'Ye speak well, I would fain speak better of a full heart, had I the skill; Yet alas! for I lack the wisdom, tho' God knoweth, of right goodwill The fame of your worth and valour by my words would I higher raise, And as eye, and as heart should serve me, the twain, they should speak your praise; As your fame and your glory lead them, so behind in your track they fare-- 255 And ne'er from the hand of a foeman such peril hath been my share As the peril your hand hath wrought me! and sooth are these words I say.' In this wise quoth the knight of Kanvoleis; yet Feirefis spake alway;
'With wisdom and skill, I wot well, hath Jupiter fashioned thee, Thou true and gallant hero! Nor thy speech shall thus distant be, 260 For "_ye_" thou shalt no more call me, of one sire did we spring we twain.' And with brotherly love he prayed him he would from such speech refrain And henceforward '_thou_' to call him, yet Parzival deemed it ill, And he spake, 'Now, your riches, brother, shall be e'en as the Baruch's still, And ye of us twain are the elder, my poverty and my youth 265 They forbid me "_thou_" to call ye, or discourteous were I in truth.
Then the Prince of Tribalibot, joyful, with many a word would praise His god, Jupiter, and to Juno thanksgiving he fain would raise, Since so well had she ruled the weather, that the port to which he was bound He had safely reached, and had landed, and there had a brother found. 270
Side by side did they sit together, and neither forgot the grace Of courtesy, to the other, each knight fain had yielded place. Then the heathen spake, 'My brother, wilt thou sail with me to my land, Then two kingdoms, rich and powerful, will I give thee into thine hand. Thy father and mine, he won them when King Eisenhart's life was run, 275 Zassamank and Assagog are they--to no man he wrong hath done, Save in that he left me orphaned--of the ill that he did that day As yet have I not avenged me, for an ill deed it was alway. For his wife, the queen who bare me, thro' her love must she early die, When she knew herself love-bereavèd, and her lord from her land did fly. 280 Yet gladly that knight would I look on, for his fame hath been told to me As the best of knights, and I journey my father's face to see!'