Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/304

292 When she had said these and similar things, the girl threw herself before Apollonius, and drawing aside his hands, embraced him. "Hear," said she, "the voice of your supplicant: regard a virgin's prayers. It is wicked in men of so much wisdom to destroy themselves. If you lament your lost wife, the mercy of God can restore her to you; if your deceased child, He can bestow another. You ought to live and be glad." Apollonius irritated at the girl's pertinacity, arose and pushed her from him with his foot. She fell, and cut her cheek, from which the blood copiously flowed. Terrified at the wound she had received, she burst into tears and exclaimed, "O thou eternal Architect of the heavens! look upon my afflictions. Born amid the waves and storms of the ocean, my mother perished in giving life to her daughter.