He was war, as he caste his eye aside,
Where that ther kneled in the heighe weye
A compaignye of ladyes, tweye and tweye,
Ech after oother clad in clothes blake;
But swich a cry and swich a wo they make
That in this world nys creature lyvynge
That herde swich another waymentynge
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Knight’s Tale. A group of weeping widows dressed in black clothes is kneeling on the road in front of Duke Theseus’s cavalcade as he returns to Athens. No living creature in the world is said to have heard such lamentation as from them.