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Certainly, it was not out of suspicion of bribery and corruption that they required all such petitioners for their favor to appear ungirt and open, without any close garment; as it was much later, and many ages after this, that buying and selling crept in at their elections, and money became an ingredient in the public suffrages; proceeding thence to attempt their tribunals, and even attack their camps, till, by hiring the valiant, and enslaving iron to silver, it grew master of the state, and turned their commonwealth into a monarchy.
And as he opened the door the wind blew hard against him, and blew something white against his face, then blew it away again, and his face was blanched, even to his lips; but he plucking up heart of grace, looked out, and there he saw, standing with her face upturned in speech to him, a wonderfully beautiful woman, clothed from her throat till over her feet in long white raiment, ungirt, unbroidered, and with a veil, that was thrown off from her face, and hung from her head, streaming out in the blast of the wind: which veil was what had struck against his face: beneath her veil her golden hair streamed out too, and with the veil, so that it touched his face now and then.
Then was there a stir at the screen doors, and folk pressed forward to see, and, lo, there came forward a string of women, led in by two weaponed carles; and the women were a score in number, and they were barefoot and their hair hung loose and their gowns were ungirt, and they were chained together wrist to wrist; yet had they gold at arm and neck: there was silence in the hall when they stood amidst of the floor.
She came into the sick-room swiftly and noiselessly, put the nun through a strict cross-examination with the fretful sharpness of a person disturbed in her night's rest. Then she went into the sitting-room where Philippus was on the point of pledging Paula in his second cup of wine, while she stood before him with dishevelled hair and robe ungirt.
"We read," says South in one of his most brilliant paragraphs, "of nothing like adultery in a persecuted David in the wilderness, when he fled hither and thither like a chased doe upon the mountains; but when the delicacies of his palace softened and ungirt his spirit, then it was that this great hero fell by a glance, and buried his glories in nocturnal shame, giving to his name a lasting stain, and to his conscience a fearful wound."
I set back his hand then, and it seemed empty and helpless, not as a warrior's should be. So I ungirt my own weapon a good plain sword that I had won from a viking in Caithness and laid it in the place of that he had given me.
Then he returned and came to his horse and did off his saddle and bridle, and let him pasture, and unlaced his helm, and ungirt his sword, and laid him down to sleep upon his shield to-fore the cross. AND so he fell asleep; and half waking and sleeping he saw come by him two palfreys all fair and white, the which bare a litter, therein lying a sick knight.
"Go forth," answered the spirit of the place, "with your faces veiled and your robes ungirt; and cast behind you, as ye go, the bones of your mother." Deucalion and Pyrrha heard with amazement. The strange word was terrible to them. "We may never dare do this," whispered Pyrrha. "It would be impious to strew our mother's bones along the way."
It is in the overture to "King Lear" already, in that noble and gracious introduction. From the very beginning, Berlioz revealed himself a proud and aristocratic spirit. Even in his most helpless moments, he is always noble. He shows himself possessed of a hatred for all that is unjust and ungirt and vulgar. There is always a largeness and gravity and chastity in his gesture.
Ungirt and freed from the restraints of discipline, they gave signs that the petulance, timidity, and unruliness which had been manifested in Poland and Prussia were not diminished. Their Emperor, if his vision had been unclouded, would have understood that endurance, suffering, and privation would make such men an untrustworthy dependence in the hour of need.
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