Trishtubh ( Sanskrit : त्रिष्टुभ् , IPA: [tɽɪˈʂʈʊbʱ] , IAST : Triṣṭubh ) is a Vedic metre of 44 syllables (four padas of eleven syllables each), or any hymn composed in this metre. It is the most prevalent metre of the Rigveda , accounting for roughly 40% of its verses.
64-465: The Trishtubh pada contains a "break" or caesura , after either four or five syllables, necessarily at a word-boundary and if possible at a syntactic break. Different scholars have different methods of showing the structure of the line. Thus Hermann Oldenberg (1888) divided the line into three sections by placing one break at the caesura and another break four syllables before the end: E. Vernon Arnold (1905) divided it into 4 + 3 + 4 syllables, whatever
128-448: A comma ( , ), a tick ( ✓ ), or two lines, either slashed ( // ) or upright ( || ). In time value, this break may vary between the slightest perception of silence all the way up to a full pause . In classical Greek and Latin poetry a caesura is the juncture where one word ends and the following word begins within a foot. In contrast, a word juncture at the end of a foot is called a diaeresis . Some caesurae are expected and represent
192-471: A literary genre , the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of high medieval and early modern Europe . They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures , often of a chivalric knight-errant portrayed as having heroic qualities, who goes on a quest . It developed further from the epics as time went on; in particular, "the emphasis on love and courtly manners distinguishes it from
256-469: A quest , and fights and defeats monsters and giants, thereby winning favor with a lady . The Matter of France, most popular early, did not lend itself to the subject of courtly love , but rather dealt with heroic adventure: in The Song of Roland , Roland, though betrothed to Oliver's sister, does not think of her during the course of events. The themes of love were, however, to soon appear, particularly in
320-512: A Medieval work has also been noted to contains many magical or supernatural references. Drawing from many different sources, some notable allusions include elements of Christianity (an example being the multiple references to the Holy Grail ) as well as elements of Celtic legends. The Medieval romance developed out of the medieval epic, in particular the Matter of France developing out of such tales as
384-516: A fermata). A fermata may be placed over a caesura to indicate a longer pause. In musical notation , a caesura is marked by double oblique lines, similar to a pair of slashes ⟨//⟩ . The symbol is popularly called "tram-lines" in the UK and "railroad tracks" or "train tracks" in the US. The length of a caesura where notated is at the discretion of the musician. Romance (heroic literature) As
448-718: A magical interlude in Tasso 's Gerusalemme liberata . In the Renaissance , also, the romance genre was bitterly attacked as barbarous and silly by the humanists , who exalted Greek and Latin classics and classical forms, an attack that was not in that century very effective among the common readers. In England, romances continued; heavily rhetorical, they often had complex plots and high sentiment, such as in Robert Greene 's Pandosto (the source for William Shakespeare 's The Winter's Tale ) and Thomas Lodge 's Rosalynde (based on
512-496: A minor thread in the episodic stream of romantic adventures. Some romances, such as Apollonius of Tyre , show classical pagan origins. Tales of the Matter of Rome in particular may be derived from such works as the Alexander Romance . Ovid was used as a source for tales of Jason and Medea, which were cast in romance in a more fairy-tale-like form, probably closer to the older forms than Ovid's rhetoric. It also drew upon
576-424: A new persecutor appeared: a courtier who was rejected by the woman or whose ambition requires her removal, and who accuses her of adultery or high treason, motifs not duplicated in fairy tales. While he never eliminates the mother-in-law, many romances such as Valentine and Orson have later variants that change from the mother-in-law to the courtier, whereas a more recent version never goes back. In Italy there
640-460: A point of articulation between two phrases or clauses. All other caesurae are only potentially places of articulation. The opposite of an obligatory caesura is a bridge where word juncture is not permitted. In modern European poetry, a caesura is defined as a natural phrase end, especially when occurring in the middle of a line. A masculine caesura follows a stressed syllable while a feminine caesura follows an unstressed syllable. A caesura
704-507: A presence. Many early tales had the knight, such as Sir Launfal , meet with fairy ladies, and Huon of Bordeaux is aided by King Oberon , but these fairy characters were transformed, more and more often, into wizards and enchantresses. Morgan le Fay never loses her name, but in Le Morte d'Arthur , she studies magic rather than being inherently magical. Similarly, knights lose magical abilities. Still, fairies never completely vanished from
