Les chevaliers ont encontrez,
 Qui du tournois sont retournes,
 Qui du tout en tout est feru. 
 S’en avoit tout le pris eu
 Le chevalier qui reperoit
 Des messes qu’ oies avoit. 
 Les autres qui s’en reperoient
 Le saluent et le conjoient
 Et distrent bien que onques mes
 Nul chevalier ne prist tel fes
 D’armes com il ot fet ce jour;
 A tousjours en avroit l’onnour. 
 Moult en i ot qui se rendoient
 A lui prisonier, et disoient
 “Nous somes vostre prisonier,
 Ne nous ne pourrions nier,
 Ne nous aiez par armes pris.” 
 Lors ne fu plus cil esbahis,
 Car il a entendu tantost
 Que cele fu pour lui en l’ost
 Pour qui il fu en la chapelle.

His friends, returning from the fight,
 On the way there met the knight,
 For the jousts were wholly run,
 And all the prizes had been won
 By the knight who had not stirred
 From the masses he had heard. 
 All the knights, as they came by,
 Saluted him and gave him joy,
 And frankly said that never yet
 Had any knight performed such feat,
 Nor ever honour won so great
 As he had done in arms that day;
 While many of them stopped to say
 That they all his prisoners were: 
 “In truth, your prisoners we are: 
 We cannot but admit it true: 
 Taken we were in arms by you!”
 Then the truth dawned on him there,
 And all at once he saw the light,
 That She, by whom he stood in prayer,
—­The Virgin,—­stood by him in fight!

The moral of the tale belongs to the best feudal times.  The knight at once recognized that he had become the liege-man of the Queen, and henceforth must render his service entirely to her.  So he called his “barons,” or tenants, together, and after telling them what had happened, took leave of them and the “siecle":—­

“Moult est ciest tournoiement beaux
 Ou ele a pour moi tournoie;
 Mes trop l’avroit mal emploie
 Se pour lui je ne tournoioie! 
 Fox seroie se retournoie
 A la mondaine vanite. 
 A dieu promet en verite
 Que james ne tournoierai
 Fors devant le juge verai
 Qui conoit le bon chevalier
 Et selonc le fet set jutgier.” 
 Lors prent congie piteusement,
 Et maint en plorent tenrement. 
 D’euls se part, en une abaie
 Servi puis la vierge Marie.

“Glorious has the tourney been
 Where for me has fought the Queen;
 But a disgrace for me it were
 If I tourneyed not for her. 
 Traitor to her should I be,
 Returned to worldly vanity. 
 I promise truly, by God’s grace,
 Never again the lists to see,
 Except before that Judge’s face,
 Who knows the true knight from the base,
 And gives to each his final place.” 
 Then piteously he takes his leave
 While in tears his barons grieve. 
 So he parts, and in an abbey
 Serves henceforth the Virgin Mary.