OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN 



across a ship into which he enters, and which 

 by unseen means carries him to the desired 

 haven. As we read the description of the ship, 

 our thoughts at once revert to the picture of the 

 barge in which Cleopatra goes to meet Antony. 

 Marie tells us that the fittings are of ebony, and 

 the unfurled sail of silk. Amid the vessel is a 

 bed on to which the wounded knight sinks in 

 anguish. This is of cypress and white ivory 

 inlaid with gold, the quilt of silk and gold 

 tissue, and the coverlet of sable lined with 

 Alexandrian purple. 1 All this we might regard 

 as merely a poet's fancy were it not that we go 

 on to read that there were set two candlesticks 

 of fine gold with lighted tapers. Here we have 

 the clue. Doubtless the ship, a favourite theme 

 of Christian symbolism, and one which delighted 

 poets and painters and workers in mosaic alike, 

 represented the Church. It is not to be 

 necessarily inferred that Marie, when giving 

 her hero so rare a means of transit, had in her 

 mind all the elaborate symbolism connected 

 with it ; but she had probably read or heard 

 tell of it, and made use of it simply for the 

 enhancement of her story. It is in such ways 

 that we find mysteries embedded, the real signi- 

 ficance of them being lost or misunderstood or 

 unheeded, just as the Renaissance painters, with- 

 out any knowledge of Arabic characters, and 

 solely on account of the ornamental quality of the 



1 Compare with this the bed of " King Fisherman " described in 

 Holy Grail, vol. i. p. 137, trans. Sebastian Evans, 1898. 



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