torture too bitter day by day. No longer can I705 endure to suffer, and conceal my knowledge concerning the tree of life, though before I was filled with folly, and confess the truth too late.’
11. The Finding of the Crosses.
When she who there held sway over the heroes understood the changed bearing of the man, she710 straightway bade release him from his prison, his dungeon, his narrow cell. Then quickly they did so, and took him out of the pit with care, as the queen had bidden them. And they resolutely715 took their way to that place upon the hill where the Lord was crucified on the cross, the Son of God and Prince of the heavenly realm. Weakened by hunger, he knew not yet clearly where through720 the wiles of the devil the holy rood lay hid beneath the earth, nor where it rested in its tomb, safe in a secret place, long hidden from men.
After a little while he lifted up his voice with unwonted power and spake in Hebrew:—‘O Lord725 Jesus, thou who dost possess the power of judgment, thou who didst form the heaven and the earth and the sea, the broad expanse of waters, and all created things, by the might of thy glory; thou who didst measure out with thine own hands all the sphere of730 this earth and of the firmament above; thou who dost sit in person, the King of victories, over the most glorious angel-kind; thou who in a mantle of light dost fare through space in surpassing majesty, the nature of man cannot rise in the flesh735 from the earth-tainted ways unto the bright throng of the pure, the heralds of glory. Thou didst form
