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