“Since they all fared alike,” said Hircan, “it seems to me that they did well to console one another.”

“Nay,” said Geburon, “they should never have acknowledged it for the sake of their own honour.  The books of the Round Table (7) teach us that it is not to the honour of a worthy knight to overcome one that is good for naught.”

7 Queen Margaret was well acquainted with these (see ante, vol. iii. p. 48).  In a list drawn up after her father’s death, of the two hundred volumes of books in his library, a most remarkable one for the times, we find specified several copies of “Lancelot,” “Tristan,” &c, some in MS. with miniatures and illuminated letters, and others printed on parchment.  Besides numerous religious writings, volumes of Aristotle, Ovid, Mandeville, Dante, the Chronicles of St. Denis, and the “Book of the Great Khan, bound in cloth of gold,” the library contained various works of a character akin to that of the Heptameron.  For instance, a copy of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles in print; a French translation of Poggio’s Facetio, also in print, and two copies of Boccaccio in MS., one of them bound in purple velvet, and richly illuminated, each page having a border of blue and silver.  This last if still in existence would be very valuable.—­Eu.

“I am amazed,” said Longarine, “that the unhappy woman did not die of shame in presence of her captives.”

“Those who have lost shame,” said Oisille, “can hardly ever recover it, excepting, however, she that has forgotten it through deep love.  Of such have I seen many return.”

“I think,” said Hircan, “that you must have seen the return of as many as went, for deep love in a woman is difficult to find.”

“I am not of your opinion,” said Longarine; “I think that there are some women who have loved to death.”

“So exceedingly do I desire to hear a tale of that kind,” said Hircan, “that I give you my vote in order to learn of a love in women that I had never deemed them to possess.”

“Well, if you hearken,” said Longarine, “you will believe, and will see that there is no stronger passion than love.  But while it prompts one to almost impossible enterprises for the sake of winning some portion of happiness in this life, so does it more than any other passion reduce that man or woman to despair, who loses the hope of gaining what is longed for.  This indeed you will see from the following story.”

[Illustration:  232.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration:  233a.jpg The Lady killing herself on the Death of her Lover]

[The Lady killing herself on the Death of her Lover]

[Illustration:  233.jpg Page Image]

TALE L.