Cleped me Beaufis.'

"Then said Arthour the king,
'This is a wonder thing
By God and Saint Denis!
When he that would be knight
Ne wot not what he hight,
And is so fair of vis.

"'Now will I give him a name
Before you all in same,
For he is so fair and free,
By God and by Saint Jame,
So cleped him ne'er his dame,
What woman so it be.

"'Now clepeth him all of us,
Li Beaus Disconus,
For the love of me!
Then may ye wite a rowe,
"'The Faire Unknowe,'
Certes, so hatte he"

John Gower's "Confessio Amantis" was a story book, like the
Canterbury Tales, with a contrivance of its own for stringing the
tales together, and Gower was at work on it nearly about the time
when his friend Chaucer was busy with his Pilgrims. The story here
extracted was an old favourite. It appeared in Greek about the year
800, in the romance of Barlaam and Josaphat. It was told by Vincent
of Beauvais in the year 1290 in his "Speculum Historiale;" and it