About their neckes with great pearles sete
Collers brode, for cost they would not lete, &c.[425]
From among those high-born damosels who had crowded thither, one was chosen as the queen of beauty. When all the guests had gathered in that dining-hall, and been marshalled in their places by the herald, and the almoner had said grace, and set the “grete almes disshe of silver and overgilt, made in manner of a shippe full of men of armes feyghtyng upon the shippe syde weyng in all lxvii lb ix un[=c] of troye,”[426] at the high board under the dais, a bold fanfar was flourished upon silver trumpets, from which drooped silken flags embroidered with the blazon of that castle’s lord, or—
Of gold ful riche, in which ther was ybete
some quaint device. Then a burst of music from the minstrel-gallery arose as came in the queen of beauty. Her kirtle was of ciclatoun, cloth of pall, or sparkling tissue:—
To don honour (to that day)
Yclothed was she fresshe for to devise.
Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse,
Behind hire back a yerde long I gesse;
And in the gardin at the sonne uprist,