There n'is baret'nother strife,
N'is there no death, ac2 ever life.
There n'is lack of meat, no cloth,
There n'is man no woman wrath;
There n'is serpent, wolf, no fox;
Horse, no capyl,3 cow, no ox:
There n'is sheep, no swine, no goat,
No none horwyla,4 God it wot.
Nother harate, nother stud:
The land is full of other good.
N'is there fly, flea, no louse,

In cloth, in town, bed, no house. · There n'is dunner, sleet, no hail,

6

No none vile worm, no snail :
No none storm, rain, no wind:
There n'is man no woman blind:
Ok all is game, joy, and glee.
Well is him that there may be!

There beth rivers, great and fine,

Of oil, milk, honey, and wine.

Wrangling.

2 But.

? Steed, from caballus. It is used by Chaucer, &c.

↑ Probably a groom, as harate and stud are mentioned immediately afterwards: the Saxon word is hors-wealh.

5 Huras. Fr. A place where horses are bred.

There is a well-fair abbéy,
Of white monkés, and of grey,
There beth bowers, and halls:
All of pasties beth the walls,
Of flesh, of fish, and a rich meat,
The likefullest that man may eat.
Flouren-cakes beth the shingles3 all
Of church, cloister, bowers, and hall.
The pinnes beth fat puddings
Rich meat to princes and kings.

To seeth, or boil.

• Here the word many is, perhaps, omitted.

3 Wooden tiles, for which those of clay were afterwards substituted. Those ships in which the edges of the planks cover each other like tiles, and which we now, with less apparent reason, call' clinker-built vessels, were formerly `called shingled ships. “That in thy shingled ship shall be "saved." P. Ploughman, p. 44.

4 Pinnacles. Mr. Gray, in one of his letters to Mr. Mason, seems to say that these ornaments were not introduced into our Gothic architecture before the reign of Henry III. (Vide quarto Edit. p. 296.)

Man may there of it enow,

All with riyt,' and nought with wow.”
All is common, to young and old,
To stout and stern, meek and bold.

There is a cloister fair and light,
Broad and long of seemly sight.
The pillars of that cloister, all
Beth y-turned of chrystál;
With harlas, and capital
Of green jaspe, and red corál.

Swithe lekeful for to see.

The root is ginger, and galingale;
The scions beth all, sedwale."

12 The meaning seems to be, that meat was not weighed out, but in abundance, and at the disposal of all who chose to seize it.

3 Probably the plinth, in Italian orlo. In Cotgrave's Dict. we have orle, for a hem or border; hence the word ourler. 4 Meadow. Prairie. Fr. 5. Very. 6 The sweet cyprus, a sort of rush, the roots of which were supposed to be an excellent stomachic. It was probably like the real galanga, one of the ingredients in the hypocras, or medicated wine, used at the conclusion of their meals.

7 Valerian; or perhaps the mountain spikenard; for Parkinson calls them both by the name of setwall.

Trie' maces beth the flower,
The rind, canell of sweet odoúr;
The fruit gilofre3 of good smack.
Of cucubés+ there n'is no lack,
There beth roses of red blee,
And lily, likeful for to see:
They walloweth neither day nor night;

This ought be a sweet sight.

There beth four wells in the abbey

Of treacle,7 and halwei, 8

Of baum, and eke pirnent, 10

Ever ernend" to right rent ;12

Choice. Fr.

• Cinnamon. Fr.

* Cloves. Fr. They were first introduced into the West in 1190. Anderson's Hist. of Commerce.

• Probably cuchoo-flowers, or lady-smocks.

5 They fade; grow yellow. The w seems to have often had the sound of v orf: and our word fallow had originally the same meaning.

Any sovereign remedy was at this time called treacle: Venice-treacle is still in some repute. The sirop of the sugar-bakers, now called treacle, cannot have been known so early.

Of they streams all the mould,
Stones precious, and gold.
There is saphire, and uniune,1
Carbuncle, and astiune, 2

3

5

Smaragde, lugre, and prassiune, s
Beryl, onyx, topasiune,

Amethyst, and chrysolite,
Chalcedon, and epetite."

There beth birds, many and fale,"
Throstle, thrush, and nightingale,
Chalandre, and wood-wale,

8

And other birds, without tale;
That stinteth never by their might,
Merry to sing, day and night.

[Here a few lines are lost.]

Yet I do you mo to wit,

The geese y-roasted on the spit,

13456 Of these names three only are intelligible; the unio, or pearl; the smaragde, or emerald; and the prassiune (prasius), a stone generally found in the emerald mines. Astiune may perhaps be the astrios or astroites of Pliny; Lugre, the leucho-chrysus, or chrysolite; and epetite the hamatites, or blood stone. The virtues formerly assigned to gems will account for the length of this list.

7 Numerous. Sax.

• Gold-finch.

• Wood-lark?