_The sobs of the women cease--and after an interval of silence_,)
"Fair! fair!--all fair he is! Thou hast slept enough!--lift thy head!--arise!
"Inhale the perfume of our flowers--narcissus--blossoms and anemones, gathered in thine own gardens to please thee. Arouse thee! thou dost make us fear for thee!
"Speak to us! What dost thou desire? Wilt thou drink wine?--wilt thou lie in our beds?--dost wish to eat the honeycakes which have the form of little birds?
"Let us press his lips,--kiss his breast! Now!--now!--dost thou not feel our ring-laden fingers passing over thy body?--and our lips that seek thy mouth?--and our tresses that sweep thy thighs? O faint God, deaf to our prayers!"
(_They cry aloud, and rend their faces with their nails; then all rush,--and the howling of the dog continues in the silence._)
"Alas! alas! Woe!--the black blood trickles over his snowy flesh! See! his knees writhe!--his sides sink in! The bloom of his face hath dampened the purple. He is dead, dead! O weep for him! Lament for him!"
(_In long procession they ascend to lay between the torches the offerings of their several tresses, that seem from afar off like serpents, black or blond;--and the catafalque is lowered gently to the level of, a grotto,--the opening of a shadowy sepulchre that yawns behind it._
A WOMAN (_bends over the corpse. Her long hair, uncut, envelopes her from head to feet. She sheds tears so abundantly that her grief cannot be as that of the others, but more than human--infinite!_
_Anthony dreams of the Mother of Jesus. She speaks_:--)
"Thou didst emerge from the Orient, and didst take me, all trembling with the dew, into thy arms, O Sun! Doves fluttered upon the azure of thy mantle; our kisses evoked low breezes among the foliage; and I abandoned myself wholly to thy love, delighting in the pleasure of my weakness.
"Alas! alas--Why didst thou depart, to run upon the mountains! A boar did wound thee at the time of the autumnal equinox!
"Thou art dead; and the fountains weep,--the trees bend down. The wind of winter whistles through the naked brushwood.
"My eyes are about to close, seeing that darkness covers them! Now thou dwellest in the underworld near the mightiest of my rivals.