Page:The Anglo-Saxon version of the story of Apollonius of Tyre.djvu/58

Rh that I have through wax, which knoweth no shame, declared to thee what I myself could not for shame say to thee."

When the king had read over the letter, then he knew not what shipwrecked man she named. He looked then to the three young men, and said: "Which of you has been shipwrecked?" Then said one of them, who was called Ardalius: "I have been shipwrecked." The second answered him and said: "Be thou silent! May disease consume thee, so that thou be neither hale nor sound! With me thou didst learn book-knowledge, and thou hast never gone from me without the gate of the city. Where didst thou suffer shipwreck?" When the king could not find which of them had been shipwrecked, he looked at Apollonius, and said: "Take thou, Apollonius, this letter, and read it: it may easily chance that thou knowest what I know not, thou who there wast present." Then Apollonius took the letter and read; and as soon as he discovered that he was beloved by the maiden, his countenance all reddened. When the king saw that, then took he Apollonius's hand, and turned him a little from the young men, [22] and said, "Dost thou know the shipwrecked man?" Apollonius said: "Thou good king, if it be thy will, I know him." When the king saw that Apollonius was all suffused with rose red, then understood he the saying, and thus said to him: "Rejoice, rejoice.