1

"Both Claré, Pyment, and Rochell: *

"The red, your stomach to defy,3 "And pots of osey 4 set you by.

"You shall have venison y-bake; "The best wild-fowl that may be take; "A leash of grey-hounds with you to strike, "And hart and hind, and other like.

"Ye shall be set at such a tryst, 5

"That hart and hind shall come to your fist;
"Your disease to drive you fro,
"To hear the bugles there y-blow.

"Homeward thus shall ye ride
"On hawking by the rivers side,
"With gos-hawk, and with gentil falcon,
"With eglehorn, and merlyon. 7

6

"When you come home your men among, « Ye shall have revel, dances, and song;

"Clary, a mixture of wine and honey: clairet. F." (Ritson.)

• Wine of Rochelle.

• Defend? Deffaix, in old Fr. is defence (V. La Combe).

4

* Qu. oseille? (sorrel.)

A post, or station, in hunting. Tyrwhitt's Gloss.

"An egkyl appears to be a species of hawk: fee Strutt's "Manners, &c. III. 124" (Ritson).

7" Merlin, a species of hawk: emerillon. F." (Ritson.)

"Little children great and smale
"Shall sing as doth the nightingale.

"Then shall ye go to your even-song, "With tenours and trebles among, "Three score of copes of damask bright "Full of pearls they shall be pyght.▾

*

"Your censers shall be of gold,

"Indent with azure, many a fold.

"Your choir nor organ-song shall want
"With counter-note and descant,
"The other half on organs playing,

"With young children full fair singing.

"Then shall ye go to your suppère, "And sit in tents in green arbère,

"With cloths of Arras pyght to the ground, "With sapphires set, and diamond.

"An hundred knightes, truly told,
"Shall play with bowls in alleys cold,
"Your disease to drive away.

"To see the fishes in pools play,

"To a draw-bridge then shall ye,

"The one half of stone, the other of tree.
"A barge shall meet you full right,
"With twenty-four oars full bright,
"With trumpets and with clarion,
"The fresh water to row up and down.

"Then shall ye, daughter, ask the wine, "With spices that be good and fine, "Gentil pots with ginger green,

"With dates and dainties you between. "Forty torches, brenyng bright,

"At your bridges to bring you light,

"Into your chamber they shall you bring "With much mirth and more liking.

2

"Your blankets shall be of fustyane,1 "Your sheets shall be of cloth of rayne, "Your head-sheet shall be of pery 3 pyght, "With diamonds set, and rubies bright.

3

Fustaine, or futaine, Fr is a thick cotton cloth, of which coverlets are still commonly made.

2

Of Rennes in Britany." This cloth is noticed by "Chaucer for its particular foftness" (Ritson).

Embroidered with precious stones.

"When you are laid in bed so soft, "A cage of gold shall hang aloft, "With long-pepper fair-burning, "And cloves that be sweet smelling, "Frankincense and olibanum,

"That when ye sleep the taste may come. "And, if ye no rest may take,

"All night minstrels for you shall wake.”

A modern princess might possibly object to breathing the smoke of pepper, cloves, and frankincense during her sleep; but the fondness of our ancestors for these, and indeed for perfumes of all kinds, was excessive. We have seen that Lydgate thought it necessary that Venus, when rising from the sea, should be enointe with gums and ointments sweeter for to smell; and Martial d'Auvergne, a celebrated French poet of the fifteenth century, in his prologue to the Aresta Amorum (Decrees of the Court of Love), observes of the lady-judges of that court, that—

Leurs habits sentoient le cyprès
Et le musc si abondamment,
Que l'on n'eut su être au plus près
Sans eternuer largement.

Outre plus, en lieu d'herbe verd,
Qu'on a accoustumé d'espandre,
Tout le parquet etoit couvert

De romarin et de lavandre.

In the foregoing description of diversions the good king of Hungary has forgotten one, which seems to have been as great a favourite with the English and French as it ever was with the Turkish ladies. This is the bath. It was considered, and with great reason, as the best of all cosmetics; and Mr. Strutt has extracted from an old MS. of prognostications, written in the time of Richard II. a medical caution to the women, against "going to "the bath for beauty" during the months of March and November. But it seems also to have been usual for women to bathe together for the purpose of conversation: for in the fabliau of Constant du Hamel (in Barbazan's collection) an invitation for this purpose occurs to the wife as the most natural device for effecting her purpose, and her three female friends are successively the dupes of the artifice. The generality* of the fabliaux, however,

* See Le Grand, Tom. III. p. 455; Tom IV. p. 175, 232. Promiscuous bathing is also exhibited in some of the early specimens of engraving, in which women are often represented as attending men to the bath, as they still do at Berne.