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#1733085751940768-590: A punctuation mark called the danda is used to mark subdivisions in text, with single and double variants variously marking phrases, sentences, semi-verses, verses, or larger sections. An example of the use of danda as caesurae in Indian poetry is in the "dohas" or couplet poems of Sant Kabir Das , a 15th-century poet who was central to the Bhakti movement in Hinduism . Kabir employs the danda to mark semi-verse and verse, as in
832-584: A variant of the single-bar virgula ("twig") used as a caesura mark in medieval manuscripts. The same mark separately developed as the virgule , the single slash used to mark line breaks in poetry. Caesurae were widely used in Greek poetry . For example, in the opening line of the Iliad : This line includes a masculine caesura after θεὰ, a natural break that separates the line into two logical parts. Homeric lines more commonly employ feminine caesurae; this preference
896-399: Is a marked tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love , such as faithfulness in adversity. From c. 1760 – usually cited as 1764 at the publication of Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto – the connotations of "romance" moved from fantastic and eerie, somewhat Gothic adventure narratives of novelists like Ann Radcliffe 's A Sicilian Romance (1790) or The Romance of
960-529: Is also applicable to romance narratives. Overwhelmingly, these were linked in some way, perhaps only in an opening frame story , with three thematic cycles of tales: these were assembled in imagination at a late date as the " Matter of Rome " (actually centered on the life and deeds of Alexander the Great conflated with the Trojan War ), the " Matter of France " ( Charlemagne and Roland , his principal paladin ) and
1024-475: Is also described by its position in a line of poetry: a caesura close to the beginning of a line is called an initial caesura, one in the middle of a line is medial , and one near the end of a line is terminal. Initial and terminal caesurae are rare in formal, Romance , and Neoclassical verse , which prefer medial caesurae. In verse scansion , the modern caesura mark is a double vertical bar ⟨||⟩ or ⟨ ‖ {\displaystyle \|} ⟩,
1088-417: Is considerable. Modern usage of term "romance" usually refer to the romance novel , which is a subgenre that focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people; these novels must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Despite the popularity of this popular meaning of Romance, other works are still referred to as romances because of their uses of other elements descended from
1152-547: Is described in medieval terminology. When Priam sends Paris to Greece in a 14th-century work, Priam is dressed in the mold of Charlemagne, and Paris is dressed demurely, but in Greece, he adopts the flashier style, with multicolored clothing and fashionable shoes, cut in lattice-work—signs of a seducer in the era. Historical figures reappeared, reworked, in romance. The entire Matter of France derived from known figures, and suffered somewhat because their descendants had an interest in
1216-570: Is observed to an even higher degree among the Alexandrian poets. An example of a feminine caesura is the opening line of the Odyssey : Occasionally (about 1 line in 100) the caesura comes in the 4th foot only. Caesurae were widely used in Latin poetry , for example, in the opening line of Virgil 's Aeneid : This line uses caesura in the medial position. In dactylic hexameter, a caesura occurs any time
1280-476: Is rescued by another woman and a tournament that he wins. Other examples of Italian (Tuscan) poetry tales are Antonio Pucci's literature: Gismirante, Il Brutto di Bretagna or Brito di Bretagna ("The ugly knight of Britain") and Madonna Lionessa ("Lioness Lady"). Another work of a second anonymous Italian author that is worth mentioning is Istoria di Tre Giovani Disperati e di Tre Fate ("Story of three desperate boys and three fairies"). The Arthurian cycle as
1344-511: Is shared by most of the oldest Germanic languages , the caesura is an ever-present and necessary part of the verse form itself. The opening line of Beowulf reads: The basic form is accentual verse , with four stresses per line separated by a caesura. Old English poetry added alliteration and other devices to this basic pattern. William Langland 's Piers Ploughman : In the Brahmic scripts of South and Southeast Asia (e.g. Devanagari ),
