Title: Advice to Hasty Young Men
Fandom: Medieval History/SCA
Rating: G
Length: 300
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Tangwystle, Siobhan and Frederick. This was first jotted down at a Bard of the Mists feast many years ago, polished up for this challenge. Somewhere I have the period piece that is the model for the poetic structure, but it is not coming to hand at the moment.
Summary: Young men, manners and feasts.



Good gentles all within this hall
To étiquette concede
Both page and squire doth require
Instruction in this creed.
Lest conduct lewd the whilst at food
Digestion should impede
Close congress rend, or cook offend
To these precepts accede.

The table laid, both cook and maid
Might baste or pinch or knead
For man, like bread, most oft is lead
By stomach's rules decreed
And organ meats will choose as sweets
of couth or counsel freed.
Well mannered men full bellies send -
The careless feels the glede.

When at the board, flaunt not your sword,
Nor imitate your steed.
And for your life, control your knife
Or you will surely bleed.
To grope or grab at joints or stab
The haunches without heed
will find you soon without the room
With crusts and crumbs your feed.

If boorish boasts or careless toasts
Are all that you can read
An empty plate will be your fate
where court'eous tongues succeed.
To play the prude is also rude,
Or haughty Temp'rance plead
Your mouth and eye will give the lie
That no dish meet your need.

Green sallats rare require care
Lest roughness wilt dispeed
The goblet chaste is not to waste
By gulping down with speed.
Now savor slow the spice and glow
of birds in butter seeth'd
Rich creme and cake, small portions take
From such doth heartburn breed.

So youth attend and manners mend
And to this counsel heed:
The subtle touch will gain you much
Of fruit, or flesh or mead
So learn to sip at cup and lip
Not merely sate your greed -
The cook, you'll find will have a mind
To feast you well indeed.