he sorrowful
company receive him, kneeling by two and two clothed in black, along the
highway, might persuade you that Sir Matheu had read the OEdipus
Tyrannus, and successfully imitated OEdipus's dolorous and picturesque
reception in the streets of Thebes, by the kneeling, plague-smitten
population of the city.

On the other hand, the claim of redress at the hand of the warrior carries
your imagination to the interesting volumes of St Palaye; and clearly
refers to the obligation by which the knight, at his investiture, bound
himself to redress all wrongs, especially those of the ladies. And Theseus
is nothing slack in acknowledging the obligation. He dismounts, takes them
each and all up in his arms,

"And swore his oth, _as he was trewe knight_,"

that he will do his endeavour that the world shall applaud the chastising
of the "false king."--Again, when the one day's demolishing fight has
given Creon to death, and his Land into Theseus's hand, and the two right
Heroes of the Tale, the Theban cousins, Palamon and Arcite, are dragged
out, half-alive and half-dead, from the heap of the slain, the "herauds"
know them, by the "cote-armoure," to be of the blood-royal. Of course,
they are designated "knights."--Again: Theseus will take no ransom for
them. That is perhaps, indifferently, ancient or modern; but it sounds to
our ears rather modern, that he shuts them up in a high tower, which
overlooks the Garden of his Palace.

But now we plunge into the bosom of our own Heroic times. To do observance
to the May is a rite that we find continually occurring in the poetry of
the middle ages. It is on May morning that Emelie, going into the garden
to gather flowers, and wreathe for herself a coronal, is first seen by the
two captive Theban kinsmen. Again, when Arcite, liberated by the
intervention of Pirithous, has returned, and is living unrecognized in the
service of Theseus, it is precisely upon the same occasion of going into
the wood to gather "grenes" for May morning, that he falls in with
Palamon, who has the night before broken prison, and hides himself during
the day in the forest--which encounter leads to their set encounter in
arms the next day, and so to the interruption of their duel by Theseus
himself, and so to all the consequent course of events. Whatever the true
rites of returning May may have been, in classical antiquity, the
observance comes into this tale from the manners of mediaeval Europe, not
of anc