And the knight lowly louted with hand and with head,
"Fling aside the good armour in which thou art clad,
And don thou this weed of her night-gear instead,
For a hauberk of steel, a kirtle of thread;
And charge, thus attir'd, in the tournament dread,
And fight as thy wont is where most blood is shed,
And bring honour away, or remain with the dead."

Untroubled in his look, and untroubled in his breast, The knight the
weed hath taken, and reverently hath kiss'd. "Now blessed be the moment,
the messenger be blest! Much honour'd do I hold me in my lady's high
behest; And say unto my lady, in this dear night-weed dress'd, To the
best armed champion I will not veil my crest; But if I live and bear me
well 'tis her turn to take the test." Here, gentles, ends the foremost
fytte of the Lay of the Bloody Vest.

"Thou hast changed the measure upon us unawares in that last couplet, my
Blondel," said the King.

"Most true, my lord," said Blondel. "I rendered the verses from the
Italian of an old harper whom I met in Cyprus, and not having had time
either to translate it accurately or commit it to memory, I am fain to
supply gaps in the music and the verse as I can upon the spur of the
moment, as you see boors mend a quickset fence with a fagot."

"Nay, on my faith," said the King, "I like these rattling, rolling
Alexandrines. Methinks they come more twangingly off to the music than
that briefer measure."

"Both are licensed, as is well known to your Grace," answered Blondel.

"They are so, Blondel," said Richard, "yet methinks the scene where
there is like to be fighting will go best on in these same thundering
Alexandrines, which sound like the charge of cavalry, while the other
measure is but like the sidelong amble of a lady's palfrey."

"It shall be as your Grace pleases," replied Blondel, and began again to
prelude.

"Nay, first cherish thy fancy with a cup of fiery Chios wine," said
the King. "And hark thee, I would have thee fling away that new-fangled
restriction of thine, of terminating in accurate and similar rhymes.
They are a constraint on thy flow of fancy, and make thee resemble a man
dancing in fetters."

"The fetters are easily flung off, at least," said Blondel, again
sweeping his fingers over the strings, as one who would rather have
played than listened to criticism.

"But why put them on, man?" continued the King. "Wherefore thrust thy
genius into iron bracelets? I marv