Come first all in their clokes white,
A company, that ware for their delite,
Chapelets fresh of okes seriall,
Newly sprong, and trumpets they were all.
On every trumpe hanging a broad banere
Of fine tartarium were full richely bete,
Every trumpet his lordes arms bare,
About their neckes with great pearles sete
Collers brode, for cost they would not lete, &c.[1]
From among those high-born damosels who had crowded thither, one was chosen as the queen of beauty. When all the guests had gathered in that dining-hall, and been marshalled in their places by the herald, and the almoner had said grace, and set the "grete almes disshe of silver and overgilt, made in manner of a shippe full of men of armes feyghtyng upon the shippe syde weyng in all lxvii lb ix unc̄ of troye,"[2] at the high board under the dais, a bold fanfar was flourished upon silver trumpets, from which drooped silken flags embroidered with the blazon of that castle's lord, or—
Of gold ful riche, in which ther was ybete
some quaint device. Then a burst of music from the minstrel-gallery arose as came in the queen of beauty. Her kirtle was of ciclatoun, cloth of pall, or sparkling tissue:—
To don honour (to that day)
Yclothed was she fresshe for to devise.
Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse,
Behind hire back a yerde long I gesse;
And in the gardin at the sonne uprist,
She walketh up and doun wher as her list.
She gathereth floures, partie white and red,
To make a sotel gerlond for hire hed.[3]
One at each side of her, walked two of the youngest bachelors in chivalry. These youths did not wear their harness, but came arrayed in gay attire, having on white hoods, perhaps embroidered with dancing men in blue habits, like the one given by Edward III. to the Lord Grey of Rotherfield, to be worn at a tournament; or looking,[4] each of them, like the "yonge Squier," of whom Chaucer said:—
Embrouded was he, as it were a mede,
Alle ful of fresshe floures, white and red.[5]
