Palamon wept together at his bedside. Over all the land was great mourning. Theseus would hardly be comforted for the loss of this brave heart, and Hypolita bewailed this flower of knighthood rudely cut off in his prime. All the maidens cry by his bier, “ Alas, alas! Arcite, why didst thou die thus? Hadst thou not gold enough, and Emelie?”
At last they made a great funeral pyre of all rare and costly woods, and Emelie herself lighted the torch which consumed it to ashes. After this she mourned him for a long time in deep widowhood; but when the period of mourning had been prolonged a year, Theseus called both Palamon and Emelie to his presence.
“ It is not good to grieve always,” he said to Emelie. “ Arcite was a noble gentleman, and loved you dear, but you cannot call him back with grieving. Here is his kinsman, not less brave, who has loved you as long and as dearly. What say you to him, Emelie? As for Palamon, I warrant he will not say me nay.”
And with these words, Theseus placed the hand of his sister in that of the knight, and Emelie looked at Palamon and smiled up in his face with a smile which made sunshine in his sad heart.
Then there was a royal wedding at the palace and never was a more loving pair than these two
