P Syria. And as he saylyd toward Surrye", How the folk off the hethene lawe, So Fabyan of Rosamond's bower, "that no creature, man or woman, myght wynne to her." i. e. go in, by contraction, Win. Chron. vol. i. p. 320. col. i. edit. 1533 [pinnan A. S. to labour, strive at, and hence attain to by labour.—EDIT.] Rob. Brun. Chron. p. 170. Thus R. de Brunne says, "he fon- 7 ["Trenchemere, so saith the boke.- As ony fowle by the lyfte."] And for joye off this dede, The cuppes fast abouten yede', With good wyn, pyement and clarré ; Kyng Richard, oute of hys galye, This fyr Gregeys, or Grecian fire, seems to be a composition belonging to the Arabian chemistry. It is frequently mentioned by the Byzantine historians, and was very much used in the wars of the middle ages, both by sea and land. It was a sort of wild-fire, said to be inextinguishable by water, and chiefly used for burning ships, against which it was thrown in pots or phials by the hand. In land engagements it seems to have been discharged by machines constructed on purpose. The oriental Greeks pretended that this artificial fire was invented by Callinicus, an architect of Heliopolis, under Constantine; and that Constantine prohibited them from communicating the manner of making it to any foreign people. It was however in common use among the nations confederated with the Byzantines: and Anna Comnena has given an account of its ingredients", which were bitumen, sulphur, and naphtha. It is called feu gregois in the French chronicles and romances. Our minstrel, I believe, is singular in saying that Richard scattered this fire on Saladin's ships: many monkish historians of the holy war, in describing the siege of Acon, relate that it was employed on that occasion, and many others, by the Saracens against the t went. " line 2593. See Du Cange, Not. ad Joinvil. p. 71. And Gl. Lat. V. IGNIS GRÆCUS. 8 [shalmys, shawms.] Christians. Procopius, in his history of the Goths, calls it MEDEA'S OIL, as if it had been a preparation used in the sorceries of that enchantress". The quantity of huge battering rams and other military engines, now unknown, which Richard is said to have transported into the Holy Land, was prodigious. The names of some of them are given in another part of this romance". It is an historical fact, that Richard was killed by the French from the shot of an arcubalist, a machine which he often worked skillfully with his own hands: and Guillaume le Briton, a Frenchman, in his Latin poem called Philippeis, introduces Atropos making a decree, that Richard should die by no other means than by a wound from this destructive instrument; the use of which, after it had been interdicted by the Pope in the year 1139, he revived, and is supposed to have shewn the French in the Crusades". Sunnes he hadde, on wondyr wyse; * See more particularly Chron. Rob. Brun. p. 170. And Benedict. Abb. p. 652. And Joinv. Hist. L. p. 39. 46. 52. 53. 62. 70. y iv. 11. z Twenty grete gynnes for the nones Kynge Richard sent for to cast stones, &c. Among these were the Mategriffon and the Robynet. Sign. N. iii. The former of these is thus described. Sign. E. iiii. I have a castell I understonde Is made of tembre of Englonde With syxe stages full of tourelles Well flouryshed with cornelles, &c. See Du Cange Not. Joinv. p. 68. MATEGRYFFON is the Terror or plague of the Greeks. Du Cange, in his Gallo-Byzantine history, mentions a castle of this name in Peloponnesus. Benedict says, that Richard erected a strong castle, which he called Mate-gryffon, on the brow of a steep mountain without the walls of the city of Messina in Sicily. Benedict. Abb. p. 621. ed. Hearn. sub ann. 1190. On kastelle wise allwais wrought of tre In schip he ded it lede, &c. ----- Pele is a house [a castle, fortification]. See Carpentier's Suppl. Du Cange, Lat. Gl. tom. i. p. 434. And Du Cange ad Ann. Alex. p. 357. b See supr. p. 71. Note". It is observable, that MANGANUM, Mangonell, was not known among the Roman military machines, but existed first in Byzantine Greek Mayyavov, a circumstance which seems to point out its inventors, at least to shew that it belonged to the Oriental 8 [gynnes, engines.] Arwblast bowe, and with gynne The Holy Lond for to wynne. A melled he hadde off gret maystry; Of torches maad with wex ful cleer; With strenges of wyr the stones hang 10; art of war. It occurs often in the By- 9 [made.] CHRISTIANA mentions a vast area at Con- See supr. p. 166. Note". 10[With spryngelles of fyre they dyde honde.]-Espringalles, Fr. engines. See Du Cange, Gl. Lat. SPINGARDA, QUADRELLUS. And Not. Joinv. p. 78. Perhaps he means pellets of tow dipped in the Grecian fire, which sometimes were thrown from a sort of mortar. Joinville says, that the Greek fire thrown from a mortar looked like a huge dragon flying through the air, and that at midnight the flashes of it illuminated the Christian camp, as if it had been broad day. When Louis's army was encamped on the banks of the Thanis in Egypt, says the same curious historian, about the year 1249, they erected two chats chateils, or covered galleries, to shelter their workmen, and at the end of them two befrois, or vast moveable wooden towers, full of crossbow men, who kept a continual discharge on the opposite shore. Besides eighteen other new-invented engines for throwing_stones and bolts. But in one night, the deluge of Greek fire ejected from the Saracen camp utterly destroyed these enormous machines. This was a common disaster; but Joinville says, that his pious monarch sometimes averted the danger, by prostrating himself on the ground, and invoking our Saviour with the appellation of Beau Sire. p. 37. 39. Beffore the trowgh there stood on; And hornes grete upon his hede, Sarezynes theroff hadde gret drede'. The last circumstance recalls a fiend-like appearance drawn by Shakespeare; in which, exclusive of the application, he has converted ideas of deformity into the true sublime, and rendered an image terrible, which in other hands would have probably been ridiculous. Methought his eyes Were two full moons, he had a thousand noses, Horns whelk'd and wav'd like the enridged sea. At the touch of this powerful magician, to speak in Milton's language, "The griesly terror grows tenfold more dreadful and deform." The moving castles described by our minstrel, which seem to be so many fabrics of romance, but are founded in real history, afforded suitable materials for poets who deal in the marvellous. Accordingly they could not escape the fabling genius of Tasso, who has made them instruments of enchantment, and accommodated them, with great propriety, to the operations of infernal spirits. At the siege of Babylon, the soldan Saladin sends king Richard a horse. The messenger says, "Thou sayest thy God is ful of myght: In bargeis and galeis he set mylnes to go, Som were rede and grene, the wynde about them blewe. The stones were of Rynes, the noyse dreadfull and grete It affraied the Sarazins, as leven the fyre out schete. The noyse was unride, &c. Rynes is the river Rhine, whose shores King Lear, iv. vi. |