Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/365

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OF THE FORCE OF TRUTH.

353

innocent, study to amend your future life; for this time I pardon you—go in peace."

The people unanimously applauded the decision of the judge, in acquitting the guilty person, whose magnanimity had rescued two innocent persons from death.

APPLICATION.

My beloved, the emperor is God^[1]; the two knights, Christ and our first parent^[2]; the beautiful girl is the soul. The dead man is the spirit destroyed by the flesh.

↑ There is no Emperor in the story; but that is of little consequence. The reader must suppose one. Long use had so habituated the author or authors of the "Gesta Romanorum," to the anomalous introduction of an emperor, that the omission must have been held a flagrant breach of court etiquette.
↑ In agro Damascene plasmatus est," in the original.

[1] There is no Emperor in the story; but that is of little consequence. The reader must suppose one. Long use had so habituated the author or authors of the "Gesta Romanorum," to the anomalous introduction of an emperor, that the omission must have been held a flagrant breach of court etiquette.

[2] In agro Damascene plasmatus est," in the original.

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