And soon I heard the bell to matins ring,
And up I rose, no longer would I lie.
But now, how trow ye? such a fantasy
Fell me to mind, that aye methought the bell
Said to me, 'Tell on man what thee befell.'

Thought I tho' to myself, 'What may this be?
This is mine own imagining,
It is no life* that speaketh unto me;
It is a bell, or that impression
Of my thought causeth this illusion,
That maketh me think so nicely in this wise';
And so befell as I shall you devise."

*Living person.

Prince James says he had already wasted much ink and paper on
writing, yet at the bidding of the bell he decided to write some
new thing. So up he rose,

"And forth-with-all my pen in hand I took,
And made a + and thus began my book."

Prince James then tells of his past life, of how, when he was a
lad, his father sent him across the sea in a ship, and of how he
was taken prisoner and found himself in "Straight ward and strong
prison" "without comfort in sorrow." And there full often he
bemoaned his fate, asking what crime was his that he should be
shut up within four walls when other men were free.