THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

66
© 2009 Max Wickert
The morning of the repast having arrived, the seneschal of the hall said to her: “Lady Drusiana, you
have no ladies-in-waiting to carve for you.” She delayed the dinner until King Armin was seated at
table, and then she entered with three damsels, she playing, and the three damsels dancing. Then
she, accompanied by three aged matrons, came up to her father, and there was much joy at her
arrival. After they had danced a little, she knelt down smiling and asked her father for twelve servers
to carve for the ladies she had invited.
The first to be so summoned was Augustine, and the king said to him: “Augustine, go serve and
carve before Drusiana.” Augustine, blushing modestly, was obliged to obey, and he went to
Drusiana’s chamber and was commanded to carve before her. While the dinner was being prepared
and the damsels were dancing, Drusiana took Bevis by the hand and asked him to dance.
After they had twice gone round the hall, Drusiana drew him aside and said: “What is your name?”
He replied, kneeling before her: “Madam, I am called Augustine.” “And how did you come to this
country? where are you from? and of what people, of what nation are you?” He replied: “Madam,
my father was a tradesman, that is to say, a miller, and my mother was a hired washer-woman; and I
am from the West, from a valley called Pizzany. 21 My mother grew enamored of a young man,
because my father was old, and she contrived that this young man murdered my father. After my
father’s death, she took this young man for a husband and tried to poison me, but I fled to the sea,
and a merchant ship came along, and I signaled to it and was taken aboard. I spent six months
serving those merchants. It has now been five years or a little more since they arrived in this
country and they sold me to your father. This is how I came to your house as a slave.” As he was
speaking these words, he wept, and Drusiana wept with him, and to comfort him said: “If you will
obey me, I shall enfranchise you and make you free.” Bevis bowed, saying: “My lady, I am prepared
21 Pizzany: orig. Pizzania, doubtless a lisping semi-pun on Britannia.