While the wine-fumes to his head were rising,
Thus his mother spoke unto the hero:
“Son of mine! thou Theodore of Stalatch!
Tell me, wherefore hast thou not espoused thee?
Thou art in thy youthful days of beauty:
In thy dwelling now thine aged mother
Fain would see thy children play around her.”
And he answer’d—Theodore of Stalatch—
“God is witness, O my aged mother!
I have roamed through many a land and city,