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trunk of a palm tree[1]. She said, Would to God I had died before this, and had become a thing forgotten and lost in oblivion! And he who was beneath her called to her, saying, Be not grieved: now hath God provided a rivulet under thee; and do thou shake the body of the palm-tree, and it shall let fall ripe dates upon thee, ready gathered. And eat and drink and calm thy mind. Moreover if thou see any man and he question thee, say, Verily I have vowed a fast unto the merciful; wherefore I will by no means speak to a man this day. So she brought the child to her people, carrying him in her arms. And they said unto her, O Mary, now hast thou done a strange thing: O sister of Aaron[2]
- ↑ Sale observes a strong resemblance in the account of the delivery of the Virgin Mary and that of Latona, not only in the circumstance of their laying held of the palm tree, (though some say Latona embraced an olive tree, others an olive or a palm, or else two laurels,) but also in the infant's speaking, which Apollo is fabled to have done in the womb.
- ↑ The Moslems obviate the apparent difficulty of making Mary and Aaron contemporaries, by saying, she had a brother
