Page:Woman in the Nineteenth Century 1845.djvu/83

Rh elevation. They say that his wife, after setting him out with all the ornaments she has, is sitting on the ground with his head on her knees.’ Cyrus, hearing this, gave himself a blow on the thigh, mounted his horse at a leap, and taking with him a thousand horse, rode away to this scene of affliction; but gave orders to Gadatas and Gobryas to take with them all the rich ornaments proper for a friend and an excellent man deceased, and to follow after him; and whoever had herds of cattle with him, he ordered them to take both oxen, and horses, and sheep in good number, and to bring them away to the place where, by inquiry, they should find him to be, that he might sacrifice these to Abradatus.

“As soon as he saw the woman sitting on the ground, and the dead body there lying, he shed tears at the afflicting sight, and said: ‘Alas! thou brave and faithful soul, hast thou left us, and art thou gone?’ At the same time he took him by the right hand, and the hand of the deceased came away, for it had been cut off, with a sword, by the Egyptians. He, at the sight of this, became yet much more concerned than before. The woman shrieked out in a lamentable mariner, and, taking the hand from Cyrus, kissed it, fitted it to its proper place again, as well as she could, and said, ‘The rest, Cyrus, is in the same condition, but what need you see it? And I know that I was not one of the least concerned in these his sufferings, and, perhaps, you were not less so, for I, fool that I was! frequently exhorted him to behave in such a manner as to appear a friend to you, worthy of notice; and I know he never thought of what he himself should suffer, but of