Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/274

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OF TEMPORAL TRIBULATION.

tears and groans upon her inanimate body. "Dear wife!" he exclaimed, "daughter of the great Altistrates, how shall I console thy unhappy parent?" (66) Here the pilot, interrupting him, observed, "Sir, it will prejudice the ship, to retain the dead body on board; command that it be cast into the sea." "Wretch that you are," returned Apollonius, "would you wish me to hurl this form into the waves, that succoured me shipwrecked and in poverty?" Then calling his attendants, he directed them to prepare a coffin, and smear the lid with bitumen. He also commanded a leaden scroll to accompany the body, and arrayed in regal habiliments, and crowned, to be deposited in the coffin. He kissed her cold lips, and wept bitterly. Afterwards giving strict charge respecting the new-born infant, he committed all that remained of his wife to the sea. (67)

On the third day, the chest was driven by the waves to the shores of Ephesus, not far from the residence of a physician, called Cerimon, who happened at that hour to be walking with certain of his pupils upon the