Note 10 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY
Reading edition
The reader will recall what Sir John Mandeville says about a well of youth he found during his travels in India. It was, he declares, “a right faire and a clere well, that hath a full good and sweete savoure, and it smelleth of all maner of sortes of spyces, and also at eche houre of the daye it changeth his savor diversely, and whoso drinketh thries on the daye of that well, he is made hole of all maner of sickenesse that he hathe. I have sometime dronke of that well and me thinketh yet that I fare the better; some call it the well of youth, for they that drinke thereof seme to be yong alway, and live without great sicknesse, and they saye this, cometh from Paradise terrestre, for it is so vertuous.”10