ABSTRACT
For in comparison of this inchanted castle, either the sumptuous building of Mausolus tombe, or the famous Pyramides of Aegypt, or the maze of Daedalus making, found in Crete, may well be forgotten. [They enter a magnificent chamber.] The Emperour tooke no keepe of the riches of the place, but of the beautie of a number of faire gentlewomen whom hee saw sitting richly apparelled, in every part of the chamber, among these one seemed to bee the principal, stalled in a seate higher then the other, and passing them all so well in beautie as rich apparell: She, as Lady and mistress above them all, held in her hand a Lute, whereon shee played and sung together with such an harmonie, that it was no lesse daungerous unto the poore Emperour, then the aluring song of the mermaides should have beene unto Ulysses company . . . And you must pardon the Emperour if by this hee was wholy possessed with hir love, and forgot his late wife the Princesse Briana. The enterteinment was great, and yet this chaunge proceeded not through the beautie of the enchantresse, for his owne wife was much fairer, but rather by the secret vertue of the place, which was therto devised, (f. 16)
[Twenty years later the young Knight of the Sun, who has been far west across the Atlantic, is carried back in a magic boat through the Mediterranean to the 'broad Euxino5 and the Island, which is described much as before. He sounds the horn which hangs by the Castle gate, and fights the giants and horrible beasts which bar his way. Getting into the Castle, he finds the great chamber, and there 'the Emperor Trebacio leaned his head upon the white and delicate breasts of
Trebacio to his duty: 'my arrant is for yourselfe, which heere live unknowen, and have forgotten your wife and Empire' (f. 145). The enraged Trebacio would attack him, but]
The Knight of the Sunne, knowing that what the Emperour did was but as done in a dreame, would not strike him to doo him harme, but onely to save himselfe, and to finde the meanes whereby to bring Trebacio from that inchauntment.
