_

HARL. MS. 4425, BRIT. MUS.

_To face page 177._]

It is generally of springtime in a garden--a garden of green glades
and alleys, fruit-trees and flowers, such as was very dear to the
mediaeval soul--of which we read. The _Roman de la Rose_ opens with a
description of a garden, hemmed round with castle wall--a pleasaunce
within a fortress--and planted with trees "from out the land of
Saracens," and many others, to wit, the pine, the beech (loved of
squirrels), the graceful birch, the shimmering aspen, the hazel, the
oak, and many flowers withal--roses and violets and periwinkle, golden
king-cups, and pink-rimmed daisies. The poet describes with careful
detail the design of the garden:

The garden was nigh broad as wide,
And every angle duly squared;

how the trees were planted:

Such skilful art
Had planned the trees that each apart
Six fathoms stood, yet like a net
The interlacing branches met;

and how "channelled brooks" flowed from clear fountains through "thymy
herbage and gay flowers."

The debt which the mediaeval world owed to the East is shown both in
the fruits and the spices which are described as growing in the
garden, and in the pastimes said to have been enjoyed in its cool
shade. We read of pomegranates, nutmegs, almonds, dates, figs,
liquorice, aniseed, cinnamon, and zedoary, an Eastern plant used as a
stimulant. When the poet would tell of dance and song, he goes by

A shaded pathway, where my feet,
Bruised mint and fennel savouring sweet,

to a secluded lawn. Here he sees one whose name is "Gladness":

Gently swaying, rose and fell
Her supple form, the while her feet
Kept measured time with perfect beat:

* * * * *

While minstrels sang, the tambourine
Kept with the flute due time I ween.

* * * * *

Then saw I cunning jugglers play,
And girls cast tambourines away
Aloft in air, then gaily trip
Beneath them, and on finger-tip
Catch them again.

In every garden there was a fountain or sheet of water with a small
channelled way carrying the water to the castle and through the
women's apartment. Sometimes these waterways were made use of by the
lover as a means of communication with his beloved, as we read in the
romance of _Tristan and Isolde_, where Tristan, to apprise his
mistress that he is at their trysting-place in the garden, drops into