This page needs to be proofread.

down. So the souls, waymenting for sorrow of their pains, cry everyone and say these words: Miseremini MEi, MISEREMINI MEi, SALTUM vos, ETC. Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, at the last, ye that be my friends. Where is now the help of my friends? Where be now the good behests of our kinsmen and others; by whose inordinate affection we took no force[1] of ourselves, and so increased we this pain to ourselves. Alas, why have we done so? Lo the least pain of this purgatory that we now feel passeth all manner of Jewesses[2] of that temporal world; the bitterness of pain that we now feel in one hour, seemeth as great as all the sorrows of the passing world in an hundred years. But passing[3] all other torments and pains, it grieveth me most the absence of that blessed Face of God.

These words that I have here now said in my last passing I leave to thee as a mind: and so passing I die.

At this vision the disciple made great sorrow, and for dread all his bones quaked. And then turning him to God he said:

Disciple

Where is everlasting Wisdom? Now Lord hast Thou forsaken me. Thy servant. Thou wouldest teach me wisdom enough, but I am almost brought to the death. O my God, how much bindeth me the presence of death that I have seen! Now the

  1. i.e. heed.
  2. i.e. extortioners.
  3. i.e. surpassing.