Note 361 — BOOK VIII. (continued 2)

Our author has given an extract from the interesting manuscript which has furnished him with this account; but it is so long, the French is so old, and the story so well known, I have thought best to omit it—a translation would spoil it. It is remarkable that the manuscript chronicle makes Richard see Blondel, and sing first—our author reverses this:—Ensi com il estoit en cette pensée, li rois regarde et vie Blondel, et pensa comment li se feroit à lui connoistre, et li souvint d’une canchon que ils avoient fait entre aus deux que nus ne savoit fois que il roi. Si commencha haut et clerement à canter le premier vier, car il cantoit très bien. There appear to me discrepancies in the language of this manuscript chronicle, which make the date of it, the thirteenth century, very apocryphal.—Trans.