periti Arcades._" But
it is cold here alone of nights.'

They ate goat and green leeks sweetened with honey, and wood thrushes
pickled in wine, and salt fish from the mouth of the Beauce. And
because this gave the magister a great thirst he drank much of a
warmed wine from Burgundy that the hostess brought herself. They sat,
byside, on cushions on a couch before the warm fire.

'_Filia pulchra mater pulchrior!_' the magister muttered, and he cast
his arms about her soft and plump waist. 'The maid was a fair skewer,
the hostess is a plumper roasting bit.' She took his kisses on her
fire-warmed cheeks, but in the end she thrust him mightily from her
with a large elbow.

He gasped with the strength of her thrust, and she said:

'Greedy dogs getten them hard cuffs,' and rearranged her neckercher.
When he tried to come nearer her she laughed and thrust him aback.

'You have tried and tasted,' she said. 'A fuller meal you must pay
for.'

He stood before her, lean and lank, his gown flapping about his
calves, his eyes smiling humorously, his lips twitching.

'Oh soft and warm woman,' he cried, 'payment shall be yours'; and
whilst he fumbled furiously in his clothes-press, he quoted from
Tully: '_Haec civitas mulieri redimiculum praebuit._' He pulled out
one small bag: '_Haec in collum._' She took another. '_Haec in
crines!_' and he added a third, saying: 'Here is all I have,' and cast
the three into her lap. Whilst she counted the coins composedly on the
table before her he added: 'Leave me nevertheless the price to come to
England with.'

'Sir Magister,' she said, turning her large face to him. 'This is not
one-tenth enough. You have tasted an ensample. Will you have the whole
meal?'

'Oh, unconscionable,' he cried. 'More I have not!' He began to wave
his hands. 'Consider what you do do,' he uttered. 'Think of what a
pest is love. How many have died of it. Pyramus, Thisbe, Dido, Medea,
Croesus, Callirhoe, Theagines the philosopher ... Consider what writes
Gordonius: "_Prognosticatio est talis: si non succuratur iis aut in
maniam cadunt: aut moriuntur._" Unless lovers be succoured either they
fall into a madness, either they die or grow mad. And Fabian
Montaltus: "If this passion be not assuaged, the inflammation cometh
to the brain. It drieth up the blood. Then followeth madness or men
make themselves away." I would have you ponder of what saith
Parthenium and what Plutarch in his tales of lovers.'

Her face ap