ing 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