"Et je fais sçavoir à tous lecteurs de ce Livret que les choses que
je dis avoir vues et sues sont enregistrés icy, afin que vous pouviez
les regarder selon vostre bon sens, s'il vous plaist."
HERE IS APPENDED THE EPILOGUE THAT MESSIRE NICOLAS DE CAEN AFFIXED TO
THE BOOK WHICH HE HAD MADE ACCORDING TO THE BEST OF HIS ABILITY; AND
WHICH (IN CONSEQUENCE) HE DARED NOT APPRAISE.
_The Epilogue_
_A Son Livret_
Intrepidly depart, my little book, into the presence of that most
illustrious lady who bade me compile you. Bow down before her
judgment. And if her sentence be that of a fiery death, I counsel you
not to grieve at what cannot be avoided.
But, if by any miracle that glorious, strong fortress of the weak
consider it advisable that you remain unburned, pass thence, my little
book, to every man who may desire to purchase you, and live out your
little hour among these very credulous persons; and at your appointed
season perish and be forgotten. Thus may you share your betters' fate,
and be at one with those famed comedies of Greek Menander and all the
poignant songs of Sappho. _Et quid Pandoniae_--thus, little book, I
charge you to poultice your more-merited oblivion--_quid Pandoniae
restat nisi nomen Athenae?_
Yet even in your brief existence you may chance to meet with those who
will affirm that the stories you narrate are not true and protest
assertions which are only fables. To these you will reply that I, your
maker, was in my youth the quite unworthy servant of the most high and
noble lady, Dame Jehane, and in this period, at and about her house of
Havering-Bower, conversed in my own person with Dame Katharine, then
happily remarried to a private gentleman of Wales; and so obtained the
matter of the ninth story and of the tenth authentically. You will say
also that Messire de Montbrison afforded me the main matter of the
sixth and seventh stories, and many of the songs which this book
contains; and that, moreover, I once journeyed to Caer Idion and
talked for some two hours with Richard Holland (whom I found a very
old and garrulous and cheery person), and got of him the matter of the
eighth tale in this dizain, together with much information as concerns
the sixth and the seventh. And you will add that the matter of the
fourth and fifth tales was in every detail related to me by my most
illustrious mistress, Madame Isabella of Portugal, who had this
information from her mother, an equally veracious and immaculate lady,
and one that was in youth Dame Philippa's most dear associate. For the
rest you must admit, unwillingly, the first three stories in this book
to be a thought less solidly confirmed; although (as you will say)
even in these histories I have not ever deviated from what was at odd
times narrated to me by the aforementioned persons, and have always
endeavored honestly to piece together that which they told me.
I have pieced together these tales about the women who intermarried,
not very enviably, with the demon-tainted blood of Edward Longshanks,
because it seems to me that these tales, when they are rightly
considered, compose the initial portion of a troubling history.
Whether (as some declare) the taint came from Manuel of Poictesme, or
whether (as yet others say) this poison was inherited from the demon
wife whom Foulques Plantagenet fetched out of hell, the blood in these
men was not all human. These men might not tread equally with human
beings: their wives suffered therefor, just as they that had inherited
this blood suffered therefor, and all England suffered therefor. And
the upshot of it I have narrated elsewhere, in the book called and
entitled _The Red Cuckold_, which composes the final portion of this
history, and tells of the last spilling and of the extinction of this
blood.
Also, my little book, you will encounter more malignant people who
will jeer at you, and will say that you and I have cheated them of
your purchase-money. To these you will reply, with Plutarch, _Non mi
aurum posco, nec mi pretium_. Secondly you will say that, of
necessity, the tailor cuts the coat according to his cloth; and that
he cannot undertake to robe an Ephialtes or a towering Orion suitably
when the resources of his shop amount to only a few yards of cambric.
Indeed had I the power to make you better, my little book, I would
have exercised that power to the utmost. A good conscience is a
continual feast, and I summon high Heaven to be my witness that had I
been Homer you had awed the world, another Iliad. I lament your
inability to do this, as heartily as any person living; yet Heaven
willed it; and it is in consequence to Heaven these aforementioned
cavillers should rightfully complain.
So to such impious people do you make no answer at all, unless indeed
you should elect to answer them by repetition of this song which I now
make for you, my little book, at your departure from me. And the song
runs in this fashion:
Depart, depart, my book! and live and die
Dependent on the idle fantasy
Of men who cannot view you, quite, as I.
For I am fond, and willingly mistake
My book to be the book I meant to make,
And cannot judge you, for that phantom's sake.
Yet pardon me if I have wrought too ill
In making you, that never spared the will
To shape you perfectly, and lacked the skill.
Ah, had I but the power, my book, then I
Had wrought in you some wizardry so high
That no man but had listened ...
They pass by,
And shrug--as we, who know that unto us
It has been granted never to fare thus,
And never to be strong and glorious.
Is it denied me to perpetuate
What so much loving labor did create?--
I hear Oblivion tap upon the gate,
And acquiesce, not all disconsolate.
For I have got such recompense
Of that high-hearted excellence
Which the contented craftsman knows,
Alone, that to loved labor goes,
And daily does the work he chose,
And counts all else impertinence!