O à la mine, o à hazart.
Le Grand, in his note on this passage, T. i. p. 57, Ed. 1779, writes: “Le Hasard était une sorte de jeu de dez. Je ne connais point la Mine; j’ai trouvé seulement ailleurs un passage qui prouve que ce jeu était tres-dangereux, et qu’on pouvait s’y ruiner en peu de tems.” It appears however from the Fabliau of Du Prestre et des deuz Ribaus, to have been certainly a species of Tables, or Backgammon, and to have been played with dice, on a board called Minete. The only passage we recollect in which any further detail of this game is given, is that of Wace, in the account of Arthur’s feast, Harl. MS. 6508, and MS. Cott. Vit. A. x., but it must be remarked, that the older copy 13 A. xxi. does not contain it, nor is it found in the translations of Laȝamon, or Robert of Gloucester.
6. Romanz reding. See Sir W. Scott’s note on Sir Tristrem, p. 290, [p. 306, ed. 1811]; and the Dissertations of Percy, Ritson, and Ellis.
7.
Ther mouthe men se the boles beyte,
And the bores, with hundes teyte.
Cf. ll. 1838, 2438. Both these diversions are mentioned by Lucianus, in his inedited tract De laude Cestriæ, MS. Bodl. 672, who is supposed by Tanner to have written about A.D. 1100, but who must probably be placed near half a century later. They formed also part of the amusements of the Londoners in the 12th century, as we learn from Fitzstephen, p. 77, and are noticed in the passage above quoted from the Romance of Kyng Alisaunder. In later times, particularly during the 16th century, these cruel practices were in the highest estimation, as we learn from Holinshed, Stowe, Laneham, &c. See Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes, p. 192, and the plate from MS. Reg. 2. B. vii. Also Pegge’s Dissertation on Bull-baiting, inserted in Vol. ii. of Archæologia.
8. Ther mouthe men se hw Grim greu. If this is to be understood of scenic representation (and we can scarcely view it in any other light), it will present one of the earliest instances on record of any attempt to represent an historical event, or to depart from the religious performances, which until a much later period were the chief, and almost only, efforts towards the formation of the drama. Of course, the words of the writer must be understood to refer to the period in which he lived, i.e. according to our supposition, about the end of Hen. III’s reign, or beginning of Edw. I. See Le Grand’s notes to the Lai de Courtois, V. i. p. 329, and Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes, B. 3, ch. 2.
[2344.] The feste fourti dawes sat. Cf. l. 2950. This is borrowed also from Geoffrey, and is the usual term of duration fixed in the Romances.
Fourty dayes hy helden feste,