The Squire’s Tale

 The Squire tells the tale of Cambyuskan, the king of Sarai in     Tartary. Cambyuskan and his wife, Elpheta, have two sons         and one daughter, Canacee. During a party for the king’s           birthday, a strange knight rides into the hall. He offers the         king four gifts: a brass horse that can transport a person           anywhere in the world within twenty-four hours, a mirror           that shows impending misfortunes and the character of             friends and foes, a ring that allows the wearer to understand     the language of any bird, and a sword whose edge will cut         through any armor and whose flat will heal any wound               caused by its edge.

   Having told his tale, the knight rode out of the hall, leaving       his steed standing in the court, and was led to his chamber. 

   After the revelry of the night before, the next morning               everybody but Canacee remained asleep until late. She had       dreamt of the mirror and the ring and thus had her first             satisfying rest in a very long time.

   As she went out walking that morning with her maids, she         came across a bleeding peregrine falcon that cried out in           anguish.

   It had naimed itself. Canacee picked up the falcon and               spoke to it, a power she had gained from the ring the knight     had given her. The falcon told her a tale of a handsome             tercelet as treasonous and false as he was beautiful, who fell     in love with a kite as well as with the falcon, and left the           falcon to love the kite. Canacee healed the bird with herbs         which she dug out of the ground, and carried it to a box,           covered in blue velvets, with a painted meadow inside it,           which she laid by her bedside.

  The narrator then leaves Canace, promising to return to the      story of her ring and show how the falcon regained her love,      thanks to the mediation of Cambalo, the king’s son.

  The narrator has just begun to set the scene, when he is          interrupted…