Chivalry | Page 5

degree of a Saracen
princess; and we are backed in this old procedure not only by the
authority of Aristotle but, oddly enough, by that of reason.
Kings have their policies and wars wherewith to drug each human
appetite. But their consorts are denied these makeshifts; and love may
rationally be defined as the pivot of each normal woman's life, and in
consequence as the arbiter of that ensuing life which is eternal.
Because--as anciently Propertius demanded, though not, to speak the
truth, of any woman--
Quo fugis? ah demens! nulla est fuga, tu licet usque Ad Tanaim fugias,
usque sequetur amor.
And a dairymaid, let us say, may love whom she will, and nobody else
be a penny the worse for her mistaking of the preferable nail whereon
to hang her affections; whereas with a queen this choice is more
portentous. She plays the game of life upon a loftier table, ruthlessly
illuminated, she stakes by her least movement a tall pile of counters,
some of which are, of necessity, the lives and happiness of persons
whom she knows not, unless it be by vague report. Grandeur sells itself
at this hard price, and at no other. A queen must always play, in fine, as
the vicar of destiny, free to choose but very certainly compelled in the
ensuing action to justify that choice: as is strikingly manifested by the
authentic histories of Brunhalt, and of Guenevere, and of swart
Cleopatra, and of many others that were born to the barbaric
queenhoods of extinct and dusty times.

All royal persons are (I take it) the immediate and the responsible
stewards of Heaven; and since the nature of each man is like a troubled
stream, now muddied and now clear, their prayer must ever be,
_Defenda me, Dios, de me_! Yes, of exalted people, and even of their
near associates, life, because it aims more high than the aforementioned
Aristotle, demands upon occasion a more great catharsis, which would
purge any audience of unmanliness, through pity and through terror,
because, by a quaint paradox, the players have been purged of
humanity. For a moment Destiny has thrust her scepter into the hands
of a human being and Chance has exalted a human being to decide the
issue of many human lives. These two--with what immortal chucklings
one may facilely imagine--have left the weakling thus enthroned, free
to direct the heavy outcome, free to choose, and free to evoke much
happiness or age-long weeping, but with no intermediate course
unbarred. Now prove thyself! saith Destiny; and Chance appends:
_Now prove thyself to be at bottom a god or else a beast, and now
eternally abide that choice. And now_ (O crowning irony!) we may not
tell thee clearly by which choice thou mayst prove either.
In this little book about the women who intermarried, not very enviably,
with an unhuman race (a race predestinate to the red ending which I
have chronicled elsewhere, in _The Red Cuckold_), it is of ten such
moments that I treat.
You alone, I think, of all persons living, have learned, as you have
settled by so many instances, to rise above mortality in such a testing,
and unfailingly to merit by your conduct the plaudits and the adoration
of our otherwise dissentient world. You have often spoken in the stead
of Destiny, with nations to abide your verdict; and in so doing have
both graced and hallowed your high vicarship. If I forbear to speak of
this at greater length, it is because I dare not couple your well-known
perfection with any imperfect encomium. Upon no plea, however, can
any one forbear to acknowledge that he who seeks to write of noble
ladies must necessarily implore at outset the patronage of her who is
the light and mainstay of our age.
_Therefore to you, madame--most excellent and noble lady, to whom I

love to owe both loyalty and love--I dedicate this little book._

I
THE STORY OF THE SESTINA
"Armatz de fust e de fer e d'acier, Mos ostal seran bosc, fregz, e
semdier, E mas cansos sestinas e descortz, E mantenrai los frevols
contra 'ls fortz."
THE FIRST NOVEL.--ALIANORA OF PROVENCE, COMING IN
DISGUISE AND IN ADVERSITY TO A CERTAIN CLERK, IS BY
HIM CONDUCTED ACROSS A HOSTILE COUNTRY; AND IN
THAT TROUBLED JOURNEY ARE MADE MANIFEST TO EACH
THE SNARES WHICH HAD BEGUILED THEM AFORETIME.

The Story of the Sestina
In this place we have to do with the opening tale of the Dizain of
Queens. I abridge, as afterward, at discretion; and an initial account of
the Barons' War, among other superfluities, I amputate as more
remarkable for veracity than interest. The result, we will agree at outset,
is that to the Norman cleric appertains whatever these tales may have of
merit,