et wet
colours,--and they turned his natural descriptions into the natural
descriptions of "Windsor Forest" and the "Fables." The grand old
writer does not need translation or modernisation; but perhaps, if it
be done at all, it had better be reached in that way. For the benefit
of younger readers, I subjoin short prose versions of two of the
"Canterbury Tales,"--a story-book than which the world does not possess
a better. Listen, then, to the tale the Knight told as the pilgrims
rode to Canterbury:--

"There was once, as old stories tell, a certain Duke Theseus, lord and
governor of Athens. The same was a great warrior and conqueror of
realms. He defeated the Amazons, and wedded the queen of that country,
Hypolita. After his marriage, the duke, his wife, and his sister
Emily, with all their host, were riding towards Athens, when they were
aware that a company of ladies, clad in black, were kneeling two by two
on the highway, wringing their hands and filling the air with
lamentations. The duke, beholding this piteous sight, reined in his
steed and inquired the reason of their grief. Whereat one of the
ladies, queen to the slain King Capeneus, told him that at the siege of
Thebes (of which town they were), Creon, the conqueror, had thrown the
bodies of their husbands in a heap, and would on no account allow them
to be buried, so that their limbs were mangled by vultures and wild
beasts. At the hearing of this great wrong, the duke started down from
his horse, took the ladies one by one in his arms and comforted them,
sent Hypolita and Emily home, displayed his great white banner, and
immediately rode towards Thebes with his host. Arriving at the city,
he attacked boldly, slew the tyrant Creon with his own hand, tore down
the houses,--wall, roof, and rafter,--and then gave the bodies to the
weeping ladies that they might be honourably interred. While searching
amongst the slain Thebans, two young knights were found grievously
wounded, and by the richness of their armour they were known to be of
the blood royal. These young knights, Palamon and Arcite by name, the
duke carried to Athens and flung into perpetual prison. Here they
lived year by year in mourning and woe. It happened one May morning
that Palamon, who by the clemency of his keeper was roaming about in an
upper chamber, looked out and beheld Emily singing in the garden and
gathering flowers. At the sight of the beautiful apparition he started
and