“Deliver us out of all this busy dread, 2453 And take a wife, for highë Goddë’s sake: For if it so befell, as God forbid, That through your death your lineage should slake, 2454 And that a strange successor shouldë take Your heritage, oh! woe were us on live: 2455 Wherefore we pray you hastily to wive.”

Their meekë prayer and their piteous cheer Made the marquis for to have pitý. “Ye will,” quoth he, “mine owen people dear, To that I ne’er ere 2456 thought constrainë me. I me rejoiced of my liberty, That seldom time is found in marriáge; Where I was free, I must be in serváge! 2457