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#17330857519401408-466: Is so obsessed by chivalric romances that he seeks to emulate their various heroes.) Hudibras also lampoons the faded conventions of chivalrous romance, from an ironic, consciously realistic viewpoint. Some of the magical and exotic atmosphere of Romance informed tragedies for the stage, such as John Dryden 's collaborative The Indian Queen (1664) as well as Restoration spectaculars and opera seria , such as Handel 's Rinaldo (1711), based on
1472-406: Is the story called Il Bel Gherardino . It is the most ancient prototype of an Italian singing fairy tale by an anonymous Tuscan author. It tells the story of a young Italian knight, depleted for its "magnanimitas", who wins the love of a fairy. When he loses this love because he does not comply with her conditions, Gherardino reconquers his lady after a series of labours, including the prison where he
1536-557: The Chanson de Geste , with intermediate forms where the feudal bonds of loyalty had giants, or a magical horn, added to the plot. The epics of Charlemagne , unlike such ones as Beowulf , already had feudalism rather than the tribal loyalties; this was to continue in romances. The romance form is distinguished from the earlier epics of the Middle Ages by the changes of the 12th century, which introduced courtly and chivalrous themes into
1600-450: The chanson de geste and other kinds of epic , in which masculine military heroism predominates." Popular literature also drew on themes of romance, but with ironic , satiric , or burlesque intent. Romances reworked legends , fairy tales , and history to suit the readers' and hearers' tastes, but by c. 1600 they were out of fashion, and Miguel de Cervantes famously burlesqued them in his novel Don Quixote . Still,
1664-666: The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) – including their love affairs – and where a predominantly oral tradition which survived in the Balkans and Anatolia until modern times. This genre may have intermingled with its Western counterparts during the long occupation of Byzantine territories by French and Italian knights after the 4th crusade. This is suggested by later works in the Greek language which show influences from both traditions. In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there
1728-476: The ballad , Tom o' Bedlam ): In later and freer verse forms, the caesura is optional. It can, however, be used for rhetorical effect, as in Alexander Pope 's line: In music, a caesura denotes a brief, silent pause , during which metrical time is not counted . Similar to a silent fermata , caesurae are located between notes or measures (before or over bar lines ), rather than on notes or rests (as with
1792-415: The common meter of the hymnodists (see also hymn ), is usually thought of as a line of iambic tetrameter followed by a line of trimeter , but it can also be considered a line of heptameter with a fixed caesura at the fourth foot. Considering the break as a caesura in these verse forms, rather than a beginning of a new line, explains how sometimes multiple caesurae can be found in this verse form (from
1856-576: The modern image of "medieval" is more influenced by the romance than by any other medieval genre, and the word medieval evokes knights, damsels in distress , dragons , and other romantic tropes . Originally, romance literature was written in Old French (including Anglo-Norman ), Old Occitan , and Early Franco-Provençal , and later in Old Portuguese , Old Spanish , Middle English , Old Italian (Sicilian poetry), and Middle High German . During
1920-571: The " Matter of Britain " (the lives and deeds of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table , within which was incorporated the quest for the Holy Grail ); medieval authors explicitly described these as comprising all romances. The three "matters" were first described in the 12th century by French poet Jean Bodel , whose epic Chanson des Saisnes [ fr ] ("Song of the Saxons") contains
1984-618: The Dane (a translation of the anonymous AN Lai d'Haveloc); around the same time Gottfried von Strassburg 's version of the Tristan of Thomas of Britain (a different Thomas to the author of 'Horn') and Wolfram von Eschenbach 's Parzival translated classic French romance narrative into the German tongue. During the early 13th century, romances were increasingly written as prose, and extensively amplified through cycles of continuation. These were collated in
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2048-483: The Dane , Roswall and Lillian , Le Bone Florence of Rome , and Amadas . Indeed, some tales are found so often that scholars group them together as the " Constance cycle" or the " Crescentia cycle"—referring not to a continuity of character and setting, but to the recognizable plot. Many influences are clear in the forms of chivalric romance. The earliest medieval romances dealt heavily with themes from folklore, which diminished over time, though remaining
