the infant daughter-tongue somehow devised for
itself some centuries later. But Prudentius is almost always a poet, if
a poet of the decadence, and he had as instruments a language and a
prosody which were like a match rifle to a bow and arrows--_not_ of yew
and _not_ cloth-yard shafts--when contrasted with the dialect and
speech-craft of the unknown tenth-century Frenchman. Yet from some
points of view, and especially from ours, the Anonymus of the Dark Ages
wins. Prudentius spins out the story into two hundred and fifteen lines,
with endless rhetorical and poetical amplification. He wants to say that
Eulalia was twelve years old; but he actually informs us that

Curriculis tribus atque novem,
Tres hyemes quater attigerat,

and the whole history of the martyrdom is attitudinised and bedizened in
the same fashion.

Now listen to the noble simplicity of the first French poet and
tale-teller:

A good maiden was Eulalia: fair had she the body, but the
soul fairer. The enemies of God would fain conquer
her--would fain make her serve the fiend. She listened not
to the evil counsellors, that she should deny God, who
abideth in Heaven aloft--neither for gold, nor for silver,
nor for garments; for the royal threatenings, nor for
entreaties. Nothing could ever bend the damsel so that she
should not love the service of God. And for that reason she
was brought before Maximian, who was the King in those days
over the pagans. And he exhorted her--whereof she took no
care--that she should flee from the name of Christian. But
she assembled all her strength that she might rather sustain
the torments than lose her virginity: for which reason she
died in great honour. They cast her in the fire when it
burnt fiercely: but she had no fault in her, and so it
pained her [_or_ she burnt[9]] not.

To this would not trust the pagan king: but with a sword he
bade them take off her head. The damsel did not gainsay this
thing: she would fain let go this worldly life if Christ
gave command. And in shape of a dove she flew to heaven. Let
us all pray that she may deign to intercede for us; that
Christ may upon us have mercy after death, and of His
clemency may allow us to come to Him.

[Sidenote: The _St. Alexis_.]

Of course this is story-telling in its simplest form and on its smallest
scale: but the essentials are