that
is in Lebanon unto the hissop that groweth on the wall, and discerned
the properties of beasts, fowls, reptiles and fishes, and there came
people from all regions of the world for to hear the wisdom of Solomon,

And Solomon sent letters to Hiram, king of Tyre, for to have his men to
cut cedar trees with his servants, and he would yield to them their hire
and meed, and let him wit how that he would build and edify a temple to
our Lord. And Hiram sent to him that he should have all that he desired,
and sent to him cedar trees and other wood. And Solomon sent to him corn
in great number, and Solomon and Hiram confederated them together in
love and friendship. Solomon chose out workmen of all Israel the number
of thirty thousand men of whom he sent to Lebanon ten thousand every
month, and when ten thousand went the others came home, and so two
months were they at home, and Adonias was overseer and commander on
them. Solomon had seventy thousand men that did nothing but bear stone
and mortar and other things to the edifying of the temple, and were
bearers of burdens only, and he had eighty thousand of hewers of stone
and masons in the mountain, without the prefects and masters, which were
three thousand three hundred that did nothing but command and oversee
them that wrought. Solomon commanded the workmen to make square stones,
great and precious, for to lay in the foundament, which the masons of
Israel and masons of Hiram hewed, and the carpenters made ready the
timber.

Then began Solomon the temple to our Lord, in the fourth year of his
reign he began to build the temple. The house that he builded had
seventy cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and thirty in
height, and the porch tofore the temple was twenty cubits long after the
measure of the breadth of the temple, and had ten cubits of breadth
tofore the face of the temple, and for to write the curiosity and work
of the temple, and the necessaries, the tables and cost that was done in
gold, silver and latten, it passeth my cunning to express and English
them. Ye that be clerks may see it in the Second Book of Kings and the
Second Book of Paralipomenon. It is wonder to hear the costs and
expenses that was made in that temple, but I pass over. It was on making
seven years, and his palace was thirteen years ere it was finished. He
made in the temple an altar of pure gold, and a table to set on the
loaves of proposition of gold, five candlesticks of gold