85 The flood; constrained the People to pass o’er;
Freely distributed the land—the prize
Promised the fathers!—stayed both sun and moon
While vanquishing the foe; races extern
And giants’ progeny outdrave; razed groves;
90 Altars and temples levelled; and with mind
Loyal performed all due solemnities:
Type of Christ’s name; his virtue’s image.
What
Touching the People’s Judges shall I say
Singly? whose virtues, if unitedly
95 Recorded, fill whole volumes numerous
With space of words. But yet the order due
Of filling out the body of my words,
Demands that, out of many, I should tell
The life of few.
Of whom when Gideon, guide
100 Of martial band, keen to attack the foe,
(Not keen to gain for his own family,
By virtue, tutelary dignity,)
And needing to be strengthened in the faith
Excited in his mind, seeks for a sign
105 Whereby he either could not, or could, wage
Victorious war; to wit, that with the dew
A fleece, exposèd for the night, should be
Moistened, and all the ground lie dry around
(By this to show that, with the world, should dry
110 The enemies’ palm); and then again, the fleece
Alone remaining dry, the earth by night
Should with the self-same moisture be bedewed:
For by this sign he prostrated the heaps
Of bandits; with Christ’s People ’countering them
115 Without much soldiery, with cavalry
Three hundred—the Greek letter Tau, in truth,
That number is—with torches armed, and horns
Of blowers with the mouth: then was the fleece,
The people of Christ’s sheep, from holy seed
120 Born (for the earth means nations various,
And scattered through the orb), which fleece the word
Nourishes; night death’s image; Tau the sign
Of the dear cross; the horn the heraldings
Of life; the torches shining in their stand
125 The glowing Spirit: and this testing, too,
Forsooth, an image of Christ’s virtue was:
To teach that death’s fierce battles should not be