of those singular vividnesses which distinguish this poem and story. The long darkness suddenly flashing into light, and the startled Melior's beauty framed in the splendour of the couch and the bedchamber—the offender at once realising his folly and his crime, and dashing the instrument of his treachery (useless, for all is daylight now, the charm being counter-charmed) against the wall—the half-frightened, half-curious Court ladies and Court servants thronging in—the apparition of Urraca—all this gives a picture of extraordinarily dramatic power. It reminds one a little of Spenser's famous portrayal of Britomart disturbed at night, and the comparison of the two brings out all sorts of "excellent differences."
But to return to the story itself. Although the invariable cut-and-driedness of romance incidents has been grossly exaggerated, there is one situation which is almost always treated in the same way. The knight who has, with or without his own fault, incurred the displeasure of his mistress, "doth [always] to the green wood go," and there, whether in complete sanity or not, lives for a time a half or wholly savage life, discarding knightly and sometimes any other dress, eating very little, and in considerable danger of being eaten himself. Everybody, from Lancelot to Amadis, does it; and Partenopeus does it too, but in his
