Save him from giant hand.

4.
He was a knight in battle bred,
And in no house would seek his bed,
But laid him in the wood;
His pillow was his helmet bright, -
His horse grazed by him all the night
On herbs both fine and good.

5.
And he drank water from the well,
As did the knight Sir Percival,
So worthy under weed;
Till on a day -

[Here Chaucer is interrupted in his Rime.]


EPILOGUE TO RIME.

"No more of this, for Heaven's high dignity!"
Quoth then our Host, "for, lo! thou makest me
So weary of thy very simpleness,
That all so wisely may the Lord me bless,
My very ears, with thy dull rubbish, ache.
Now such a rime at once let Satan take.
This may be well called 'doggrel rime,'" quoth he.
"Why so?" quoth I; "why wilt thou not let me
Tell all my tale, like any other man,