Note 12 — Early Poems (continued 2)
Reading edition
Romance, Id., v.: “And when they were at the waterside even fast by the bank hoved a little barge and many fair ladies in it, and among them all was a queen and all they had black hoods and all they wept and shrieked when they saw King Arthur. ‘Now put me into the barge,’ said the king, and so they did softly. And there received him three queens with great mourning, and so they set him down and in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head; and then that queen said: ‘Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me?’”