[5-6]: Presumably these ll. allude to the fear and sorrow of the cathedral monks (watching the killing from a safe distance), concerned that the altar, dedicated to the Virgin, where Becket prayed immediately before the attack, could be stained with his blood, as in fact happened (cf. Unger 1869, 260, 441; Eiríkur Magnússon 1875-83, I, 542). Megandi sjá hvar ‘being able to see where’ presumably assumes the cathedral monks as the unstated subject of the pres. part. megandi.