ibe the dishes
they had I should stop here forever.... Each had as much as he wished
and whatever he wished: meats, fowls, venison, or fish cooked in many
styles."

[Illustration 4: LADIES HUNTING.
After the painting by Henri Genois.
Sometimes brawls followed the too free use of wine, as one romance tells
us "you might see them throw at each other cheeses, and big
quartern-loaves, and hunks of meat, and sharp steel knives." But
sometimes the ladies strolled off into the gardens and played
games--blindman's-buff, or frog-in-the-middle, or the like--or sang to
the harp, or sewed. A great deal of time, indeed, was spent out of
doors, not only in the gentler field sports, such as hawking, in which
ladies participated, but also in the mere routine of daily life. In the
romances many a scene of revelry as well as of love making takes place
under the trees; and the ladies are not always idling away their time,
either; for we find them spinning, embroidering, or at least making
garlands of flowers.]

Upon a table so appointed and served we can understand that some of the
cautions of Robert de Blois to the ladies would be most useful. "In
eating you must avoid much laughing or talking. If you eat with another
(out of the same _ecuelle_), turn the nicest bits to him, and do not
pick out the finest and largest for yourself, which is not good manners.
Moreover, no one should try to devour a choice bit which is too large or
too hot, for fear of choking or burning herself.... Each time you drink,
wipe your mouth well, that no grease may go into the wine, which is very
unpleasant to the person who drinks after you. But when you wipe your
mouth after drinking, do not wipe your eyes or nose with the tablecloth,
and take care not to get your hands too greasy or let your mouth spill
too much." The really well-bred lady, then, must be like Chaucer's
Prioress:

"At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle;
She lette no morsel from hire lippes falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.
In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.
Hire over lippe wiped she so clene,
That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene
Of grese, when she dronken hadde hire draught.
Ful semely after hire mete she raught."

One might almost fancy that old Dan Chaucer, the first humorist of
modern times, wa