“ ‘While my body is whole, let this letter be put into my right hand, and my hand bound fast with the letter until I be cold, and let me be put in a fair bed with all my richest clothes that I have about me, and so let my bed and all my rich clothes be laid with me in a chariot to the next place whereas the Thames is, and there let me be put in a barge, and but one man with me, such as ye trust to steer me thither, and that my barge be covered with black samite over and over.’... So when she was dead, the corpse and the bed and all was led the next way unto the Thames, and there all were put in a barge on the Thames, and so the man steered the barge to Westminster, and there he rowed a great while to and fro, or any man espied.”[1] At length the King and his Knights, coming down to the water side, and seeing the boat and the fair maid of Astolat, they uplifted the hapless body of Elaine, and bore it to the hall.
[1] Malory’s “King Arthur,” Book XVIII.
Elaine.
From the Painting by T. E. Rosenthal. Engraved by Henry Wolf.
(See note, p. 77.)