after his father.  This Solomon was wise, and knew all the virtues of stones and trees, and so he knew the course of the stars, and many other divers things.  This Solomon had an evil wife, wherethrough he weened that there had been no good women, and so he despised them in his books.  So answered a voice him once:  Solomon, if heaviness come to a man by a woman, ne reck thou never; for yet shall there come a woman whereof there shall come greater joy to man an hundred times more than this heaviness giveth sorrow; and that woman shall be born of thy lineage.  Then when Solomon heard these words he held himself but a fool, and the truth he perceived by old books.  Also the Holy Ghost showed him the coming of the glorious Virgin Mary.  Then asked he of the voice, if it should be in the yerde of his lineage.  Nay, said the voice, but there shall come a man which shall be a maid, and the last of your blood, and he shall be as good a knight as Duke Josua, thy brother-in-law.

CHAPTER VI

How Solomon took David’s sword by the counsel of his wife, and of other matters marvellous

Now have I certified thee of that thou stoodest in doubt.  Then was Solomon glad that there should come any such of his lineage; but ever he marvelled and studied who that should be, and what his name might be.  His wife perceived that he studied, and thought she would know it at some season; and so she waited her time, and asked of him the cause of his studying, and there he told her all together how the voice told him.  Well, said she, I shall let make a ship of the best wood and most durable that men may find.  So Solomon sent for all the carpenters of the land, and the best.  And when they had made the ship the lady said to Solomon: 

Sir, said she, syne it is so that this knight ought to pass all knights of chivalry which have been tofore him and shall come after him, moreover I shall tell you, said she, ye shall go into Our Lord’s temple, where is King David’s sword, your father, the which is the marvelloust and the sharpest that ever was taken in any knight’s hand.  Therefore take that, and take off the pommel, and thereto make ye a pommel of precious stones, that it be so subtilely made that no man perceive it but that they be all one; and after make there an hilt so marvellously and wonderly that no man may know it; and after make a marvellous sheath.  And when ye have made all this I shall let make a girdle thereto such as shall please me.  All this King Solomon did let make as she devised, both the ship and all the remnant.  And when the ship was ready in the sea to sail, the lady let make a great bed and marvellous rich, and set her upon the bed’s head, covered with silk, and laid the sword at the feet, and the girdles were of hemp, and therewith the king was angry.  Sir,