So
great was his distress that a thousand times he sighed "alas!"
and grieving fell in a swoon; and the point of his sharp sword,
falling from its scabbard, pierced the meshes of his hauberk
right in the neck beside the cheek. There is not a mesh that
does not spread, and the sword cuts the flesh of his neck beneath
the shining mail, so that it causes the blood to start. Then the
lion thinks that he sees his master and companion dead. You
never heard greater grief narrated or told about anything than he
now began to show. He casts himself about, and scratches and
cries, and has the wish to kill himself with the sword with which
he thinks his master has killed himself. Taking the sword from
him with his teeth he lays it on a fallen tree, and steadies it
on a trunk behind, so that it will not slip or give way, when he
hurls his breast against it, His intention was nearly
accomplished when his master recovered from his swoon, and the
lion restrained himself as he was blindly rushing upon death,
like a wild boar heedless of where he wounds himself. Thus my
lord Yvain lies in a swoon beside the stone, but, on recovering,
he violently reproached himself for the year during which he had
overstayed his leave, and for which he had incurred his lady's
hate, and he said: "Why does this wretch not kill himself who has
thus deprived himself of joy? Alas! why do I not take my life?
How can I stay here and look upon what belongs to my lady? Why
does the soul still tarry in my body? What is the soul doing in
so miserable a frame? If it had already escaped away it would
not be in such torment.
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