friar, while in his cell at Molina studying a sermon that he was to
preach the following day. This friar told it in confession to his
superior, and the superior to the infante don Manuel, who loves thee
like his own soul. And in a week don Manuel came to this city of
Seville, and said to thee, "Tell me, I pray thee, whether thou didst
ever speak so and so?" and thou repliedst, "that thou didst speak thus,
and wouldst speak so again." Wherefore don Manuel was sore grieved, and
exhorted thee to amend, and ask pardon of God; yet thou heardest him
not. And for that thou mayest know how all power is from God the Father,
and not from any other, the sentence is perfected and fulfilled. And
moreover, in as much as thou hast cursed don Sancho thy son, because of
the dishonour and rebellion and despite which he hath done thee, know
thou for a surety that the Highest hath heard thy curse;--that all who
spring from him shall sink lower and lower, with all their lordship, in
such wise that some of them may wish the earth to open and swallow them
up: and this shall last until the fourth generation from don Sancho thy
son, when thy male heirs shall fail, and none shall remain to inherit
this lordship; and the people shall be in grief and trouble, not knowing
what counsel to follow. And all this dole shall be for thy sins and
others, especially for the sin which thy son and those of the realm have
committed in rising against thee. But the Highest shall send them
salvation from the East,--a right noble king, and a good and a perfect
one, and one endued with justice, and with all the great and noble
things becoming a king. And he shall be fatherly to the people, in such
wise that the living, and those even whose bones lie in the grave, shall
bless God for his coming and for his goodness. And he shall be aided by
the High God, as he shall well merit; so his people shall forget their
past sufferings, how great ones soever may befall them before that
joyful day. Moreover, know thou for a surety, that by reason of thy
continual prayers to the Glorious Mother of God, from seventeen years of