Amadis of Gaul, Volume 1

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N. Biggs, 1803

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Page 28 - Sea was now twelve years old, but in stature and size he seemed fifteen, and he served the queen ; but now that Oriana was there, the queen gave her the Child of the Sea that he should serve her, and Oriana said that it pleased her, and that word which she said the Child kept in his heart, so that he never lost it from his memory, and in all his life he was never weary of serving her, and his heart was surrendered to her...
Page xxix - To have translated a closely printed folio would have been absurd. I have reduced it to about half its length, by abridging the words, not the story ; by curtailing the dialogue, avoiding all recapitulations of the past action, consolidating many of those single blows which have no reference to armorial anatomy, and passing over the occasional moralizings of the author.
Page 80 - Child's iword which was at the bed's-head, and looking at it he knew it well, as one wherewith he had given many and hard blows ; and he said to Elisena, By my God I know the sword ! Then Elisena took the Child by the arm, and wakened him, who awoke in wonder, and asked her why she wept. Ah ! said she, whose son art thou ? — So help me God I know not, for by great hap I was found in the sea ! The Queen fell at his feet, hearing him, and he cried, My God ! what is all this ? My son, quoth she, you...
Page 36 - Now are you a knight, and may receive the sword. The king took the sword, and gave it to him, and the child girded it on. Then, said Perion, According to your manner and appearance, I would have performed this ceremony with more honours, and I trust in God that your fame will prove that so it ought to have been done.
Page 33 - Remember, lady, the day whereon your father departed, the queen took me by the hand, and leading me before you, said, I give you this child to be your servant ; and you said it pleased you. And from that time I have held and hold myself yours to do you service : yours only, that neither I nor any other while I live can have command over me.
Page 28 - How, Child of the Sea ! said Languines, are you strong enough to maintain knighthood ? it is easy to receive, but difficult to maintain ; and he who would keep it well, so many and so difficult are the things he must achieve, that his heart will often be troubled ; and if, through fear, he forsakes what he ought to do, better is death to him than life with shame.
Page 30 - He took the presents, and laid the ring and the wax in his lap, while he unrolled the sword from a linen cloth in which it was wrapt, wondering that it should be without a scabbard. Meantime Oriana took up the wax, and said, I will have this...
Page vi - Briolania's desires, he remained, losing both his appetite and his sleep, till his life was in great danger. This being known in the court of King Lisuarte, his Lady Oriana, that she might not lose him, sent and commanded him to grant the damsel's desire ; and he having this command, and considering that by no other means could he recover his liberty, or keep his word, took that fair Queen for his leman, and had by her a son and a daughter at one birth. But it was not so, unless Briolania, seeing...
Page xv - ... here, and left the reader to infer that Amadis and Oriana, like the heroes of every nursery tale, lived very happy after. The chapters which follow in the Spanish are evidently added to introduce the fifth book, or what Montalvo, in something like a Quack's Greek, calls the Sergas of Esplandian. It is one romance growing out of another as clumsily as a young oyster upon the back of its parent.
Page xxx - D'Herberay, or obsolete in his time, is accordingly omitted, and all the foolish anachronisms and abominable obscenities of the Frenchman are retained. I kept my eye upon it as I proceeded, for the purpose of preserving its language where it was possible. A modern style would have altered the character of the book ; as far as was in my power I have avoided that fault, not by intermixing obsolete words, but by rendering the original structure of sentence as literally as was convenient, and by rejecting...

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