t with my bodily eyes.' 'Thus,' said the
ladies, 'she prayed for two days till she was dead.' Then Sir Lancelot
looked upon her face and sighed, but wept little, and next day he sang
Mass. After that the Queen was laid on a bier drawn by horses, and an
hundred torches were carried round her, and Sir Lancelot and his
fellows walked behind her singing holy chants, and at times one would
come forward and throw incense on the dead. So they came to
Glastonbury, and the Bishop of Canterbury sang a Requiem Mass over the
Queen, and she was wrapped in cloth, and placed first in a web of
lead, and then in a coffin of marble, and when she was put into the
earth Sir Lancelot swooned away.

'You are to blame,' said the hermit, when he awaked from his swoon,
'you ought not make such manner of sorrow.'

'Truly,' answered Sir Lancelot, 'I trust I do not displease God, but
when I remember her beauty, and her nobleness, and that of the King,
and when I saw his corpse and her corpse lie together, my heart would
not bear up my body. And I remembered, too, that it was through me and
my pride that they both came to their end.'

From that day Sir Lancelot ate so little food that he dwined away, and
for the most part was found kneeling by the tomb of King Arthur and
Queen Guenevere. None could comfort him, and after six weeks he was
too weak to rise from his bed. Then he sent for the hermit and to his
fellows, and asked in a weary voice that they would give him the last
rites of the Church; and begged that when he was dead his body might
be taken to Joyous Gard, which some say is Alnwick and others
Bamborough. That night the hermit had a vision that he saw Sir
Lancelot being carried up to heaven by the angels, and he waked Sir
Bors and bade him go and see if anything ailed Sir Lancelot. So Sir
Bors went and Sir Lancelot lay on his bed, stark dead, and he smiled
as he lay there. Then was there great weeping and wringing of hands,
more than had been made for any man; but they placed him on the horse
bier that had carried Queen Guenevere, and lit a hundred torches, and
in fifteen days they reached Joyous Gard. There his body was laid in
the choir, with his face uncovered, and many prayers were said over
him. And there, in the midst of their praying, came Sir Ector de
Maris, who for seven years had sought Sir Lancelot through all the
land.

'Ah, Lancelot,' he said, when he stood looking beside his dead body,
'thou wert head of all Christian K