Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- BOOK ONE
- Prologue
- ALEXANDER'S CHILDHOOD
- THE WAR AGAINST THE KING OF ARMENIA
- FROM ATHENS TO TARSUS
- THE SIEGE OF TYRE
- THE RAID AT GAZA
- EPHESUS
- THE VOWS OF THE PEACOCK
- MACEDON, ITALY, JERUSALEM AND EGYPT
- THE WAR AGAINST DARIUS
- BOOK TWO
- Appendix 1 How Nectanebus fathered Alexander [from the 13th-century Prose Alexander]
- Appendix 2 Aristotle's advice to Alexander [an interpolation into Wauquelin's text]
- Appendix 3 Jacques de Longuyon's excursus on the Nine Worthies [from Les Voeux du Paon (‘The Vows of the Peacock’), c.1310]
THE VOWS OF THE PEACOCK
from BOOK ONE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- BOOK ONE
- Prologue
- ALEXANDER'S CHILDHOOD
- THE WAR AGAINST THE KING OF ARMENIA
- FROM ATHENS TO TARSUS
- THE SIEGE OF TYRE
- THE RAID AT GAZA
- EPHESUS
- THE VOWS OF THE PEACOCK
- MACEDON, ITALY, JERUSALEM AND EGYPT
- THE WAR AGAINST DARIUS
- BOOK TWO
- Appendix 1 How Nectanebus fathered Alexander [from the 13th-century Prose Alexander]
- Appendix 2 Aristotle's advice to Alexander [an interpolation into Wauquelin's text]
- Appendix 3 Jacques de Longuyon's excursus on the Nine Worthies [from Les Voeux du Paon (‘The Vows of the Peacock’), c.1310]
Summary
Here follow the vows of the peacock and the fulfilling thereof; firstly how and by whom the bird was killed.
According to the history it was in the month of May – though it doesn't say in which year after the Creation – that Porus, as you've heard, was captured outside the city of Ephesus and found himself a prisoner of the ladies upon his word as a gentleman. I've an idea he'd have been happy to stay there! Among the ladies of the palace he found himself surrounded by all the love and courtly refinement he could have wished, both in entertainments and diversions and in talk of love and its effects; and truly, he was as enamoured of the lady Phesonnas as could be.
One day during his captivity, Porus was wandering through the palace in search of entertainment when he met a boy with a catapult1 aiming pellets at birds. He asked if he could borrow it for a moment, and the boy gladly handed it to him along with a pellet. Porus loaded the catapult ready for a shot at a bird, and as he looked round for a target Cassamus, who was watching him, saw a peacock on the roof of Venus's Chamber proudly displaying, fanning his tail; and he called to Porus, saying:
‘Look, Lord Porus, up on the roof! There's a fine target! Take a shot – show us your marksmanship!’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Medieval Romance of AlexanderThe Deeds and Conquests of Alexander the Great, pp. 91 - 134Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012