The aged bridegroom primed himself by its aid—
He drinketh Ipocras, clarré, and vernage
Of spices hot, to encresen his corage.
Lines 9681, 9682.
And in the morning when ‘that the day gan dawe,’ we read that ‘then he taketh a sop in fine clarré’—line 9717.
All this, no doubt, is drawn from the marriage customs of Chaucer’s days.
In these times of luxury and excess what an example does the ‘poure widewe’ furnish in the Nonnes Prestes Tale. Truly idyllic!—
Full sooty was hire boure, and eke hire halle,
In which she ete many a slender mele.
Of poinant sauce ne knew she never a dele.
No deintee morsel passed thurgh hire throte;
Hire diete was accordant to hire cote.
Repletion ne made hire never sike;
Attempre diete was all hire physike,
And exercise, and hertes suffisance.
The goute let hire nothing for to dance,
No apoplexie shente not hire hed.
No win ne dranke she, neyther white ne red:
Hire bord was served most with white and black,
Milk and broun bred, in which she fond no lack,
Seinde bacon, and somtime an ey or twey;
For she was as it were a maner dey.
Could she have divined that one day Professor Mayor would give to the world ‘Modicus cibi medicussibi’?
In the Manciple’s Prologue we find the following lines. The Manciple is chaffing the ‘coke’ for having had too much to drink. Inter alia, he remarks, lines 16993, 16994:—
I trow that ye have dronken win of ape,
And that is whan men playen with a straw.