For as the lomb toward his deeth is broght,
So stant this innocent bifore the kyng.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Man of Law’s Tale. Using the simile of a lamb being brought to slaughter, the Man of Laws tells his fellow pilgrims how the innocent Constance is falsely accused before the king of murdering the constable’s wife Hermengild. The knight whose lustful advances inspired by Satan that Constance spurned actually slit Hermengild’s throat. And in his desire for revenge he left the bloody knife by Constance’s bed to implicate her.