Men wizt never wher sche was become.

After this fatal catastrophe, _Orfeo_, distracted for the loss of
his queen, abandons his throne, and, with his harp, retires into a
wilderness, where he subjects himself to every kind of austerity, and
attracts the wild beasts by the pathetic melody of his harp. His state
of desolation is poetically described:

He that werd the fowe and griis,
And on bed the purpur biis,
Now on bard hethe he lith.
With leves and gresse he him writh:
He that had castells and tours,
Rivers, forests, frith with flowrs.
Now thei it commence to snewe and freze,
This king mot make his bed in mese:
He that had y-had knightes of priis,
Bifore him kneland and leuedis,
Now seth he no thing that him liketh,
Bot wild wormes bi him striketh:
He that had y-had plente
Of mete and drinke, of ich deynte,
Now may he al daye digge and wrote,
Er he find his fille of rote.
In sorner he liveth bi wild fruit,
And verien hot gode lite.
In winter may he no thing find,
Bot rotes, grases, and the rinde.

* * * * *