Page:Of Six Mediaeval Women (1913).djvu/251

 blazing logs, the long days of winter were spent in chess-playing, broidery, lute-playing, and love-making, the monotony of this only occasionally broken by the arrival of some wandering minstrel who sang of war and love, or of some packman laden with sundry wares prized of womankind. But in winter such wayfarers were rare, and life was, perforce, one of boredom and discomfort. Thus there was exceeding joy when "woods and thickets donned their rich green mantling of resplendent sheen."

It is generally of springtime in a garden—a garden of green glades and alleys, fruit-trees and flowers, such as was very dear to the mediæval soul—of which we read. The Roman de la Rose opens with a description of a garden, hemmed round with castle wall—a pleasaunce within a fortress—and planted with trees "from out the land of Saracens," and many others, to wit, the pine, the beech (loved of squirrels), the graceful birch, the shimmering aspen, the hazel, the oak, and many flowers withal—roses and violets and periwinkle, golden king-cups, and pink-rimmed daisies. The poet describes with careful detail the design of the garden:

how the trees were planted: