MEDIÆVAL GARDENS
and how "channelled brooks" flowed from clear fountains through "thymy herbage and gay flowers."
The debt which the mediæval world owed to the East is shown both in the fruits and the spices which are described as growing in the garden, and in the pastimes said to have been enjoyed in its cool shade. We read of pomegranates, nutmegs, almonds, dates, figs, liquorice, aniseed, cinnamon, and zedoary, an Eastern plant used as a stimulant. When the poet would tell of dance and song, he goes by
A shaded pathway, where my feet,
Bruised mint and fennel savouring sweet,
to a secluded lawn. Here he sees one whose name is "Gladness":
Gently swaying, rose and fell
Her supple form, the while her feet
Kept measured time with perfect beat:
******
While minstrels sang, the tambourine
Kept with the flute due time I ween.
******
Then saw I cunning jugglers play,
And girls cast tambourines away
Aloft in air, then gaily trip
Beneath them, and on finger-tip
Catch them again.
In every garden there was a fountain or sheet of water with a small channelled way carrying the water to the castle and through the women's apartment. Sometimes these waterways were made use of by the lover as a means of communication with his beloved, as we read in the
178
