Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/158

cxxxii, save she and I, but afterward what befell of her I wot not.

"Then cried the empress with a loud voice, and said: Soothly dear friends, ye do now truly confess and declare the truth, wherefore I will now apply my medicine, and anon they received their healths.

"When the lady the empress had thus done, she uncovered her face to the emperor, and he forthwith knew her, and ran to her, and embraced her in his arms, and kissed her oftentimes, and for joy he wept bitterly: saying, Blessed be God, now I have found that I desired. And when he had thus said, he led her home to the palace with great joy; and after, when it pleased Almighty God, they ended both their lives in peace and rest."

"Occleve has related this story in verse, from the present work, (MS. Reg. 1 7 D. vi.) and it is also to be found in the Patrañas of Timonida. (Patr. 21.) The outline has been borrowed from one of the Contes devots, or miracles of the Virgin Mary . The incident of the bloody knife occurs likewise in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale, and in a story related by Gower, Confessio Amantis, fol. 32."—.