t the
pleasure of each one who is of the company, and the basons and ewers
and flagons and goblets and the vessels of gold and silver, wherein we
eat and drink, more by token of the many and various viands that are
set before us, each in its season, according to that which each one
desireth. I could never avail to set out to you what and how many are
the sweet sounds of innumerable instruments and the songs full of
melody that are heard there; nor might I tell you how much wax is
burned at these suppers nor what and how many are the confections that
are consumed there nor how costly are the wines that are drunken. But
I would not have you believe, good saltless pumpkinhead mine, that we
abide there in this habit and with these clothes that you see us wear
every day; nay, there is none of us of so little account but would
seem to you an emperor, so richly are we adorned with vestments of
price and fine things. But, over all the other pleasures that be there
is that of fair ladies, who, so one but will it, are incontinent
brought thither from the four quarters of the world. There might you
see the Sovereign Lady of the Rascal-Roughs, the Queen of the Basques,
the wife of the Soldan, the Empress of the Usbeg Tartars, the
Driggledraggletail of Norroway, the Moll-a-green of Flapdoodleland and
the Madkate of Woolgathergreen. But why need I enumerate them to you?
There be all the queens in the world, even, I may say, to the
Sirreverence of Prester John, who hath his horns amiddleward his arse;
see you now? There, after we have drunken and eaten confections and
walked a dance or two, each lady betaketh herself to her bedchamber
with him at whose instance she hath been brought thither. And you must
know that these bedchambers are a very paradise to behold, so goodly
they are; ay, and they are no less odoriferous than are the
spice-boxes of your shop, whenas you let bray cummin-seed, and therein
are beds that would seem to you goodlier than that of the Doge of
Venice, and in these they betake themselves to rest. Marry, what a
working of the treadles, what a hauling-to of the battens to make the
cloth close, these weaveresses keep up, I will e'en leave you to
imagine; but of those who fare best, to my seeming, are Buffalmacco
and myself, for that he most times letteth come thither the Queen of
France for himself, whilst I send for her of England, the which are
two of the fairest ladies in the world, and we have known so to do
that