Now when they had sent Areté to wed in the strange country,
There came a year of heaviness, a month of God’s displeasure,
And there befell the Pestilence, that the nine brethren perished;
Lone as a willow in the plain, lone, desolate their mother.
Over eight graves she beats her breast, o’er eight makes lamentation,
But from the tomb of Constantine she tears the very grave-stones:
—‘Rise, I adjure thee, Constantine, ’tis Areté I long for;
Thou madest the Saints thy witnesses, thou gavest me God for surety,
If there hap bitterness or joy, thyself would’st go and bring her.’
Forth from the mound that covered him the stern adjuring drave him;