And then that queen said:Ah,dear brother,why have ye tarried so long from me?alas,this wound on your head hath caught over-much cold.And so then they rowed from the land,and Sir Bedivere beheld all those ladies go from him.Then Sir Bedivere cried:Ah my lord Arthur,what shall become of me,now ye go from me and leave me here alone among mine enemies?Comfort thyself,said the king,and do as well as thou mayst,for in me is no trust for to trust in;for I will into the vale of Avilion to heal me of my grievous wound:and if thou hear never more of me,pray for my soul.But ever the queens and ladies wept and shrieked,that it was pity to hear.And as soon as Sir Bedivere had lost the sight of the barge,he wept and wailed,and so took the forest;and so he went all that night,and in the morning he was ware betwixt two holts hoar,of a chapel and an hermitage.
CHAPTER VI
How Sir Bedivere found him on the morrow dead in an hermitage,and how he abode there with the hermit THEN was Sir Bedivere glad,and thither he went;and when he came into the chapel,he saw where lay an hermit grovelling on all four,there fast by a tomb was new graven.
When the hermit saw Sir Bedivere he knew him well,for he was but little to-fore Bishop of Canterbury,that Sir Mordred flemed.Sir,said Bedivere,what man is there interred that ye pray so fast for?Fair son,said the hermit,I wot not verily,but by deeming.But this night,at midnight,here came a number of ladies,and brought hither a dead corpse,and prayed me to bury him;and here they offered an hundred tapers,and they gave me an hundred besants.Alas,said Sir Bedivere,that was my lord King Arthur,that here lieth buried in this chapel.
Then Sir Bedivere swooned;and when he awoke he prayed the hermit he might abide with him still there,to live with fasting and prayers.For from hence will Inever go,said Sir Bedivere,by my will,but all the days of my life here to pray for my lord Arthur.Ye are welcome to me,said the hermit,for I know ye better than ye ween that I do.Ye are the bold Bedivere,and the full noble duke,Sir Lucan the Butler,was your brother.Then Sir Bedivere told the hermit all as ye have heard to-fore.So there bode Sir Bedivere with the hermit that was to-fore Bishop of Canterbury,and there Sir Bedivere put upon him poor clothes,and served the hermit full lowly in fasting and in prayers.
Thus of Arthur I find never more written in books that be authorised,nor more of the very certainty of his death heard I never read,but thus was he led away in a ship wherein were three queens;that one was King Arthur's sister,Queen Morgan le Fay;the other was the Queen of Northgalis;the third was the Queen of the Waste Lands.Also there was Nimue,the chief lady of the lake,that had wedded Pelleas the good knight;and this lady had done much for King Arthur,for she would never suffer Sir Pelleas to be in no place where he should be in danger of his life;and so he lived to the uttermost of his days with her in great rest.More of the death of King Arthur could I never find,but that ladies brought him to his burials;and such one was buried there,that the hermit bare witness that sometime was Bishop of Canterbury,but yet the hermit knew not in certain that he was verily the body of King Arthur:for this tale Sir Bedivere,knight of the Table Round,made it to be written.
CHAPTER VII
Of the opinion of some men of the death of King Arthur;and how Queen Guenever made her a nun in Almesbury YET some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead,but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place;and men say that he shall come again,and he shall win the holy cross.I will not say it shall be so,but rather I will say:here in this world he changed his life.But many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse:Thus leave I here Sir Bedivere with the hermit,that dwelled that time in a chapel beside Glastonbury,and there was his hermitage.And so they lived in their prayers,and fastings,and great abstinence.And when Queen Guenever understood that King Arthur was slain,and all the noble knights,Sir Mordred and all the remnant,then the queen stole away,and five ladies with her,and so she went to Almesbury;and there she let make herself a nun,and ware white clothes and black,and great penance she took,as ever did sinful lady in this land,and never creature could make her merry;but lived in fasting,prayers,and alms-deeds,that all manner of people marvelled how virtuously she was changed.Now leave we Queen Guenever in Almesbury,a nun in white clothes and black,and there she was Abbess and ruler as reason would;and turn we from her,and speak we of Sir Launcelot du Lake.
CHAPTER VIII