THE CANTERBURY TALES
unto the nearest abbey. His mother lay swooning by the bier; so that scarce could the people draw this new Rachel from his corse.
This provost causeth these Jews that wist of his murder to be slain, and that anon, with torment and shameful death; he would suffer no such cursedness. Evil shall have what evil deserveth, therefore he let them be drawn with wild horses and after that he hanged them by law. Aye upon his bier lieth this innocent before the chief altar while mass was singing, and after, the abbot and his monks sped them to bury him, and when they cast holy water on him yet spake this child and sang—"O alma redemptoris mater!"
This abbot, that was an holy man, as monks be, or else ought to be, begun to conjure this young child and said, "O dear child, in virtue of the holy Trinity, I supplicate thee tell what is thy reason for singing, sith to my seeming thy neck is cut?" "My throat is cut to my neck-bone," said this child, "and by way of nature, I should have died, yea, long time ago, but as ye may learn in books, Jesu Christ willeth that his glory last and be kept in mind, so for the worship of his sweet mother, I may still sing 'O alma' clear and loud. This well of mercy, Christ's dear mother, I loved alway according to my knowledge and when I was to lose my life she came to me and bade me to sing this anthem even in my death as ye have heard, and while I was singing, methought she laid a grain on my tongue. Wherefore I sing, and needs I must sing in honour of that blessed and noble maiden, till the grain is taken from off my tongue ; and afterward she said to me thus: 'My little child, I will fetch thee when the grain is taken from thy tongue ; be not aghast, I will not forsake thee.' "
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