Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/113

Rh likeness." Our Lord had a fair child, that is to say, the soul made free from all spot by His Passion, and by virtue of baptism. That soul is slain in us by sin. Do you ask how? I will tell you. By giving ourselves up to carnal delights, whose fruit is death. The blood on the hand is sin, which tenaciously clings to us: as it is said, "My soul is ever in my own hands"—that is, whether it does well or ill is as openly apparent as if it were placed in the hands for the inspection and sentence of the Supreme Judge.

[There are two moralizations to this story; but there is nothing in either worth examination.] 

 the reign of the Emperor Dorotheus a decree was passed that children should support their parents. There was, at that time, in the kingdom, a certain soldier, who had espoused a very fair and virtuous woman, by whom he had a son. It happened that the soldier went upon a journey, was made prisoner, and very rigidly confined. Immediately he wrote to his wife and son for ransom. The intelligence communicated great uneasiness to the former, who wept so bitterly that she became blind. Whereupon the son said to his mother, "I will hasten to my father, and release him from prison." The mother answered, "Thou shalt not go; for thou art my only son—even the half of my soul, and it may happen to thee as it has done to him. Hadst thou rather ransom thy absent parent than protect her who is with thee, and presses thee to her affectionate arms? Is not the possession of one thing better than the expectation of two? Thou art