“Yet more beasts are in this house!
Here cats come in full crowse [comfort],
Here a rat and here a mouse,
They stand nigh together.”
Margery wondered how the cats would get on with the rats and mice, but Shem’s wife offered no explanation, and immediately after her followed the wife of Ham:
“And here are fowls, less and more (she declared),
Herons, cranes, and bittern;
Swans, peacocks, have them before! [in front]
Meat for this weather.”
“Here are cocks, kites, crows (said Japhet’s wife),