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“
[62]
I seized my opportunity, and persuaded a guest in our house to come
with me as far as the fifth milestone. He was a soldier, and as brave as Hell.
So we trotted off about cockcrow; the moon shone like high noon. We got among
the tombstones:1 my man went aside to
look at the epitaphs, I sat down with my heart full of song and began to count
the graves. Then when I looked round at my friend, he stripped himself and put
all his clothes by the roadside. My heart was in my mouth, but I stood like a
dead man. He made a ring of water round his clothes and suddenly turned into a
wolf. Please do not think I am joking; I would not lie about this for any
fortune in the world. But as I was saying, after he had turned into a wolf, he
began to howl, and ran off into the woods. At first I hardly knew where I was,
then I went up to take his clothes; but they had all turned into stone. No one
could be nearer dead with terror than I was. But I drew my sword and went
slaying shadows all the way till I[p. 117] came to my love's house. I
went in like a corpse, and nearly gave up the ghost, the sweat ran down my legs,
my eyes were dull, I could hardly be revived. My dear Melissa was surprised at
my being out so late, and said, 'If you had come earlier you might at least have
helped us; a wolf got into the house and worried all our sheep, and let their
blood like a butcher. But he did not make fools of us, even though he got off;
for our slave made a hole in his neck with a spear.' When I heard this, I could
not keep my eyes shut any longer, but at break of day I rushed back to my master
Gaius's house like a defrauded publican, and when I came to the place where the
clothes were turned into stone, I found nothing but a pool of blood. But when I
reached home, my soldier was lying in bed like an ox, with a doctor looking
after his neck. I realized that he was a werewolf, and I never could sit down to
a meal with him afterwards, not if you had killed me first. Other people may
think what they like about this; but may all your guardian angels punish me if I
am lying.”
1 They would be by the roadside.
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