Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/32

20 the king, "I was brought up by an abbot from my earliest age; and from him I learnt, that I was found cradled in a cask." Here the queen shewed him the tablets, and said, "Dost thou remember these?" He looked, and fell prostrate on the earth. "My son!" cried she, "for thou art so; my only son, and my husband, and my lord! Thou art the child of my brother and myself. Oh, my son, I deposited in the cask with thee these tablets. Woe is me! why, oh, God, didst thou permit my birth, since I was born to be guilty of so much wickedness! Would that the eye which looks upon me, might reduce me to ashes; would that I had passed from the womb to the grave!" Then striking her head against the wall, she cried, "Oh thou Almighty Being, behold my son—my husband, and the son of my brother." "I thought," replied Gregory, "to shun this danger, and I have fallen into the snares of the devil. Dismiss me, lady, to bewail my misery: woe! woe! my mother is my mistress—my wife! See how Satan hath encompassed me!" When the mother