running to and fro; the fires are lit in kitchen and in bakery: the clerks, pen in hand and ink-bottle hanging from their belts, go round to the offices. Listen to the baying of the hounds; see the falconers bringing out their birds; here are the chained bears rolling on the ground; there go the young nobles hasting to the King’s chamber--it is the time of gorgeous raiment: half a manor is in the blue silk jacket of that young lord, one of the King’s favorites. There is already, from this side or that, the tinkling of a mandolin, the scraping of a crowd; yonder fantastic group, the first to enter when the Palace gates are thrown open, are mummers, jugglers, and minstrels, who come to make sport for the archers and for the Court if the King’s Highness or the Queen’s most excellent Grace so wills. These people can play a mystery if needs be; or they can dress like fearful wild beasts, or dance like wild men of the woods; they have songs from France--love songs, songs for ladies; rougher songs in English for the soldiers; they can dance upon the tight-rope; they can eat fire; they can juggle and play strange tricks which they have brought hither all the way from Constantinople--at the sight of them you cross yourself and whisper that it is sorcery. As for the music of the King’s chamber, that is made by the King’s minstrels, who wear his colors and have bouche of court. See yonder gayly dressed young man: he is a minstrel; none other can touch the harp and sing with skill so sweet; he looks on with contempt at the fantastic crew as they sweep past to the soldiers’ quarters; they, too, carry their minstrel instruments with them, but their music is not his music. In the evening the minstrel will join in the crowd to see the dancing of the girls--the almond-eyed, dark-skinned girls of Syria--who follow the fortunes of the mummers and toss their round arms as they dance with strange gestures and wanton looks, at sight of which the senses swim and the brain reels and the soul yearns for things impossible. The noise of the Palace grows; it is wide awake: the day has begun.