the younger[1] sat at his right holding in his hand the golden apple with a cross as emblem of his dignity. Another prince was at his left holding aloft a bare sword. When they led Master John Hus out of prison, he was so weak that his bones clang to his skin, because of the many illnesses from which he had suffered in prison. Master John Hus bowed down before the body of God (on the altar) and prayed, but to the people he only showed his respect by (bowing) his head. For it is written thus: Before God humble your heart, but before the great and the prince bend your head; and he (Hus) stood before them, folding his hands, and from his right foot the fetters had not yet been struck off. One of the assembly arose and spoke saying: This assembly which has met by order of the Holy Ghost bids thee to allow thyself to be instructed. Master John answered: I still beg for instruction, but up to the present time I have received none. I am ready to die for that which I have preached in accordance with the holy prophets, the holy scriptures, the words of the holy apostles, the fathers of the church and the holy martyrs, for better doctrine have I none. Oh, you have summoned me (before your tribunal) and oppress me unrighteously with your might; but I summon you all in a century before the Lord God. Then immediately the Cardinal of Cambray sprang up and said: John Hus, obdurate heretic, this will not avail thee: thou wilt not escape from our hands. Master John Hus answered and spoke: It is indeed a fine holy council; three hundred harlots have followed it (come with it). Your earthly God you once called John the Pope, Balthasar XXIII., saying that he was an earthly God (God upon earth) and could not sin. But when by divine permission the secular power seized him you confessed that he was an evil sinner and simonist, the worst of heretics, and you hold him in the Castle of Gottlieben; and what this council did in summer, that will be known when winter comes; they will fly away like storks, and their enactments will be vain. He then looked at the King of Hungary, and spoke saying: King, that for which thou strivest thou shalt not obtain, for through thy miserable artifices thou shalt lose thy life; that for which thou strivest thou shalt not obtain. Thou wilt be neither Roman Emperor nor King in Bohemia.[2] Hearing this the Hungarian king blushed with shame and hung down his head; then they immediately read out
- ↑ The person thus described is Louis Count Palatine, who carried the imperial globe here designated as the “golden apple.”
- ↑ These (false) predictions, here wrongly attributed to Hus, seem to point to the early date of the manuscript. Though he always claimed the Bohemian throne, Sigismund was only recognised as King of Bohemia in 1436.
