sort of bungling prologue to the story proper.

Item, the re-teller of these stories desires hereby to tender
appropriate acknowledgment to Mr. R.E. Townsend for his assistance in
making an English version of the lyrics included hereinafter; and to
avoid discussion as to how freely, in these lyrics, Nicolas has
plagiarized from Raimbaut de Vaqueiras and other elder poets.[1]

And--"sixth and lastly"--should confession be made that in the present
rendering a purely arbitrary title has been assigned this little book;
chiefly for commercial reasons, since the word "dizain" has been
adjudged both untranslatable and, in its pristine form, repellantly
_outré_.


2

You are to give my titular makeshift, then, a wide interpretation; and
are always to remember that in the bleak, florid age these tales
commemorate this Chivalry was much the rarelier significant of any
personal trait than of a world-wide code in consonance with which all
estimable people lived and died. Its root was the assumption
(uncontested then) that a gentleman will always serve his God, his honor
and his lady without any reservation; nor did the many emanating by-laws
ever deal with special cases as concerns this triple, fixed, and
fundamental homage.



Such is the trinity served hereinafter. Now about lady-service, or