and a company of angels also there winsomely sung
until the body came to where it desired to lie
with the head and all, and the holy angels
continually sung, as books tell us.
Then the heathen, those that heard the song
and saw the wonder, cast away their error
and believed in Christ, and likewise some of the executioners;
and none was left there who would not believe,
but turned them away, terrified at the wonder.
That was such a strange wonder, that the righteous martyr
could walk headless, praising God Almighty,
and moreover run with troops of angels;
but God desired to declare through that strange sign
that his soul lived, though the body might be slain,
and would manifest to men how great faith
the holy man had in the Saviour in life.
Sisinnius, notwithstanding, the unhappy judge,
would not believe in Christ, but bade men kill all
who, through Dionysius' lore, believed in God,
with divers tortures very savagely;
and their souls departed to the true life.
The holy priest's body and that of the faithful deacon,
Rusticus and Eleutherius, lay upon the hill,
where they were beheaded with the holy bishop,
when his body went away, even as we wrote before.
Then the heathen executioners bare the Saints' bodies
presently to ship, desiring to sink them in the flood,
but the Almighty Creator brought to naught that evil counsel.
There was a certain noble lady who knew their evil counsel,
and invited the executioners to her, as if for friendship,
and made them drunk with wine, and bade men go secretly
meanwhile to the ship and steal away the bodies;
and she kept them reverently till the persecution ceased,
