Swiftly he bore the hapless bird to his wife’s chamber, his eyes sparkling with malicious glee.
“Here is your precious songster,” he said, with bitter irony. “You will be happy to learn that you and I may now spend our sleeping hours in peace since he is taken.”
“Ah, slay him not, my lord!” she cried in anguish, for she had grown to associate the bird’s sweet song with the sweeter converse of her lover—to regard it as in a measure an accompaniment to his love-words. For answer her husband seized the unhappy bird by the neck and wrung its head off. Then he cast the little body into the lap of the dame, soiling her with its blood, and departed in high anger.
The lady pitifully raised what was left of the dead songster and bitterly lamented over it.
“Woe is me!” she cried. “Never again can I meet with my lover at the casement, and he will believe that I am faithless to him. But I shall devise some means to let him know that this is not so.”
Having considered as to what she should do, the lady took a fine piece of white samite, broidered with gold, and worked upon it as on a tapestry the whole story of the nightingale, so that her knight might not be ignorant of the nature of the barrier that had arisen between them.
In this silken shroud she wrapped the small, sad body of the slain bird and gave it in charge of a trusty servant to bear to her lover. The messenger told the knight what had occurred. The news was heavy to him, but now, having insight to the vengeful nature of her husband, he feared to jeopardize the lady’s safety, so he remained silent. But he caused a rich coffer to be made in fine gold, set with precious stones, in which he laid the body of the nightingale, and this small funeral urn he carried about with him on all occasions, nor could any circumstance hinder him from keeping it constantly beside him.
Wrap me love’s ashes in a golden cloth
To carry next my heart. Love’s fire is out,