years
In all the toun for deth of this Theban:
For him, ther wepeth bothe child and man:
So gret a weping was there non certain,
When Hector was ybrought, all fresh yslain
To Troy: alas! the pitee that was there,
Cratching of chekes, rending eke of here.
Why woldest thou be ded? the women crie,
And haddest gold enough, and Emilie.

The death of Arcite is one of the scenes for which the admirers of
Chaucer feel themselves entitled to claim, that it shall be judged in
comparison with analogous passages of the poets that stand highest in
the renown of natural and pathetic delineation. The dying words of the
hero are as _proper_ as if either great classical master of epic
propriety--the Chian or the Mantuan--had left them to us. They are
thoroughly sad, thoroughly loving, and supremely magnanimous. They have
a perfect simplicity of purpose. They take the last leave of his Emelie;
and they find for her, if ever she shall choose to put off her
approaching estate of unwedded widowhood, a fit husband. They have
answerable simplicity of sentiment and of language. He is unable to
utter any particle of the pain which he feels in quitting her; but since
the service which living he pays her, draws to an end, he pledges to her
in the world whither he is going, the constant love-fealty of his
disembodied spirit. He recalls to her, with a word only, the long
love-torments he has endured for her, exchanged, in the hour when they
should have been crowned with possession, for the pains of death. He
heaps endearing names upon her. He glances at the vanity of human wishes
imaged in himself, and he bids her farewell. That is his first
heart-offering towards herself. Can a death-severed heart's elocution be
imitated more aptly, more touchingly? He then turns to praising his
rival. The jealousy, which had so long been the madness of both, filling
the two kindred, brotherly, once-affectionate bosoms with hate, has, in
his, melted away with life, thence melting away; and Arcite, with his
last intelligible breath, describes Palamon briefly, point by point, as
he knew him when he best loved him. He does not implore Emelie to remain
for his sake single. He does not pretend, if she shall marry, to govern
her choice; but he simply requests her, if the season shall ever arrive
of such a choice, that she will not "forget Palamon." But the
death-frost creeps on--his eyes darken--and the suspiration which
finally wafts