2112-616: The English Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory ( c. 1408 – c. 1471 ), the Valencian Tirant lo Blanch , and the Castilian or Portuguese Amadís de Gaula (1508), spawned many imitators, and the genre was popularly well-received, producing such masterpiece of Renaissance poetry as Ludovico Ariosto 's Orlando furioso and Torquato Tasso 's Gerusalemme Liberata and other 16th-century literary works in
2176-469: The Forest (1791) with erotic content to novels centered on the episodic development of a courtship that ends in marriage. With a female protagonist, during the rise of Romanticism the depiction of the course of such a courtship within contemporary conventions of realism , the female equivalent of the " novel of education ", informs much Romantic fiction . In gothic novels such as Bram Stoker 's Dracula ,
2240-551: The Matter of Britain, leading to even the French regarding King Arthur's court as the exemplar of true and noble love, so much so that even the earliest writers about courtly love would claim it had reached its true excellence there, and love was not what it was in King Arthur's day. A perennial theme was the rescue of a lady from the imperiling monster , a theme that would remain throughout
2304-577: The Swedish literary work Frithjof's saga , which was based on the Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna , became successful in England and Germany . It was translated twenty-two times into English, 20 times into German, and into many other European languages, including modern Icelandic in 1866. Their influence on authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien , William Morris and Poul Anderson and on the subsequent modern fantasy genre
2368-450: The Vedic anushtubh ) is interspersed with Trishtubhs. A particularly long section of Trishtubhs is chapter 11, verses 15-50. Caesura A caesura ( / s ɪ ˈ zj ʊər ə / , pl . caesuras or caesurae ; Latin for " cutting "), also written cæsura and cesura , is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begins. It may be expressed by
2432-623: The behavior of Lancelot conforms to the courtly love ideal; it also, though still full of adventure, devotes an unprecedented amount of time to dealing with the psychological aspects of the love. By the end of the 14th century, counter to the earliest formulations, many French and English romances combined courtly love, with love sickness and devotion on the man's part, with the couple's subsequent marriage; this featured in Sir Degrevant , Sir Torrent of Portyngale , Sir Eglamour , and William of Palerne . Ipomadon even explicitly describes
2496-508: The caesura has come to represent a pronounced pause in order to emphasize lines in Old English poetry that would otherwise be considered to be a droning, monotonous line. This makes the caesura arguably more important to the Old English verse than it was to Latin or Greek poetry. In Latin or Greek poetry, the caesura could be suppressed for effect in any line. In the alliterative verse that
2560-637: The caesura: A more recent author, H. N. Randle (1957), on the other hand, divides it 4 + 4 + 3: The division 4 + 4 + 3 is also favoured by the comparative metrist Paul Kiparsky (2018). Because the line is catalectic , the final four syllables form a trochaic cadence. A statistical study of 600 lines by Randle shows that 75% of triṣṭubh lines start with an iambic pattern (x – x –). The opening x u – – accounts for another 10%, x – ᴗ ᴗ for 6%, and x – – ᴗ for 4%. The second measure tends not to be fully iambic: x – ᴗ – occurs in less than 7% of lines and x – – – hardly at all. The most common forms of
2624-431: The early 13th century, romances were increasingly written as prose. In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a marked tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love , such as faithfulness in adversity. Unlike the later form of the novel and like the chansons de geste , the genre of romance dealt with traditional themes. These were distinguished from earlier epics by heavy use of marvelous events,
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2688-412: The elements of love, and the frequent use of a web of interwoven stories, rather than a simple plot unfolding about a main character. The earliest forms were invariably in verse, but the 15th century saw many in prose, often retelling the old, rhymed versions. The romantic form pursued the wish-fulfillment dream where the heroes and heroines were considered representations of the ideals of the age while
2752-423: The elements of romantic seduction and desire were mingled with fear and dread. Nathaniel Hawthorne used the term to distinguish his works as romances rather than novels, and literary criticism of the 19th century often accepted the contrast between the romance and the novel, in such works as H. G. Wells 's "scientific romances" in the beginning of science fiction . In 1825, the fantasy genre developed when
