الفصل الفصل 55 · What manner of dwelling the

Chapter 1.LV.

What manner of dwelling the Thelemites had.

In the middle of the lower court there was a stately fountain of fair

alabaster. Upon the top thereof stood the three Graces, with their

cornucopias, or horns of abundance, and did jet out the water at their

breasts, mouth, ears, eyes, and other open passages of the body. The

inside of the buildings in this lower court stood upon great pillars of

chalcedony stone and porphyry marble made archways after a goodly antique

fashion. Within those were spacious galleries, long and large, adorned

with curious pictures, the horns of bucks and unicorns: with rhinoceroses,

water-horses called hippopotames, the teeth and tusks of elephants, and

other things well worth the beholding. The lodging of the ladies, for so

we may call those gallant women, took up all from the tower Arctic unto the

gate Mesembrine. The men possessed the rest. Before the said lodging of

the ladies, that they might have their recreation, between the two first

towers, on the outside, were placed the tiltyard, the barriers or lists for

tournaments, the hippodrome or riding-court, the theatre or public

playhouse, and natatory or place to swim in, with most admirable baths in

three stages, situated above one another, well furnished with all necessary

accommodation, and store of myrtle-water. By the river-side was the fair

garden of pleasure, and in the midst of that the glorious labyrinth.

Between the two other towers were the courts for the tennis and the

balloon. Towards the tower Criere stood the orchard full of all

fruit-trees, set and ranged in a quincuncial order. At the end of that was

the great park, abounding with all sort of venison. Betwixt the third

couple of towers were the butts and marks for shooting with a snapwork gun,

an ordinary bow for common archery, or with a crossbow. The office-houses

were without the tower Hesperia, of one storey high. The stables were

beyond the offices, and before them stood the falconry, managed by

ostrich-keepers and falconers very expert in the art, and it was yearly

supplied and furnished by the Candians, Venetians, Sarmates, now called

Muscoviters, with all sorts of most excellent hawks, eagles, gerfalcons,

goshawks, sacres, lanners, falcons, sparrowhawks, marlins, and other kinds

of them, so gentle and perfectly well manned, that, flying of themselves

sometimes from the castle for their own disport, they would not fail to

catch whatever they encountered. The venery, where the beagles and hounds

were kept, was a little farther off, drawing towards the park.

All the halls, chambers, and closets or cabinets were richly hung with

tapestry and hangings of divers sorts, according to the variety of the

seasons of the year. All the pavements and floors were covered with green

cloth. The beds were all embroidered. In every back-chamber or

withdrawing-room there was a looking-glass of pure crystal set in a frame

of fine gold, garnished all about with pearls, and was of such greatness

that it would represent to the full the whole lineaments and proportion of

the person that stood before it. At the going out of the halls which

belong to the ladies’ lodgings were the perfumers and trimmers through

whose hands the gallants passed when they were to visit the ladies. Those

sweet artificers did every morning furnish the ladies’ chambers with the

spirit of roses, orange-flower-water, and angelica; and to each of them

gave a little precious casket vapouring forth the most odoriferous

exhalations of the choicest aromatical scents.