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- The next morning, as soon as it was light. King Arthur,
- who was weighed down by many burdens, took a hundred
- knights and had them armed, and he had a horsedrawn
- litter prepared, and he had the body of Sir Gawain placed
- in it. And he said to them, “Take my nephew to Camelot
- for me, and have him buried there, as he requested, and
- placed in Gaheriet’s tomb. ”
- -
- “Sir,” they said, “don’t despair, but ride confidently,
- for you can see Mordred charging at full speed. Have no
- fear, because fear can’t benefit us or you.” Then the king’s
- standard was brought up, and a hundred or more knights
- were assigned to guard it.
- -
- Knights on both sides drew their swords and struck
- with all their power and killed as many of their adversaries
- as possible. King Arthur’s men, who were guarding the
- standard, performed so well in this encounter that all
- except twenty of Mordred’s four hundred knights were
- killed and hacked to pieces before the hour of nones. If
- you had been on the battlefield then, you would have seen
- the ground littered with the dead and a great many
- wounded.
- A little after the hour of nones, the battle had been
- concluded in such fashion that of all those who were
- gathered on the plain—and there had been more than one
- hundred thousand—no more than three hundred now
- remained alive. All the knights of the Round Table had
- been killed except four, for they had thrown caution to the
- wind when they saw how desperate matters were.
- -
- When Arthur’s men saw the king on the ground, they
- were so enraged that the human heart could not
- comprehend their pain. They said, “Oh, God, why do you
- permit this battle?” Then they charged at Mordred’s men,
- and they at them, and the deadly struggle resumed. As a
- result, before the hour of vespers, all of them were killed
- except Lucan the Wine Steward and Girflet.
- The Vulgate Cycle
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