ect to vice, or take ill courses, they are reproved and
censured. So likewise direction is given touching marriages, and the
courses of life, which any of them should take, with divers other the
like orders and advices. The governor assisteth, to the end to put in
execution by his public authority the decrees and orders of the Tirsan,
if they should be disobeyed; though that seldom needeth; such reverence
and obedience they give to the order of nature. The Tirsan doth also
then ever choose one man from among his sons, to live in house with
him; who is called ever after the Son of the Vine. The reason will
hereafter appear.

On the feast day, the father or Tirsan cometh forth after divine
service into a large room where the feast is celebrated; which room
hath an half-pace at the upper end. Against the wall, in the middle of
the half-pace, is a chair placed for him, with a table and carpet
before it. Over the chair is a state, made round or oval, and it is of
ivy; an ivy somewhat whiter than ours, like the leaf of a silver asp;
but more shining; for it is green all winter. And the state is
curiously wrought with silver and silk of divers colors, broiding or
binding in the ivy; and is ever of the work of some of the daughters of
the family; and veiled over at the top with a fine net of silk and
silver. But the substance of it is true ivy; whereof, after it is
taken down, the friends of the family are desirous to have some leaf or
sprig to keep.

The Tirsan cometh forth with all his generation or linage, the males
before him, and the females following him; and if there be a mother
from whose body the whole linage is descended, there is a traverse
placed in a loft above on the right hand of the chair, with a privy
door, and a carved window of glass, leaded with gold and blue; where
she sitteth, but is not seen. When the Tirsan is come forth, he
sitteth down in the chair; and all the linage place themselves against
the wall, both at his back and upon the return of the half-pace, in
order of their years without difference of sex; and stand upon their
feet. When he is set; the room being always full of company, but well
kept and without disorder; after some pause, there cometh in from the
lower end of the room, a taratan (which is as much as an herald) and on
either side of him two young lads; whereof one carrieth a scroll of
their shining yellow parchment; and the other a cluster of grapes of
gold, with a long foo