The Lay of Marie eBook

Matilda Betham-Edwards
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 204 pages of information about The Lay of Marie.

The Lay of Marie eBook

Matilda Betham-Edwards
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 204 pages of information about The Lay of Marie.
the bed, and passing several times over the face of the entranced Guilliadun, so far incensed the page, that with a blow of his stick he laid it dead at his feet, and then threw it on the floor.  The animal had lain there only a few moments, when another weasel, coming from the same hole, ran up, and attempted awhile to sport with it, and then, after exhibiting every appearance of grief, suddenly ran off into the wood, and returned with a flower of a beautiful vermilion colour, which it carefully inserted into the mouth of the dead animal.  The effect was sudden, the weasel instantaneously got upon its legs, and was preparing to escape; when the lady exclaimed to the page, to strike it again, and he aimed a second blow, that caused the creature to drop the flower, which Guildeluec instantly seized, and carefully placed between the lips of Guilliadun.  The plant had not lost its efficacy.  The princess, awakening from her trance, expressed her surprise at having slept so long, and then gazed with astonishment at the bed on which she lay, at the walls of the chapel by which she was surrounded, and at the two unknown figures, of Guildeluec and the page; who, kneeling by her side, loudly expressed their thanksgiving to the Almighty for what they thought her miraculous resurrection.  At length the good lady, having finished her devotions, began to question the fair stranger respecting her birth and preceding adventures, which she related with the utmost candour and exactness, till the fatal moment when the discovery of Eliduc’s prior marriage had deprived her of sense and motion.  The rest was better known to her hearers than herself; and Guildeluec, more and more charmed with her innocence, and frankness, after avowing herself, lost no time in comforting her, by the assurance that all her hopes and wishes might now be speedily gratified.  “Your youthful beauty,” said she, “might captivate any heart, and your merit will fix for ever that of Eliduc, who is unalterably attached to you, and whose grief for your loss was such as to preclude all hopes of consolation.  It is my intention to take the veil, and abandon all claim to those affections which are estranged from me for ever.  In restoring you to the now wretched Eliduc, I shall promote, by the only means in my power, that happiness to which I have hitherto been the unintentional obstacle.”  Guilliadun consented, with silent gratitude, to accept the sacrifice so generously offered, and was united to her lover as soon as the solemn ceremony had taken place, by which Guildeluec consecrated the remainder of her days to heaven, in a nunnery erected and endowed by her husband, on the site of the ancient hermitage.  Their union was followed by many years of happiness; and they closed a life of charity and benevolence by following the pious example of Guildeluec, who received Guilliadun into her order, while Eliduc took the cowl in a monastery, to the endowment of which he dedicated the remainder of his worldly possessions.  From the adventure of these three, “the olde gentil Bretons” (li auncien Bretun curteis) formed a lay to transmit to future ages.

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Project Gutenberg
The Lay of Marie from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.