the aforesaid thane who had her sister to wife,
and cried vociferously, and said to him immediately:
'While I was thinking how to help thy wife,
I lost mine thereby, and she is much worse to me
than Migdonia is to thee.' And they consulted long.
Then the king commanded men to bring to him Thomas in bonds,
and asked with anger: ' What is He, your God,
who thus turneth, through thee, our wives from us?'
Thomas said to him: ' Thou, king, wilt have
cleanly attendance and fit servants;
thinkest thou that God will not, He who ruleth all things,
have fit servants and cleanly attendance?'
Then said Mazdai the king: ' Cause by thy words again
that the women return to us of their own will.'
Thomas answered him: ' I have built a steeple,
and thou sayest that I should myself overthow it;
but I say verily to them God's word rather,
that he who loveth on earth his earthly father,
mother, or bairns, or wife above God,
he is not worthy of God.' And he said again to him:
'Thou, king, canst not slay the soul with weapons,
although thou lay low the body in death.
God the righteous King can send alike
both soul and body to everlasting fire.
The wife should therefore leave her husband,
because he was a heathen and a hateful persecutor;
but the canons nevertheless say and command that no woman
shall leave her husband on the 'plea of religion
unless it so please them both.' Then the king immediately ordered
to lay hot irons under his naked feet,
that he might long thus suffer torture, but anon there ran water
wondrously up, and cooled the irons.
