lo The Chase 



practised to overcome an enemy with safety. Here 

 we are exposed to the extremities of heat and cold : 

 ease and laziness can have no room in this diversion. 

 By this we are inured to toil and hardship ; our 

 limbs are strengthened, our joints made supple, and 

 our whole body hale and active ; in short, it is an 

 exercise that may be beneficial to many, and can be 

 prejudicial to none." 



Cervantes (i 547-1616). 



Part of the Story of a Fox-Hunt in The 

 Middle Ages ^i:^ ^^y- ^c^ 



(From Sir Gawayne mid the Green Knight) 



THE Mass is sung to end, the pages wait 

 The guests' arrival and upon them pressed 

 The sops in goblets, while to the main gate 

 The serving men bring coursers of the best, 

 For all that troop is to the hunting dressed ; 

 Brisk is the earth with frost on stock and stone. 

 And the great steeds impatient of arrest, 

 And as with joy departed is each one. 

 Out of his cloud-rack ruddy rose the mighty sun. 

 When they had ridden to the greenwood side 

 The hounds of their long leashes free they cast ; 

 A traverse way athwart the wood they ride, 

 And through the horns they blow a rousing blast. 

 A little hound that by a thorn-bush passed 

 Shrilly gives tongue, his fellows answer back, 

 The huntsmen cheer, the rabble fall in fast. 

 Hounds swift and lithe follow the fox's track 

 As forth by many a difficult grove he leads the pack. 

 He swerves, he backs, he doubles, oft he crept 

 Beneath some sharp hedge, marking far away 

 How fast drew on the hunt, then quick he leapt 



