FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 51 
That most like unto green wool wot I it was : 
The hegge also that yede in compas 1 
And closed in all the greene herbere 
With sicamour 2 was set and eglatere. 
And shapen was this herber roofe and all 
As a pretty parlour : and also 
The hegge as thicke as a castle wall, 
That who that list without to stond or go 
Though he would all day prien to and fro 
He should not see if there were any wight within or no." 
This same idea of seclusion as the essential feature of an 
arbour is evident in the fifteenth-century poem, La Belle Dame 
Sans Merci : 3 
" And sett me down by-hynde a traile 
Fulle of levis, to see, a grete mervaile, 
With grene wythyes y bounden wonderlye 
The leeves wore so thicke vsith-out fade 
That thorough-oute myghte no mann me espye." 
The flowers around an arbour are described in a fourteenth- 
century poem, entitled The Pearl: 
“ I entered in ifAat erber grene 
In augoste in a high seysoun 
****** 
Schadowed this wortes ful schyre 4 and schene 
Gilofre, 5 gyngure, 6 & groomylyon 7 
& pyonys powdered ay betwene." 
Each garden contained some kind of cistern for water, and in 
many cases a fountain elaborately ornamented was placed in 
the centre, or in some conspicuous position. The illustration 
reproduced here shows the ordinary fountain of a good garden 
of the day, introduced to represent Rebecca’s well, and many 
characteristic paintings of such fountains are to be found in 
fifteenth-century MSS. 8 
The varieties of flowers planted in these gardens were 
1 —went round it. 2 = honeysuckle . 
3 E. E. Text Society, vol. iv. 4 ^bright. 
6 —clove-pinks, 6 —tansy. 
7 gromwell. 8 See B. M., 14. E. 2. f. 77. 
4—2 
