Page:Aelfric's Lives of Saints Vol 1.djvu/221

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Then the angel went away with the youths,

and there was no man in the province who had seen them before.

Lo then! Quintianus, Christ's adversary,

went in a ship over Semithetus (the river Symsethus)

about Agatha's possessions, desiring also to apprehend

all her kindred, but he could not for Christ.

A horse seized him, as he lay in the ship,

savagely with its teeth, and lifted him up;

then another horse spurned at him and flung him overboard,

and his foul body was never found afterward.

Then durst no man vex her kindred,

but honoured them all, being awed by God.

In the same province of the land of Sicily

is a burning mountain, which men call Etna,

kindled with suqiliur, that is brimstone in English.

The mountain burneth ever, as many others do.

Then befell it, about twelve months

after Agatha's passion, that Etna exploded (lit. blew up)

with a very fearful burning, which ran down the mountain

even like a flood, and the stones melted,

and the earth was burnt up, until it came to the city.

Then ran the heathen to the saint's tomb,

and took up the veil[1] from the saint's tomb,

against the fire which frightened them exceedingly.

Then the fire was quenched, and immediately stood still

for the merits of Agatha, the noble woman;

Six days it burned, and stood still on the day

whereon the blessed Agatha departed to eternal life,

that it might be manifest that the city was delivered

from the peril of fire by Agatha's intercession,

to the praise of the Saviour, who thus honoureth His Saints.

"Wherefore to Him ever be glory to all eternity. AMEN.

  1. See the anthem to the Benedictus in the Roman Breviary office for S. Agatha's Day. 'The multitude of the heathen, flying to the Virgin's tomb, took thence her veil to defend them from the fire ; that the Lord might reprove them by delivering them from the peril of burning, for the sake of the Blessed Martyr Agatha.'