be wise and amenable, and despair of nought; for if you seek advice from us, we will assure you all three of us, that we will help you with all our power, where it be concerning good or concerning evil. We will be right loyal towards you, both in keeping your secret and in aiding you. Do not compel us to reason long with you. From the moment that we place our power and services at your disposal, you ought not to refuse us compliance." Thus they think to befool and to cheat her, but it avails nought; for she cares and recks nought of their service, so that when the physicians see that they will avail nothing with regard to her by cajolery or by entreaty, then they take her off the bier and strike her and beat her; but their fury is to no purpose, since for all this they draw not a word from her. Then they threaten and frighten her and say that, if she does not speak, she will that very day find out the folly of her action; for they will inflict on her such dire treatment that never before was its like inflicted on any body of caitiff woman. "Well we know that you are alive and do not deign to speak to us. Well we know that you are feigning and would have deceived the emperor. Have no fear of us at all. But if any man has angered you, disclose your folly, before we have further wounded you, for you are acting very basely; and we will aid you, alike in wisdom or in folly." It cannot be, it avails them nought. Then once more they deal her blows on the back with their straps, and the stripes that run downwards become visible, and so much do they beat her tender flesh that they make the blood gush out from it. When they have beaten her with straps till they have lacerated her flesh, and till the blood which issues through her wounds runs down from them, and when for all that they can do nothing nor extort sigh or word promise her; they are meddling to no purpose. And from her, and she never moves nor stirs, then they tell her that they must seek fire and lead, and that they will melt it and will pour it into her palms rather than fail to make her speak. They seek and search for fire and lead; they kindle the fire; they melt the lead. Thus the base villains maltreat and torture the lady, for they have poured into her palms the lead, all boiling and hot just as they have taken it from the fire. Nor yet is it enough for them that the lead has passed through and through the palms, but the reprobate villains say that, if she speak not soon, straightway they will roast her till she is all grilled. She is silent and forbids them not to beat or ill-treat her flesh. And even now they were about to put her to the fire to roast and grill, when more than a thousand of the ladies, who were in front of the palace, come to the door and see through a tiny chink the torture and the unhappy fate that they were preparing for the lady, for they were making her suffer martyrdom from the coal and from the flame. To break in the door and shatter it they bring hatchets and hammers. Great was the din and the attack to break and smash the door. If now they can lay hold on the leeches, without delay all their desert shall be rendered them. The ladies enter the palace all together with one bound, and Thessala is among the press, whose one anxiety is to get to her lady. She finds her all naked at the fire, much injured and much mishandled. She has laid her back on the bier and covered her beneath the pall. And the ladies proceed to tender and pay to the three leeches their deserts; they would not send for or await 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 weeping, and they curse and revile Death; knights and squires swoon, and the dames and the maidens beat their breasts and have railed against Death. "Death!" quoth each, "why took'st thou not a ransom for my lady? Forsooth, but a small booty hast thou gained, and for us the loss is great." And Cliges, of a truth, mourns so much that he wounds and maltreats himself more than all the others do, and it is a marvel that he does not kill himself; but still he postpones suicide till the hour and the time come for him to disinter her and hold her in his arms, and know whether she is alive or not. About the grave are the lords, who lay the body there; but they do not meddle with John in the setting up of the tomb, and indeed they could see nought of it, but have all fallen swooning to the earth, and John has had good leisure to do all he listed. He so set up the tomb that there was no other creature in it; well does he seal and join and close it. Then might that man well have boasted himself who, without harm or injury, would have been able to take away or disjoin aught that John had put there.
Fenice is in the tomb, until it came to dark night; but thirty knights guard her, and there are ten tapers burning, and they made a great light. The knights were sated and weary with mourning, and have eaten and drunk in the night till they all lay asleep together. At night Cliges steals forth from the court and from all the folk. There was not knight or servant who ever knew what had become of him. He did not rest till he came to John, who gives him all the counsel that he can. He puts on him a suit of armour, which he will never need. Both all armed go forth to the cemetery at post haste; but the cemetery was enclosed all around by a high wall; and the knights, who were sleeping, and had closed the door within that none might enter, thought they were safe. Cliges sees not how he may pass, for he cannot enter by the door, and yet by hook or by crook he must enter, for love exhorts and admonishes him. He grips the wall and mounts up, for right strong and agile was he. Within was an orchard and there were trees in plenty. Near the wall one had been planted so that it touched the wall. Now has Cliges what he wished for; he let himself down by this tree. The first thing that he did was to go and open the door to John. They see the knights sleeping and they have extinguished all the tapers, so that no light remains there. And now John uncovers the grave and opens the tomb, so that he injures it not at all. Cliges leaps into the grave and has carried forth his lady, who is very weak and lifeless, and he falls on her neck and kisses and embraces her. He knows not whether to rejoice or mourn; for she moves not nor stirs. And John has closed again the tomb with all the speed he may, so that it does not in any wise appear that it had been touched. They have approached the tower as quickly as ever they could. When they had put her within the tower in the rooms that were underground, then they took off the grave-clothes, and Cliges, who knew nothing of the draught that she had within her body, which makes her dumb and prevents her stirring, thinks in consequence that she is dead, and he loses hope and comfort thereat, and sighs deeply and weeps. But soon the hour will have come that the draught will lose its force. And Fenice, who hears him lament, tries and strains that she may be able to comfort him either by word or by look. Her heart nearly breaks because of the mourning she hears him make. "Ha! Death," quoth he, "how base thou art, in that thou sparest and passest by worthless and outcast creatures! Such thou dost allow to last and live. Death! art thou mad or drunk that thou has killed my love without killing me? This that I see is a marvel: my love is dead and I am alive. Ah, sweet love! why does your lover live and see you dead? Now might one rightly say that you are dead for my sake, and that I have killed and slain you. Loved lady! then am I the Death who has killed you; is not that unjust? For I have taken away my life in you and yet have kept yours in me. For were not your health and your life mine, sweet friend? And were not mine yours? For I loved nought but you: we twain were one being. Now have I done what I ought, for I keep your soul in my body, and mine is gone forth of yours; and yet the one was bound to bear the other company, wherever it was, and nothing ought to have parted them." At this she heaves a sigh and says in a weak, low voice: "Friend! friend! I am not wholly dead, but well-nigh so. But I hope nought about my life. I thought to have a jest and to feign: but now must I needs complain, for Death loves not my jest. A marvel 'twill be
Comments (0)