Then the emperor has bidden and conjured them that they tell the truth of the matter. They reply that they have no hope at all of her recovery, and that she cannot pass the hour of None, for before that hour she will have given up the ghost. When the emperor has heard the word, scarcely can he refrain from swooning to the ground, and likewise many a one of the others who heard it. Never did any folk make such mourning as then prevailed through all the palace. I spare you the account of the mourning, and you shall hear what Thessala is about, who mixes and brews the draught. She has mixed and stirred it, for long beforehand she had provided herself with all that she knew was needed for the draught. A little before the hour of None she gives her the draught to drink. As soon as she had drunk it, her sight grew dim, and her face was as pale and white as if she had lost her blood, nor would she have moved hand or foot even if one had flayed her alive; she neither stirs nor says a word, and yet she hearkens to and hears the mourning which the emperor makes, and the wailing with which the hall is full. And o'er all the city the folk wail who weep and say: "God! what a sorrow and a calamity has accursed death dealt us! Greedy death! Covetous death! Death is worse than any she-wolf, for death cannot be sated. Never couldst thou give a worse wound to the world. Death, what hast thou done? May God confound thee who hast extinguished all beauty. Thou hast slain the choicest creature and the fairest picture--if she had but remained alive!--that God ever laboured to fashion. Too patient is God, since He suffers thee to have the power to ruin His handiwork. Now should God be wroth with thee and cast thee forth from thy dominion, for thou hast committed too wanton and great arrogance and great insult." Thus all the people storm, they wring their hands and beat their palms, and the clerks read there their psalms, who pray for the good lady that God may show mercy to her soul.
Amid the tears and the wails, as the writings tell us, have come three aged physicians from Salerno, where they had been a long time. They have stopped on account of the great mourning, and ask and inquire the reason of the wails and tears, why folk are thus demented and distressed. And they tell them and reply: "God!
Lords, know ye not? At this ought the whole world, each place in turn, to become frenzied together with us, if it knew the great mourning and grief and hurt and the great loss which this day has opened to our ken. God! whence then are you come, since you know not what has happened but now in the city? We will tell you the truth, for we wish to join you with us in the mourning wherewith we mourn. Know you nought of ravenous death, who desires all and covets all and in all places lies in wait for the best, and how great an act of folly he hath to-day committed, as he is wont?
God had lit the world with a brilliance, with a light. But Death cannot choose but do what he is wont to do. Ever with his might he blots out the best that he can find. Now doth he will to prove his power, and has taken in one body more worth than he has left in the world. If he had taken the whole world, he could not have done one whit worse, provided that he left alive and sound that prey whom he now leads away. Beauty, courtesy, and knowledge, and whatsoever appertaining to goodness a lady can have, has Death, who has destroyed all good in the person of my lady the empress, snatched from us and cheated us of. Thus hath Death slain us."
"Ah, God!" say the leeches, "thou hatest this city, we know it well, for that we came not here a little space ago. If we had come yesterday, Death might have esteemed himself highly, if he had taken aught from us by force." "Lords, my lady would not for aught have allowed that you should have seen her or troubled yourself about her. There were enough and to spare of good leeches, but never did my lady please that one or other of them should see her who could meddle with her illness." "No?" "By my faith, that did she truly not." Then they remembered Solomon, and that his wife hated him so much that she betrayed him under a pretence of death. Perhaps this lady has done the same thing; but if they could by any means succeed in touching her, there is no man born for whose sake they would have lied or would refrain from speaking the whole truth about it, if they can see deceit there. Towards the court they go forthwith, where one would not have heard God thundering, such noise and wailing there was. The master of them, who knew the most, has approached the bier. None says to him: "You touch it at your peril." Nor does any one pull him back from it. And he puts his hand on her breast and on her side and feels beyond a doubt that she has her life whole in her body; well he knows it and well he perceives it. He sees before him the emperor, who is frenzied and readv to kill himself with grief. He cries aloud and says to him: "Emperor, comfort thyself.
