THE CANTERBURY TALES
and another in his hands the spear; the third bore with him the Turkish bow, the case whereof and eke the harness were of burnished gold. And with sorrowful cheer they rode forth at a foot-pace toward the grove, as I shall tell you. The noblest of the Greeks that were there carried the bier upon their shoulders through the city with slack pace and eyes wet and red, by the chief street, that was spread all with black and hung wondrous high with the same. On the right hand old Egeus went and on the other side the duke, with golden vessels in their hands full of honey, milk, blood and wine; then Palamon, with a full great troop; and after that woful Emily, bearing fire in her hand to do the funeral office, as was that time the usage.
High labour and provision full richly wrought was at the funeral rite and making of the pyre, that with its green top reached the heaven and stretched its arms twenty fathom in breadth (this is to say, the boughs reached out so far) . First was laid many a load of straw. But how the pile was builded up, and eke the names how the trees were called (as oak, fir, aspen, birch, alder, holm, poplar, whipple-tree, elm, willow, ash, box, plane, chestnut, linden, laurel, thorn, maple, beech, hazel and yew), how all these were felled shall not be told for me; nor how the gods ran up and down, disinherited from their abode in which they dwelt in rest and peace, Nymphs, Hamadryads and Fauns; nor how all the beasts and birds fled in fear when the wood was felled; nor how the ground was aghast of the light, that was not wont to see the sun; nor how the fire was laid first with straw, and then with dry sticks cloven, and then with green wood and spicery, and then with cloth of gold and gems and
garlands hanging with many a flower, the myrrh, the incense
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