Now, at court there was a wise and skilful mediator, who, being moved with compassion, reconciled the lady with her father and betrothed her to a powerful nobleman. The king then gave his daughter diverse gifts. These were a rich, flowing tunic inscribed with the words, "Forgiven. Sin no more"; and a golden coronet with the legend, "Thy dignity is from me." Her champion gave her a ring, engraved, "I have loved thee; learn thou to love." Likewise the mediator bestowed a ring, saying, "What have I done? How much? Why?" A third ring was given by the king's son, with the words: "Despise not thy nobility." A fourth ring, from her brother, bore the motto: "Approach! Fear not. I am thy brother." Her husband gave a golden coronet, confirming his wife in the inheritance of his possessions, and superscribed: "Now thou are espoused, sin no more."
The lady kept these gifts as long as she lived. She regained the affections of those whom her folly had estranged, and closed her days in peace.
My beloved, the king is our Heavenly Father; the daughter is the soul; the guardian soldiers are the five senses; the lamp is the will; the dog is conscience; the duke is the Evil One. The mediator is Christ. The cloak is our Lord's wounded body. The champion and the brother are likewise Christ; the coronet is His crown of thorns; the rings are the wounds in His hands and feet. He is also the Spouse. Let us study to keep these gifts uninjured.
The subject of a certain king, being captured by pirates, wrote to his father for ransom; but the father refused, and the youth was left wasting in prison. Now, his captor had a beautiful and virtuous daughter, who came to comfort the prisoner. At first he was too disconsolate to listen to her, but at length he begged her to try to set him free. The lady feared her father's wrath, but at last, on promise of marriage, she freed the young man, and fled with him to his own country. His father said, "Son, I am overjoyed at thy return, but who is the lady under thy escort?"
When his son told him, he charged him, on pain of losing his inheritance, not to marry her.
"But she released me from deadly peril," said the youth.
The father answered, "Son, thou mayest not confide in her, for she hath deceived her own father; and, furthermore, although she indeed set thee free, it was but to oblige thee to marry her. And since it was an unworthy passion that was the source of thy liberty, I think that she ought not to be thy wife."