Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/339

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OF THE END OF SINNERS.
165

holy kings—that is, to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. These crowns are, faith, hope, and charity. The pyx of gold, is a heart full of virtues; that of myrrh, typifies repentance; and the pyx of frankincense denotes the Grace of God.





TALE XLVIII.

OF THE END OF SINNERS.

Dionysius records, that when Perillus desired to become an artificer of Phalaris, a cruel and tyrannical king who depopulated the kingdom, and was guilty of many dreadful excesses, he presented to him, already too well skilled in cruelty, a brazen bull, which he had just constructed. In one of its sides there was a secret door, by which those who were sentenced should enter and be burnt to