r 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 own way. Reaching Blois and utterly rejecting his
mother's attempts to excuse herself and console him, he drags out a
miserable time in continual penance and self-neglect, till at last,
availing himself of (and rather shabbily if piously tricking) a Saracen
page,[71] he succeeds in getting off incognito to the vague "Ardennes,"
where his sadly ended adventure had begun. These particular Ardennes
appear to be reachable by sea (on which they have a coast), and to
contain not only ordinary beasts of chase, not only wolves and bears,
but lions, tigers, wyverns, dragons, etc. A single unarmed man has
practically no chance there, and the Count determines to condemn him