OF PAINEFULL  ADUENTURES.	283
grieueth as wel as me, since sorrowing wil not help that which is chanced, assist me, good sirs, to prouide for the present necessity. Let vs make forthwith a large chest, and bore the lid full of small holes, and we will seare it all ouer within with pitch and rosen molten together, whereinto we will put cunningly a sheete of lead, and in the same we will inclose the tender corps of the wife of me, of all other a most vnfortunate husband. This was no sooner said, but it was almost likewise done with sembable celeritie. Then tooke they the body of the fair lady Lucina, and arraied her in princely apparel, and layd her into the chest, and Apollonius placed a great summe of golde at her head, and a great treasure of siluer at her feet, & he kissed her, letting fall a flood of salt teares on hir face, and he wrote a bill, and put in it also, the tenor whereof was in forme as foloweth : Whoseuer shal find this chest, I pray him to take ten pieces of gold for his paines, and to bestowe tenne pieces more vpon the buriall of the corpes; for it hath left many teares to the parents and friends, with dolefull heaps of sorow and heauines. But whosoeuer shall doe otherwise than the present griefe requireth, let him die a shamefull death, and let there be none to bury his body. And then closing all vp verie safe, commaunded the chest to be lifted ouerboorde into the sea: and willed the child to be nursed with all diligence, that if euer fortune should so fall, he might present vnto good king Altistrates a neece in steecle of a daughter.
Now fleeted away the ship fast with the wind, and the coffin tumbled backeward with the tide, and Apollonius could not keep his eie from the bodie whereon his heart rested, vntil kenning failed, and the sea rose vp with a banke between. There were two days passed, and the night was now at hand, when the next day morning the waues rolled foorth this chest to