'Such comradeship, though instances of it are to be found everywhere, is still especially a classical motive; Chaucer expressing the sentiment of it so strongly in an antique tale, that one knows not whether the love of both Palamon and Arcite for Emelya, or of those two for each other, is the chiefer subject of the Knight's tale -

He cast his eyen upon Emelya,

And therewithal he bleynte and cried, ah!

As that he stongen were unto the herte.

What reader does not refer part of the bitterness of that cry to the spoiling, already forseen, of that fair friendship, which had hitherto made the prison of the two lads sweet with its daily offices - though the friendship is saved at last?'