Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/382

208 yourselves to the protection of heaven." So saying he disappeared. The emperor gave thanks to God, and surrendering to him all his soul, lived happily and finished his days in peace (58)

My beloved, the emperor represents any one whom the pride and vanity of life wholly engross. The knight to whom Jovinian first applied, is Reason; which ever disclaims the pomps and fooleries of life. The duke is conscience; the savage dog, is the flesh, which alarms the falcon, that is, divine Grace. The wife is the human soul; the clothes in which the emperor was at last arrayed, are the virtues that befit the true sovereign, that is, the good Christian.