THE PRINCESS 25
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nd paw’d his beard, and mutter’d, “catalepsy.” 20My mother pitying made a thousand prayers ;My mother was as mild as any saint,Half-canonized by all that look’d on her,So gracious was her tact and tenderness :But my good father thought a king a king ; 25| He cared not for the affection of the house ;| He held his scepter like a pedant’s wandTo lash offense, and with long arms and handsReach’d out, and pick’d offenders from the massFor judgment.Now it chanced that I had been, 30While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth’dTo one, a neighboring Princess : she to meWas proxy-wedded with a bootless calfAt eight years old ; and still from time to timeCame murmurs of her beauty from the South, 35' And of her brethren, youths of puissance ;And still I wore her picture by my heart,And one dark tress ; and all around them bothSweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen. But when the days grew nigh that I should wed, 40My father sent ambassadors with fursAnd jewels, gifts, to fetch her : these brought backA present, a great labor of the loom ;And therewithal an answer vague as wind : _ 23. Half-canonized. regarded almost asa saint. 27. pedant, here used in its old sense of schoolmaster. 33, Proxy-wedded with a bootless calf. In the ceremony of proxy-marriage, which was common during the Middle Ages, the representa-. tive of the bridegroom removed his boot and placed his leg, bare to.the knee, in the bridal bed. Anne of Brittany and Maximilian of Austria were so married in 1489,
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