Soon after this, his old wife dying, he married the relict of the old knight. They lived many years, and ended their days in peace[1].
APPLICATION.
My beloved, the two knights are Moses and Christ. The latter, who is the old knight, married a young wife, that is, the new law. The old wife is the old law. The fig-tree is the Cross; the nightingale, Christ's humanity, which the Jews destroyed. The heart of the bird, is the love exhibited by our Saviour. The double arms, are the Jewish ceremonies, &c.
- ↑ This is strange justice; but I suppose the Monk meant to inculcate what Pope, after Chaucer, has since observed, that—
"No greater folly can be seen,
"Than crooked eighty, coupled to eighteen."
The maxim is indisputable; but I wish the writer of the Gest had otherwise expressed it.
The above story is among the Lays of Marie, (a French poetess, Temp. Henry III. resident in England,) under the title of Laustic. Mr. Ellis, in his abstract, has not noticed its occurrence in the "Gesta Romanorum."