2816-537: The emergence of Scandinavian verse romance in Sweden under the patronage of Queen Euphemia of Rügen , who commissioned the Eufemiavisorna . Another trend of the high Middle Ages was the allegorical romance, inspired by the wildly popular Roman de la Rose . In late medieval and Renaissance high culture, the important European literary trend was to fantastic fictions in the mode of Romance. Exemplary work, such as
2880-500: The ending of a word does not coincide with the beginning or the end of a metrical foot; in modern prosody , however, it is only called one when the ending also coincides with an audible pause in the line. The ancient elegiac couplet form of the Greeks and Romans contained a line of dactylic hexameter followed by a line of pentameter . The pentameter often displayed a clearer caesura, as in this example from Propertius : In Old English ,
2944-455: The expression of romance narrative in the later Middle Ages, at least until the resurgence of verse during the high Renaissance in the oeuvres of Ludovico Ariosto , Torquato Tasso , and Edmund Spenser . In Old Norse, they are the prose riddarasögur or chivalric sagas. The genre began in thirteenth-century Norway with translations of French chansons de geste ; it soon expanded to similar indigenous creations. The early fourteenth century saw
3008-553: The following couplet: Caesura is very important in Polish syllabic verse (as in French alexandrine ). Every line longer than eight syllables is divided into two half-lines. Lines composed of the same number of syllables with division in different place are considered to be completely different metrical patterns. For example, Polish alexandrine (13) is almost always divided 7+6. It has been very common in Polish poetry for last five centuries. But
3072-448: The following is common: An example of a triṣṭubh stanza is RV 2 .3.1: Following Randle's division, the above lines can be scanned as follows: The Avesta has a parallel stanza of 4x11 syllables with a caesura after the fourth syllable. Trishtubh verses are also used in later literature, its archaic associations used to press home a "Vedic" character of the poetry. The Bhagavad Gita , while mostly composed in shloka (developed from
3136-409: The following percentages in the various positions: The two caesura positions (after the 4th or 5th syllable) according to Randle's statistics, are almost exactly equally common overall. But when the second measure is – ᴗ ᴗ –, a caesura after the 5th syllable is four times more common. Thus, summing up the statistics above, the most common scheme is: But when the caesura comes after the 4th syllable,
3200-500: The judgement of many learned readers in the shifting intellectual atmosphere of the 17th century, the romance was trite and childish literature, inspiring only broken-down ageing and provincial persons such as Don Quixote , knight of the culturally isolated province of La Mancha . ( Don Quixote [1605, 1615], by Miguel de Cervantes [1547–1616], is a satirical story of an elderly country gentleman, living in La Mancha province, who
3264-479: The lines: Ne sont que III matières à nul homme atandant: De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant There are only three subject matters for any discerning man: That of France, that of Britain, and that of great Rome. In reality, a number of "non-cyclical" romances were written without any such connection; these include such romances as King Horn , Robert the Devil , Ipomadon , Emaré , Havelok
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#17330857519403328-442: The married couple as lovers, and the plot of Sir Otuel was altered, to allow him to marry Belyssant. Similarly, Iberian romances of the 14th century praised monogamy and marriage in such tales as Tirant lo Blanc and Amadís de Gaula . Many medieval romances recount the marvellous adventures of a chivalrous, heroic knight , often of super-human ability, who, abiding chivalry's strict codes of honor and demeanor, goes on
3392-409: The medieval romance Gamelyn and the source for As You Like It ), Robert Duke of Normandy (based on Robert the Devil ) and A Margarite of America . The Acritic songs (dealing with Digenis Acritas and his fellow frontiersmen) resemble much the chanson de geste , though they developed simultaneously but separately. These songs dealt with the hardships and adventures of the border guards of
3456-554: The medieval romance, or from the Romantic movement: larger-than-life heroes and heroines, drama and adventure, marvels that may become fantastic, themes of honor and loyalty, or fairy-tale-like stories and story settings. Shakespeare's later comedies, such as The Tempest or The Winter's Tale are sometimes called his romances . Modern works may differentiate from love-story as romance into different genres, such as planetary romance or Ruritanian romance . Science fiction was, for
