and has kept it straitly until the
emperor rose. Now she goes before him and says to him: "If you
will, sire, send for all your leeches, for my lady, who is
suffering from a sore sickness, has passed water and wishes that
the leeches see it, but that they come not in her presence." The
leeches came into the hall; they see the water very bad and pale,
and each says what seems to him the truth, till they all agree
together that never will she recover, and will not even see the
hour of None, and if she lives so long, then at the latest God
will take her soul to himself. This have they murmured secretly.
Then the emperor has bidden and conjured them that they tell the
truth of the matter. They reply that they have no hope at all of
her recovery, and that she cannot pass the hour of None, for
before that hour she will have given up the ghost. When the
emperor has heard the word, scarcely can he refrain from swooning
to the ground, and likewise many a one of the others who heard
it. Never did any folk make such mourning as then prevailed
through all the palace. I spare you the account of the mourning,
and you shall hear what Thessala is about, who mixes and brews
the draught. She has mixed and stirred it, for long beforehand
she had provided herself with all that she knew was needed for
the draught. A little before the hour of None she gives her the
draught to drink. As soon as she had drunk it, her sight grew
dim, and her face was as pale and white as if she had lost her
blood, nor would she have moved hand or foot even if one had
flayed her alive; she neither stirs nor says a word, and yet she
hearkens to and hears the mourning which the emperor makes, and
the wailing with which the hall is full. And o'er all the city
the folk wail who weep and say: "God! what a sorrow and a
calamity has accursed death dealt us! Greedy death! Covetous
death! Death is worse than any she-wolf, for death cannot be
sated. Never couldst thou give a worse wound to the world. Death,
what hast thou done? May God confound thee who hast extinguished
all beauty. Thou hast slain the choicest creature and the fairest
picture--if she had but remained alive!--that God ever laboured
to fashion. Too patient is God, since He suffers thee to have the
power to ruin His handiwork. Now should God be wroth with thee
and cast thee forth from thy dominion, for thou hast committed
too wanton and great arrogance and great insult." Thus all the
people storm, they wr