THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

9
© 2009 Max Wickert
medicine, and, the seven maidens having been found, their mothers were brought down to the court
under the pretense of charity, as if Constantine intended to feast them. Standing by the chamber
door, they heard that their daughters were to be killed for Constantine’s cure, and began to lament
loudly. Constantine, hearing their wailing, asked what was the matter, and was told the cause.
Constantine thereupon grew tenderhearted and took pity on them, saying to his servants, “Send
them away,” and gave them certain courteous gifts, and pardoned the lives of those innocents,
speaking these words: “I would rather die the death and bear the torments of my disease than use
such cruelty.” These words of his and his goodly promise were so pleasing to God, that God
multiplied the issue of his blood with honor so great that it became the wonderment of the whole
world.
2
On the following night Constantine saw in a vision two men garbed in white, and asked them
whether he might be healed. “Yes,” said they, and told him: “Let yourself be guided by that
Sylvester who preaches faith in Christ, for he knows how to prepare a water that will make you
well.” Constantine did not believe them either the first or the second time; but the third time he
asked them who they were. They replied, “We are Peter and Paul, apostles of Jesus Christ.” At this,
Constantine believed them, and on the morrow he heard a voice that cried out: “Do as you have
heard, and have faith, and you shall be healed.”
Constantine summoned one of his nobles, called Lucius Albanius, the captain of his bodyguard of
knights, and commanded him to go to Mount Soractis and to bring back that Sylvester who
preached the faith of Christ. Whereupon they went there with a thousand knights, and did not find