When Peter suggested this, my father said: "I know what you want; wherefore take no trouble. For assuredly I shall take good care, when I reach that place, to make such statements in regard to you as I ought to make." And Peter again suggested: "When, then, you perceive the city changing from its hatred of me, and longing to see me, send information to me of this, and I shall come to you immediately. And when I arrive there, that same day I shall remove the strange shape which now invests you, and I shall make your own unmistakeably visible to your own people and to all others." Saying this, he made his sons, my brothers, and our mother Mattidia to go along with him; and he also commanded some of his more intimate acquaintances to accompany him. But my mother was [1538] unwilling to go with him, and said: "I seem to be an adulteress if I associate with the shape of Simon; but if I shall be compelled to go along with him, [1539] it is impossible for me to recline on the same couch with him! But I do not know if I shall be persuaded to go along with him." And while she was very unwilling to go, Annubion urged her, saying: "Believe me and Peter, and the very voice itself, that this is Faustus your husband, whom I love not less than you. And I myself will go [1540] along with him." When Annubion said this, our mother promised to go with him. Footnotes: [1538] We have changed eide into eike, and added kai eipe, according to the Recognitions. [1539] One word, tuches, is superfluous. [1540] Supplied from the Recognitions. |