ABSTRACT
A week is occasionally given over to convivial pleasures and when this is done public audiences should be held on one or two days, so that those whose custom it is to appear, may come forward and nobody will be debarred. People will have been informed which is the day for them to come, and on days reserved for the elite, commoners will know that there is no place for them and of their own accord will stay away, so that there will not be the necessity of admitting one person and refusing another. Those who are admitted to royal parties must be limited in number and scrutinized to see who they are and it should be a condition of their admission that they do not come with more than one page each. It is intolerable that anyone should bring his own flagon and cup-bearer; such a custom has never existed before and is extremely reprehensible; for in all ages people have taken away eatables, sweetmeats and wines from kings’ palaces to their homes, not from their own homes to royal parties, because the sultan is the paterfamilias of the world, and all the human race are his children and slaves. It is not right that those who are his family and his dependants should take their own wine and food to his parties, for his housekeeping ought to be better, more lavish and cleaner than that of any of the nobles; and if the reason why they bring their own wine is that the king’s wine-bearer gives them bad wine, he should be punished, because he is issued with nothing but good wine; there is no reason why he should give bad. Then this excuse will be removed and the presumption of people bringing wine to royal parties will be ended.
