United States or Algeria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Next you buckle your greaves on your legs, and your cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and your breastplate, and you begin to feel crowded; then you hitch onto the breastplate the half-petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs down in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down, and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal scuttle, either for looks or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt on your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints onto your arms, your iron gauntlets onto your hands, your iron rat-trap onto your head, with a rag of steel web hitched onto it to hang over the back of your neck and there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mould.
The king now came forth in royal state, mounted on a superb chestnut horse and attended by many grandees of Castile. He wore a jubon or close vest of crimson cloth, with cuisses or short skirts of yellow satin, a loose cassock of brocade, a rich Moorish scimetar, and a hat with plumes.
Over the doublet he buckled on a breastplate, and probably a back-piece, while his thighs were protected by cuisses of steel, and his head by a plumed casque. Across his shoulder hung the strap of his bandoleer, or ammunition-box; at his side was his sword, and in his hand his arquebus.
"Toutes les parties superieures de leurs cuisses et le grand espace nu de leurs fesses sont egalement colores du rouge le plus vif, avec un melange de bleu qui ne manque reellement pas d'elegance." Gervais, 'Hist. Nat. des Mammiferes, 1854, p. 103. Also Desmarest, 'Mammalogie, p. 70. Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier, 'Hist.
Imagine to yourself a Don Quixote of eighteen; a Don Quixote without his corselet, without his coat of mail, without his cuisses; a Don Quixote clothed in a woolen doublet, the blue color of which had faded into a nameless shade between lees of wine and a heavenly azure; face long and brown; high cheek bones, a sign of sagacity; the maxillary muscles enormously developed, an infallible sign by which a Gascon may always be detected, even without his cap and our young man wore a cap set off with a sort of feather; the eye open and intelligent; the nose hooked, but finely chiseled.
Coats of mail with casques of steel, cuirasses, cuisses, brassards, and gauntlets, formerly much used and worth from ten up to three hundred oxen, are now little esteemed; though chain armor, resembling that of the ancient Persians, is still worn occasionally by the chiefs of tribes.
I saw young Harry with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury. Only, with Shakespeare, the afterthought is immediate: They come like sacrifices in their trim. Will it never be to-day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces.
This device," he went on, as he fitted the cuisses, "this device is not very worthy of Dom Galors. It speaks of hurry. It speaks, even, of precipitation, for if he must needs wear my harness, at least he might have carried his own. Galors was flurried. If he was flurried he must have had news. If, having news, he took my arms, it must have been news of Isoult.
But she, that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, And dropping bitter tears against a brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white And colourless, and like the withered moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the dias-throne were parch'd with dust; Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
"And yet it were a great bourde to play off on the English, and most like to take them and to be told of in ballad and chronicle, like one of Wallace's onfalls. For, seeing the Pucelle, as they will deem, in our hands, they will think all safe, and welcome us open armed. O Norman, can we do nothing? Stop, will you wear another woman's short kirtle over your cuisses and taslet?
Word Of The Day