Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 16.djvu/280

 in your country? And he answered me, Know that this is our custom in our country: when the husband dieth, we bury with him his wife; and when the wife dieth, we bury with her her husband alive; that we may not separate them in life nor in death; and this custom we have received from our forefathers. And I said, O King of the age, and in like manner the foreigner like me, when his wife dieth among you do ye with him as ye have done with this man? He answered me, Yes: we bury him with her, and do with him as thou hast seen. And when I heard these words from him, my gall-bladder almost burst by reason of the violence of my grief and mourning for myself; my mind was stupefied, and I became fearful lest my wife should die before me and they should bury me alive with her. Afterwards, however, I comforted myself, and said, Perhaps I shall die before her: and no one knoweth which will precede and which will follow. And I proceeded to beguile myself with occupations.

And but a short time had elapsed after that when my wife fell sick, and she remained so a few days, and died. So the greater number of the people assembled to console me, and to console her family for her death; and the King also came to console me for the loss of her, as was their custom. Then they brought for her a woman to wash her, and they washed her, and decked her with the richest of her apparel, and ornaments of gold, and necklaces and jewels. And when they had attired my wife, and put her in the bier, and carried her and gone with her to that mountain, and lifted up the stone from the mouth of the pit, and cast her into it, all my companions, and the family of my wife, advanced to bid me farewell and to console me for the loss of my life. I was crying out among them, I am a foreigner, and am unable to endure your custom! But they would not hear what I said, nor pay any regard to my words. They laid hold upon me and bound me by force, tying with me seven cakes of bread and a jug of sweet water, according to their custom, and let me down into that pit. And, lo, it was a great cavern beneath that mountain. They said to me, Loose thyself from the ropes. But I would not loose myself. So they threw the ropes down upon me, and covered the mouth of the pit with the great stone that was upon it, and went their ways. I beheld in that cavern many dead bodies, and their smell was putrid and abominable; and I blamed myself