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Romance and Poetry: Arthur

In a description of an enchanted city in the romance of Bevis of Hampton, we find:-- "At the brygge ende stondeth a towre, Peynted wyth golde and asewre. The toret was of precyus stonys Ryche and gode for the nonys." In one of the British Lais, "La Lai du Corne," a story of King Arthur's Court, and which probably existed before the year 1300, a magical horn is described, richly garnished with precious stones, a fairy work, which is brought by a beautiful boy, riding on a fleet courser to a sumptuous feast held at Carleon by King Arthur, in order to try the fidelity of the knights and ladies, who are in number sixty thousand. Those who are false, in drinking from this horn, spill their wine. The horn is described as having four bandages of gold, made of ivory engraved with trifoire (a rich, ornamented edge or border). Many precious stones were set in the gold--beryls, sardonyces, and rich chalcedonies, etc.

In the chapter on "Superstitions," I have alluded to the wonderful virtues ascribed to serpent-stones. In the wide region of romance there are numerous instances in which these animals take a conspicuous part, whether for good or for evil. It is in the former sense that the following story is given in the "Gesta Romanorum" (chap. cxix.). A king had an oppressive seneschal, who, passing through a forest, fell into a deep pit, in which were a lion, an ape, and a serpent. A poor man who gathered sticks in the forest, hearing his cries, drew him up, with the animals. The seneschal returned home, promising to reward the poor man, but neglected to do so on his application, and even had him cruelly beaten. As a recompence, the lion drove ten asses, laden with gold, to the poor man's house; the serpent brought him a precious stone of three colours; and the ape laid him heaps of wood in the forest. The poor man, in consequence of the serpent's precious stone, which he sold, arrived at the dignity of knighthood, and acquired ample possessions. He afterwards found that the precious stone had been placed in his chest, and presented it to the king, who, having heard the whole story, ordered the seneschal to be put to death for his ingratitude, and promoted the poor man to his office. In the romance by Lodge, "A Margarite of America" (printed in 1596), it states, that in the chamber of Margarite were seen "all the chaste ladies of the world, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of chrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults." Golden vines, with grapes of precious stones, are not unfrequently mentioned by old writers. Sir John Mandeville, the unveracious traveller, describes a vine "that hath many bunches of grapes, some white, all the red being of rubies." In Hawe's "Pleasure of Pastyme," it is said that "Grande Amoure" enters a hall of jasper, its windows crystal, and its roof overspread with a golden vine, whose grapes are represented by rubies. Such stories recall the marvels of the "Arabian Nights," and Aladdin's visit to the enchanted garden, where jewels of inestimable value and lustre grew on the trees instead of fruit.

In the fabulous "Life of Alexander the Great," printed towards the close of the fifteenth century, the hero, after having jousted with Porus for his kingdom, and overthrown him, found in the palace of the vanquished monarch immense treasures, and amongst others, a vine of which the branches were gold, the leaves emeralds, and the fruit other precious stones--a fiction which seems to have been suggested by the golden vine which Pompey carried away with him from Jerusalem.

Lydgate, in his "Troy Book," mentions a tree made by magic in the court of King Priam's palace, the trunk of which was twelve cubits high; the branches, which overshadowed distant plains, were alternately of solid gold and silver, blossoming with gems of various hues, which were renewed every day. Spenser describes a wondrous vine in Mammon's subterranean isle:-- "So fashioned a porch with rare device, Archt over head with an embracing vine, Whose bounches hanging downe, seem'd to entice All passers-by to taste their luscious wine. And did themselves into their hands incline, As freely offering to be gathered; Some deep empurpled as the hyacine, Some as the rubine, laughing sweetely red; Some like fair emeraudes, not yet well ripened".... In Herodotus (book vii. chap. 26, 29), we read of the golden vine given by Pythius the Lydian to Darius, which was said to have been the work of Theodore the Samian. The bunches of grapes were imitated by means of the most costly precious stones. It overshadowed the couch on which the king slept. Chalkhill, in his "Thealma and Clearchus," describes the cell of the witch Orandra:-- "The walls were gilt and set With precious stones, and all the roof was fret With a gold vine, whose struggling branches spread All o'er the arch; the swelling grapes were red; This, Art had made of rubies, cluster'd so, To the quick'st eye they more than seem'd to grow."