Drink the dear draught, drink free and fain ✿ What healeth every grief and pain.
He took the cup in his hand and, louting low, returned his best thanks and improvised:—
Drain not the bowl save with a trusty friend ✿ A man of worth whose good old blood all know:
For wine, like wind, sucks sweetness from the sweet ✿ And stinks when over stench it haply blow:
Adding:—
Drain not the bowl, save from dear hand like thine ✿ The cup recalls thy gifts; thou, gifts of wine.
After repeating this couplet he kissed their hands and drank and was drunk and sat swaying from side to side and pursued:—
All drinks wherein is blood the Law unclean ✿ Doth hold save one, the bloodshed of the vine:
Fill! fill! take all my wealth bequeathed or won ✿ Thou fawn! a willing ransom for those eyne.
Then the cateress crowned a cup and gave it to the portress, who took it from her hand and thanked her and drank. Thereupon she poured again and passed to the eldest lady who sat on the couch, and filled yet another and handed it to the Porter. He kissed the ground before them; and, after drinking and thanking them, he again began to recite:—