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Declare one point of all my sorrows' smart

To you, my lady, that I love the most:

But I bequeath the service of my ghost

To you aboven every creature,

Since that my life ne may no longer dure.

Alas the woe! alas, the paines strong

That I for you have suffered and so long!

Alas the death, alas, mine Emily!

Alas departing* of our company! *the severance

Alas, mine hearte's queen! alas, my wife!

Mine hearte's lady, ender of my life!

What is this world? what aske men to have?

Now with his love, now in his colde grave

Al one, withouten any company.

Farewell, my sweet, farewell, mine Emily,

And softly take me in your armes tway,

For love of God, and hearken what I say.

I have here with my cousin Palamon

Had strife and rancour many a day agone,

For love of you, and for my jealousy.

And Jupiter so *wis my soule gie*, *surely guides my soul*

To speaken of a servant properly,

With alle circumstances truely,

That is to say, truth, honour, and knighthead,

Wisdom, humbless*, estate, and high kindred, *humility

Freedom, and all that longeth to that art,

So Jupiter have of my soul part,

As in this world right now I know not one,

So worthy to be lov'd as Palamon,

That serveth you, and will do all his life.

And if that you shall ever be a wife,

Forget not Palamon, the gentle man."

And with that word his speech to fail began.

For from his feet up to his breast was come

The cold of death, that had him overnome*. *overcome

And yet moreover in his armes two

The vital strength is lost, and all ago*. *gone

Only the intellect, withoute more,

That dwelled in his hearte sick and sore,

Gan faile, when the hearte felte death;

Dusked* his eyen two, and fail'd his breath. *grew dim

But on his lady yet he cast his eye;

His laste word was; "Mercy, Emily!"

His spirit changed house, and wente there,

As I came never I cannot telle where.

Therefore I stent*, I am no divinister**; *refrain **diviner

Of soules find I nought in this register.

Ne me list not th' opinions to tell

Of them, though that they writen where they dwell;

Arcite is cold, there Mars his soule gie.* *guide

Now will I speake forth of Emily.

Shriek'd Emily, and howled Palamon,

And Theseus his sister took anon

Swooning, and bare her from the corpse away.

What helpeth it to tarry forth the day,

To telle how she wept both eve and morrow?

For in such cases women have such sorrow,

When that their husbands be from them y-go*, *gone

That for the more part they sorrow so,

Or elles fall into such malady,

That at the laste certainly they die.

Infinite be the sorrows and the tears

Of olde folk, and folk of tender years,

In all the town, for death of this Theban:

For him there weepeth bothe child and man.

So great a weeping was there none certain,

When Hector was y-brought, all fresh y-slain,

To Troy: alas! the pity that was there,

Scratching of cheeks, and rending eke of hair.

"Why wouldest thou be dead?" these women cry,

"And haddest gold enough, and Emily."

No manner man might gladden Theseus,

Saving his olde father Egeus,

That knew this worlde's transmutatioun,

As he had seen it changen up and down,

Joy after woe, and woe after gladness;

And shewed him example and likeness.

"Right as there died never man," quoth he,

"That he ne liv'd in earth in some degree*, *rank, condition

Right so there lived never man," he said,

"In all this world, that sometime be not died.

This world is but a throughfare full of woe,

And we be pilgrims, passing to and fro:

Death is an end of every worldly sore."

And over all this said he yet much more

To this effect, full wisely to exhort

The people, that they should them recomfort.

Duke Theseus, with all his busy cure*, *care

*Casteth about*, where that the sepulture *deliberates*

Of good Arcite may best y-maked be,

And eke most honourable in his degree.

And at the last he took conclusion,

That there as first Arcite and Palamon

Hadde for love the battle them between,

That in that selve* grove, sweet and green, *self-same

There as he had his amorous