appearance of Triamour, who then carried him off into fairy-land to
Olyroun.

The romance of _Sir Orpheo_, a mediaeval version of the classical story of
Orpheus and Eurydice, has come down to us in three manuscripts,[65] two of
which are not quite complete, which are to be assigned to the fifteenth
century at latest. As in the case of _Launfal_, it is doubtless a
translation from the French; but as there is no extant original, this can
only be presumed. Orpheus becomes Orpheo or Orfeo, and Eurydice becomes
Erodys, Heurodis, or Meroudys; in the last the initial letter may be due to
the _m_ in "dame," the word preceding it.

The story is told as follows.

In all the world there was no better harper than King Orfeo [Sir Orpheo],
and no fairer lady than dame Meroudys. On a morning in the beginning of
May, the queen went forth with her ladies to an orchard, and fell asleep
under an "ympe"[66] tree till it was long past noon. When her ladies woke
her, she cried aloud, tore her clothes, and disfigured herself with her
nails. They sought assistance and put her to bed in her chamber, whither
the king came to visit her, and ask her what might help her. She told him
how in her sleep she had been bidden by a knight to come and speak with his
lord the king; she refused, but the king came to her, with a hundred
knights and a hundred ladies in white on white steeds, and his crown was
all of precious stones. He bore her away to a fair palace, and showed her
his possessions. Then he took her back, but bade her be beneath the tree on
the morrow, when she should go with them and stay with them for ever.

King Orfeo was greatly distressed, and none could advise him. On the morrow
he took his queen and ten hundred knights to guard her beneath the ympe