Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/495

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NOTES.
321

continued a length of time without motion. Considering, however, that this maceration of his body would advance him but a little way to heaven, he next resolved to stifle in himself all emotions of pride and self-love, and for this end, he studiously rendered himself disgusting, neglecting his person, and to hide his quality, assuming a clownish carriage.

"With his face covered with dirt, his hair matted, and his beard and nails of a fearful length, but his soul filled with inward satisfaction, he begged his bread from door to door, a spectacle of scorn and ridicule to all the inhabitants and children of Manreza[1]. He persevered in this course, notwithstanding the suggestions of the wily enemy of mankind, who wished to tempt him to the world again, until a report was circulated that he was a person of quality, and the feelings of the people were converted from scorn and ridicule to admiration and reverence whereupon he retreated to a cave in the neighbourhood[2]. The gloom of his new abode excited in him a lively, vigorous spirit of penance, in which he revelled with the utmost fervour, and without the least restraint. He chastised his body four or five times

  1. Compare with this account what is said of Alexius in page 67, et seq.
  2. Vide page 69.