When they laid her back in
her bier the ladies wrapped her again in a cloth of Syrian stuff,
leaving her face uncovered. All that night there is no abatement
of the cries they raise unceasingly. Throughout the city. high
and low, poor and rich, are beside themselves with grief, and it
seems as if each one boasts that he will outdo all others in his
woe, and would fain never be comforted. All that night the grief
continues. The next morning John came to the court; and the
emperor sends for him and issues to him this command: "John, if
ever thou wroughtest a fine piece of work, now put forth and show
all thy skill in constructing such a sepulchre as for beauty and
workmanship shall have no match." And John, who had already
performed the task, says that he has already completed one which
is very fine and cleverly wrought; but when he began the work he
had no thought that other than a holy body should be laid in it.
"Now let the empress be laid in it and buried in some sacred
place, for she, I think, is sanctified." "You have spoken well,"
says the emperor; "she shall be buried yonder in my lord Saint
Peter's Church, where bodies are wont to be interred. For before
her death she made this request of me, that I should have her
buried there.
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