CHAPTER XXIV
RIGHT as the Cony had made an end of his complaint, came in Corbant the Rook flowen in the place before the King and said,“Dear Lord, hear me. I bring you here a piteous complaint. I went to-day by the morrow with Sharpebek my wife for to play upon the heath. And there lay Reynart the Fox down on the ground, like a dead caitiff. His eyes stared and his tongue hung long out of his mouth, like an hound had been dead. We tasted and felt his belly but we found thereon no life. Tho went my wife and hearkened, and laid her ear before his mouth for to wit if he drew his breath, which misfell her evil: For the false fell Fox awaited well his time, and when he saw her so nigh him he caught her by the head and bit it off. The was I in great sorrow and cried loud,‘Alas! alas! what is there happened?’Then stood he hastily up and raught so covetously after me that for fear of death I trembled, and flew upon a tree thereby, and saw from far how the false caitiff ate and slonked her in, so hungrily that he left neither flesh nor bone, no more but a few feathers. The small feathers he slang them in with the flesh; he was so hungry, he would well have eaten two. Tho went he his strete. Tho flew I down with great sorrow, and gathered up the feathers for to show them to you here. I would not be again in such peril and fear as I was there for a thousand mark of the finest gold that ever came of Araby. My Lord the King, see here this piteous work. These are the feathers of Sharpebek my wife! My Lord, if you will have worship you must do herefor justice, and avenge you in such wise as men may fear and hold of you, for if you suffer thus your safe conduct to be broken, you yourself shall not go peaceably in the highway. For the lords that do not justice, and suffer that the law be not executed upon the thieves, murderers, and them that misdo, they be partners before God of all their misdeeds and trespasses, and eueryche then will be a lord himself. Dear Lord see well to, for to keep yourself.”
