And Then They Make To Come In Hunting For The Hart
And For The Boar, With Hounds Running With Open Mouth.
And many
other things they do by craft of their enchantments, that it is
marvel for to see.
And such plays of disport they make till the
taking up of the boards. This great Chan hath full great people
for to serve him, as I have told you before. For he hath of
minstrels the number of thirteen cumants, but they abide not always
with him. For all the minstrels that come before him, of what
nation that they be of, they be withholden with him as of his
household, and entered in his books as for his own men. And after
that, where that ever they go, ever more they claim for minstrels
of the great Chan; and under that title, all kings and lords
cherish them the more with gifts and all things. And therefore he
hath so great multitude of them.
And he hath of certain men as though they were yeomen, that keep
birds, as ostriches, gerfalcons, sparrow-hawks, falcons gentle,
lanyers, sakers, sakrets, popinjays well speaking, and birds
singing, and also of wild beasts, as of elephants tame and other,
baboons, apes, marmosets, and other diverse beasts; the mountance
of fifteen cumants of yeomen.
And of physicians Christian he hath 200, and of leeches that be
Christian he hath 210, and of leeches and physicians that be
Saracens twenty, but he trusteth more in the Christian leeches than
in the Saracen. And his other common household is without number,
and they all have all necessaries and all that them needeth of the
emperor's court. And he hath in his court many barons as
servitors, that be Christian and converted to good faith by the
preaching of religious Christian men that dwell with him; but there
be many more, that will not that men know that they be Christian.
This emperor may dispend as much as he will without estimation; for
he not dispendeth ne maketh no money but of leather imprinted or of
paper. And of that money is some of greater price and some of less
price, after the diversity of his statutes. And when that money
hath run long that it beginneth to waste, then men bear it to the
emperor's treasury and then they take new money for the old. And
that money goeth throughout all the country and throughout all his
provinces, for there and beyond them they make no money neither of
gold nor of silver; and therefore he may dispend enough, and
outrageously. And of gold and silver that men bear in his country
he maketh cylours, pillars and pavements in his palace, and other
diverse things what him liketh.
This emperor hath in his chamber, in one of the pillars of gold, a
ruby and a carbuncle of half a foot long, that in the night giveth
so great clearness and shining, that it is as light as day.
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