For noble persons, madness seems to have been
A matter of custom--in the old romances.
Alas! I shall be mad, they say, and at once

They are: putting off sanity like a mantle,
To go naked into the hazards of winter.
When they lie on the ground, the beasts and fowls

Come by and are afraid. The reader, too:
Wondering if sense could be the subject
Of some more fearsome lord within the will.

Sir Orfeo consents to live in the wild,
Haunted near morning by the king and his rout
Who ride through with dim cry and blowing.