King Arthur and the Knights of the Round TableMalory, Thomas, Sir
General
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
Malory, Thomas, Sir
Arthurian romances
Anon, King Arthur spied where Lucius fought and worked great deeds of
prowess with his own hands. Forthwith he rode at him, and each attacked
the other passing fiercely; till at the last, Lucius struck King Arthur
with a fearful wound across the face, and Arthur, in return, lifting up
Excalibur on high, drove it with all his force upon the Emperor's head,
shivering his helmet, crashing his head in halves, and splitting his
body to the breast. And when the Romans saw their Emperor dead, they
fled in hosts of thousands; and King Arthur and his knights, and all his
army followed them, and slew one hundred thousand men.
Then returning to the field, King Arthur rode to the place where Lucius
lay dead, and round him the kings of Egypt and Ethiopia, and seventeen
other kings, with sixty Roman senators, all noble men. All these he
ordered to be carefully embalmed with aromatic gums, and laid in leaden
coffins, covered with their shields and arms and banners. Then calling
for three senators who were taken prisoners, he said to them, "As the
ransom of your lives, I will that ye take these dead bodies and carry
them to Rome, and there present them for me, with these letters saying I
will myself be shortly there. And I suppose the Romans will beware how
they again ask tribute of me; for tell them, these dead bodies that I
send them are for the tribute they have dared to ask of me; and if they
wish for more, when I come I will pay them the rest."
So, with that charge, the three senators departed with the dead bodies,
and went to Rome; the body of the Emperor being carried in a chariot
blazoned with the arms of the empire, all alone, and the bodies of the
kings two and two in chariots following.
After the battle, King Arthur entered Lorraine, Brabant, and Flanders,
and thence, subduing all the countries as he went, passed into Germany,
and so beyond the mountains into Lombardy and Tuscany. At length he came
before a city which refused to obey him, wherefore he sat down before it
to besiege it. And after a long time thus spent, King Arthur called Sir
Florence, and told him they began to lack food for his hosts--"And not
far from hence," said he, "are great forests full of cattle belonging to
my enemies. Go then, and bring by force all that thou canst find; and
take with thee Sir Gawain, my nephew, and Sir Clegis, Sir Claremond, the
Captain of Cardiff, and a strong band."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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