Cliges: A RomanceChrétien, de Troyes, active 12th century
General
Cliges: A Romance
Chrétien, de Troyes, active 12th century
Arthurian romances; Romances -- Translations into English
emperor or seneschal. They have hurled them down through the
windows full into the court, so that they have broken the necks
and ribs and arms and legs of all three; better never wrought any
ladies. Now the three leeches have received from the ladies right
sorry payment for their deeds; but Cliges is much dismayed and
has great grief, when he hears tell of the great agony and the
torture that his lady has suffered for him. Almost does he lose
his reason; for he fears greatly and indeed with justice--that
she may be killed or maimed by the torture caused her by the
three leeches, who have died in consequence; and he is despairing
and disconsolate. And Thessala comes bringing a very precious
salve with which she has anointed full gently the lady's body and
wounds. The ladies have enshrouded her again in a white Syrian
pall, wherein they had shrouded her before, but they leave her
face uncovered. Never that night do they abate their wailing or
cease or make an end thereof. Through all the town they wail like
folk demented-high and low, and poor and rich-and it seems that
each sets his will on outdoing all the others in making
lamentation, and on never abandoning it of his own will. All
night is the mourning very great. On the morrow John came to
court, and the emperor sends for him and bids him, requests and
commands him: "John! if ever thou madest a good work, now set all
thy wisdom and thy invention to making a tomb, such that one
cannot find one so fair and well decorated." And John, who had
already done it, says that he has prepared a very fair and
well-carved one; but never, when he began to make it, had he
intention that any body should be laid there save a holy one.
"Now, let the empress be enclosed within in lieu of relics; for
she is, I ween, a very holy thing." "Well said," quoth the
emperor, "in the minster of my lord Saint Peter shall she be
buried, there outside where one buries other bodies; for before
she died, she begged and prayed me with all her heart that I
would have her laid there. Now go and busy yourself about it, and
set your tomb, as is right and meet, in the fairest place in the
cemetery." John replies: "Gladly, sire." Forthwith John departs,
prepares well the tomb, and did thereat what a master of his
craft would do. Because the stone was hard, and even more on
account of the cold, he has placed therein a feather bed; and
moreover, that it may smell sweet to her, he has strewn thereon
both flowers and foliage. But he did it even more for this, that
none should spy the mattress that he had placed in the grave. Now
had the whole office been said in chapels and in parish churches,
and they were continually tolling as it is meet to toll for the
dead. They bid the body be brought, and it will be placed in the
tomb, whereat John has worked to such effect that he has made it
very magnificent and splendid. In all Constantinople has been
left neither great nor small who does not follow the corpse
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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