t 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