3520-560: The metre 13(8+5) occurs only rarely and 13(6+7) can be hardly found. In Polish accentual-syllabic verse caesura is not so important but iambic tetrametre (very popular today) is usually 9(5+4). Caesura in Polish syllabic verse is almost always feminine, while in accentual-syllabic (especially iambic) verse it is often masculine: sSsSsSsS//sSsSsSsSs. There are also metrical patterns with two or three caesuras, for example 18[9(5+4)+9(5+4)]. Caesurae can occur in later forms of verse, where they are usually optional. The so-called ballad meter, or
3584-623: The romance genre. The romances were freely drawn upon for royal pageantry. Queen Elizabeth I's Accession Day tilts, for instance, drew freely on the multiplicity of incident from romances for the knights' disguises. Knights even assumed the names of romantic figures, such as the Swan Knight , or the coat-of-arms of such figures as Lancelot or Tristan. From the high Middle Ages, in works of piety, clerical critics often deemed romances to be harmful worldly distractions from more substantive or moral works, and by 1600 many secular readers would agree; in
3648-575: The romances of the medieval era. Originally, this literature was written in Old French (including Anglo-Norman ) and Old Occitan , later, in Old Spanish , Middle English and Middle High German – amongst the important Spanish texts was Book of the Knight Zifar ; notable later English works being King Horn (a translation of the Anglo-Norman (AN) Romance of Horn of Mestre Thomas), and Havelok
3712-438: The second measure are x ᴗ ᴗ – (63%) and x ᴗ – – (30%). When x ᴗ – – is used, the caesura always follows the 4th syllable. Another study, by Gunkel and Ryan (2011), based on a much larger corpus, confirms the above and shows that the propensity for a syllable to be long in a triṣṭubh is greatest in the 2nd, 4th, 5th 8th and 10th positions of the line, while the 6th and 9th are almost always short. Long (heavy) syllables are found in
3776-656: The tales that were told of their ancestors, unlike the Matter of Britain. Richard Coeur de Lion reappeared in romance, endowed with a fairy mother who arrived in a ship with silk sails and departed when forced to behold the sacrament, bare-handed combat with a lion, magical rings, and prophetic dreams. Hereward the Wake 's early life appeared in chronicles as the embellished, romantic adventures of an exile, complete with rescuing princesses and wrestling with bears. Fulk Fitzwarin , an outlaw in King John's day, has his historical background
3840-622: The tradition. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late tale, but the Green Knight himself is an otherworldly being. Early persecuted heroines were often driven from their husbands' homes by the persecutions of their mothers-in-law, whose motives are seldom delineated, and whose accusations are of the heroines' having borne monstrous children, committed infanticide, or practiced witchcraft — all of which appear in such fairy tales as The Girl Without Hands and many others. As time progressed,
3904-500: The traditions of magic that were attributed to such figures as Virgil. The new courtly love was not one of the original elements of the genre, but quickly became very important when introduced. It was introduced to the romance by Chretien de Troyes , combining it with the Matter of Britain, new to French poets. In Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (unlike his earlier Erec and Enide ),
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#17330857519403968-506: The vast, polymorphous manuscript witnesses comprising what is now known as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle , with the romance of La Mort le Roi Artu c. 1230 , perhaps its final installment. These texts, together with a wide range of further Arthurian material, such as that found in the anonymous English Brut Chronicle , comprised the bases of Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . Prose literature thus increasingly dominated
4032-513: The villains embodied the threat to their ascendancy. There is also a persistent archetype, which involved a hero's quest. This quest or journey served as the structure that held the narrative together. With regards to the structure, scholars recognize the similarity of the romance to folk tales. Vladimir Propp identified a basic form for this genre and it involved an order that began with initial situation, then followed by departure, complication, first move, second move, and resolution. This structure
4096-466: The works. This occurred regardless of congruity to the source material; Alexander the Great featured as a fully feudal king. Chivalry was treated as continuous from Roman times. This extended even to such details as clothing; when in the Seven Sages of Rome , the son of an (unnamed) emperor of Rome wears the clothing of a sober Italian citizen, and when his stepmother attempts to seduce him, her clothing
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