Outside, the market-place must have resembled one on a Sunday abroad at the present day, for it was full of stalls for the sale of cakes. In rushing from the church officials, he knocked over the stalls,[4] and the sellers beat him so unmercifully for his pains that he groaned in himself: “Humble Symeon, verily, verily, they will maul the life out of you in an hour!”
A seller of sour wine[5] saw him racing round the market-place, and, being in want of a servant, hailed him, and said, “Here, fellow; if you want a job, sell pulse for me.”
“I am ready,” answered Symeon. So he gave him pulse and beans and peas to sell, but the hermit, who had eaten nothing for a week, devoured the whole amount.
“This will never do,” said the mistress of the house; “the abbot eats more than he sells. Here, fellow, what money have you taken?”
Symeon had neither money nor vegetables to show, so the woman turned him out of the house. The monk placidly seated himself on the doorstep, and proceeded to offer up his evening devotions. But these were not complete without the ritual adjunct of smoking incense. Symeon looked about for a broken pot in which to put some cinders; but finding none, he took some lighted charcoal in the palm of his hand, and strewed a few grains of incense upon it. The mistress of the house, smelling the fumes, looked out of the window, and exclaimed, “Gracious heaven! Abbot Symeon, are you making a thurible of your hand?”[6] At that moment the charcoal began to burn his palm, and he threw the ashes into the lap of his coarse goat’s-hair mantle.
The taverner and his wife were so moved by the piety of Symeon that they received him into the house, and employed him in selling vegetables, which duty he executed satisfactorily when his appetite was not exacting. They speedily found that Silly Symeon drew customers to their house, for Symeon laid himself out to divert them, and it became the rage for a time in Emesa for folk to visit the tavern, saying, “We must have our dinner and wine where that comical fool lives.”
One day Symeon Salos saw a serpent put its head into one of the wine pitchers in the tavern, and drink. He took a stick and broke the pitcher, thinking that the serpent had spit poison into the wine. The publican was angry with Symeon for breaking the amphora, and, catching the stick out of his hand, cudgelled the poor monk with it, without listening to his explanation. On the morrow the serpent again entered the tavern, and went to the wine jars. The host saw it this time, and rushed after it with a stick, upsetting and breaking several amphoræ. “Ha, ha!” exclaimed Symeon, peeping out from behind the door, where he had concealed himself, “who is the biggest fool to-day?”[7]
The taverner did not show much kindness to Symeon; but this is hardly to be wondered at, when we hear that, summoned to his wife’s bedroom by her cries one night, he found it invaded by the saint, who was deliberately undressing in it for bed. This he did, says Leontius, Bishop of Neapolis, in order to lower the high opinion entertained of him by his master.[8] After this, as may well be believed, the taverner told the tale over his cups with much laughter to his guests, and with confusion to his man. In Lent the saint devoured flesh, but would not touch bread. “He is possessed,” said the inn-keeper; “he insulted my wife, and he eats meat in Lent like an infidel.”
In Emesa he picked up a certain John the Deacon, who admired his proceedings. To this John, the saint related the events of his former life; and from John Leontius heard the story.
One day John the Deacon was on his way to the public baths, when he met Symeon. “You will be all the better for a wash, my friend,” said the Deacon; “come with me to the baths.”