Lines 6051–6162

Now the three doctors have received their gruesome reward at the hands of the ladies. But Cligés is terror-stricken and filled with grief upon hearing of the pain and martyrdom which his sweetheart has endured for him. He is almost beside himself, fearing greatly, and with good reason, that she may be dead or badly injured by the torture inflicted upon her by the three physicians who now are dead. So he is in despair and despondency when Thessala comes, bringing with her a very precious ointment with which she has already gently rubbed the body and wounds of her mistress. When they laid her back in her bier the ladies wrapped her again in a cloth of Syrian stuff, leaving her face uncovered. All that night there is no abatement of the cries they raise unceasingly. Throughout the city, high and low, poor and rich, are beside themselves with grief, and it seems as if each one boasts that he will outdo all others in his woe, and would fain never be comforted. All that night the grief continues. The next morning John came to the court; and the emperor sends for him and issues to him this command: "John, if ever thou wroughtest a fine piece of work, now put forth and show all thy skill in constructing such a sepulchre as for beauty and workmanship shall have no match." And John, who had already performed the task, says that he has already completed one which is very fine and cleverly wrought; but when he began the work he had no thought that other than a holy body should be laid in it. "Now let the empress be laid in it and buried in some sacred place, for she, I think, is sanctified." "You have spoken well," says the emperor; "she shall be buried yonder in my lord Saint Peter's Church, where bodies are wont to be interred. For before her death she made this request of me, that I should have her buried there. Now go about your task, and place your sepulchre in the best position in the cemetery, where it ought rightfully to be." John replies: "Very well, my lord." John at once takes his leave, and prepares the sepulchre with great skill; a feather-bed he placed inside, because the stone was hard and cold; and in order that the odour may be sweet, he spreads flowers and leaves about. Another reason for doing this was that no one might perceive the mattress he had laid within the grave. Already Mass had been said for the dead in the churches and parishes, and the bells were tolling continuously as is proper for the dead. Orders are given to bring the body to be laid in the sepulchre, which John with all his skill has constructed so richly and handsomely. In all Constantinople none remains, whether small or great, who does not follow the body in tears, cursing and reproaching Death. Knights and youths alike grow faint, while the ladies and damsels beat their breasts as they thus find fault with Death: "O Death," cries each, "why didst thou not take ransom for my lady? Surely, thy gain was slight enough, whereas the loss to us is great." And in this grief Cligés surely bears his part, as he suffers and laments more than all the others do, and it is strange he does not kill himself. But still he decides to put this off until the hour and the time shall come for him to disinter her and get possession of her and see whether she be alive or not. Over the gave stand the men who let down the body into its place; but, with John there, they do not meddle with the adjustment of the sarcophagus, and since they were so prostrated that they could not see, John had plenty of time to perform his special task. When the coffin was in its place, and nothing else was in the grave, he sealed up tightly all the joints. When this was done, any one would have been skilful who, except by force or violence, could take away or loosen anything which John had put inside.