Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/45

Rh the lady answered, "Be not offended, but rather rejoice at what I have done. That falcon was the occasion of your absence, and I killed him that I might enjoy your company as I was wont." The soldier, satisfied with the reason, became once more a regular visitant.

My beloved, the king is our heavenly Father; the lady, our human nature joined to the divinity in Christ. The soldier is any Christian, and the falcon temporal prosperity.

Tiberius reigned he was passionately fond of music. It happened that as he once