Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table, Adapted from the Book of Romance
General
Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table, Adapted from the Book of Romance
Arthur, King -- Legends; Arthurian romances -- Adaptations; Folklore -- England; Knights and knighthood -- Folklore
Then Sir Lancelot rose up and told the hermit, and the hermit ordered
him to make ready and to do all as the vision had commanded. And Sir
Lancelot and seven of the other Knights went on foot from Glastonbury to
Amesbury, and it took them two days to compass the distance, for it was
far and they were weak with fasting. When they reached the nunnery Queen
Guenevere had been dead but half an hour, and she had first summoned her
ladies to her, and told them that Sir Lancelot had been a priest for
near a twelvemonth. “And hither he cometh as fast as he may,” she said,
“to fetch my corpse, and beside my lord King Arthur he shall bury me.
And I beseech Almighty God that I may never have power to see Sir
Lancelot with my bodily eyes.” “Thus,” said the ladies, “she prayed for
two days till she was dead.” Then Sir Lancelot looked upon her face and
sighed, but wept little, and next day he sang Mass. After that the Queen
was laid on a bier drawn by horses, and an hundred torches were carried
round her, and Sir Lancelot and his fellows walked behind her singing
holy chants, and at times one would come forward and throw incense on
the dead. So they came to Glastonbury, and the Bishop of Canterbury sang
a Requiem Mass over the Queen, and she was wrapped in cloth, and placed
first in a web of lead, and then in a coffin of marble, and when she was
put into the earth Sir Lancelot swooned away.
“You are to blame,” said the hermit, when he awaked from his swoon, “you
ought not make such manner of sorrow.”
“Truly,” answered Sir Lancelot, “I trust I do not displease God, but
when I remember her beauty, and her nobleness, and that of the King, and
when I saw his corpse and her corpse lie together, my heart would not
bear up my body. And I remembered, too, that it was through me and my
pride that they both came to their end.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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