sagae 10-12

• then, pointing me out with his finger (he said):
• 'For when this very keen-witted guard of my body was keeping an intensive watch on me, certain witches, eager for my remains, appeared in changed form.
• When they had not been able to deceive his determined efforts, finally they threw a cloud of sleep upon him and buried him in deep slumber.
• Then they began to wake me with my name and did not stop until my sluggish joints and cold limbs slowly struggled to obey their magic art.
• But this man, who was alive and only dead asleep, by chance has the same name as me.
• At (the sound) of his name, therefore he unwittingly got up, and, proceeding mechanically in the manner of a lifeless ghost, he went to the door.
• Although the bedroom doors had been carefully locked, the witches reached in through a certain hole, with first his nose and soon his ears cut off, he suffered mutilation instead of me.
• Then the witches attatched wax to him, shaped in the form of the cut off ears, and they fitted on a nose like the one which had been cut off.
• And now here stands the poor man, who has earned a reward not for his diligence but for his mutilation.
• Terrified by these words, I began to notice my appearance.
• With my hand I grasped my nose it came off; I touched my ears; they fell off.
• And while the crowd identified me with pointed fingers and nods, I made my escape, dripping with cold sweat between the feet of bystanders
• And afterwards I could not return to my homeland, so maimed and ridiculous, but with my hair grown long on both sides I have hidden the wounds of my ears, and indeed I have covered the disgrace of my nose for decencys sake with this little patch.