Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/248

dishevelled and flying; her eyes, wild and sparkling with the violence of emotion, were raised piteously to heaven. With that strength which frenzy sometimes supplies, she burst through the multitude who struggled to detain her; and approaching the body of her deceased child, said, or rather shrieked, in a heart-piercing accent, "I will pass; I will look upon my soul's only comfort. Did not this dried fountain suckle him? Have not these withered arms supported him? Hath he not slept—ah! not such sleep as this!—while I have watched him? Oh my child!" Saying this, she threw her emaciated form upon the unconscious object of her solicitude; and again giving vent to her sorrows, exclaimed, "My own dear boy! light of the dimmed eyes that will soon close upon all, since thou art gone—why hast thou wrought this? why wast thou so inhuman? Thou didst see our tears—thou didst hearken to our groans—yet camest not forward to abate them! The slaves scoffed at and injured thee, but thou wert patient—too, too patient." Again, and again, the unfortunate mother prostrated her-