III.

THE ANGEL APPEARS TO ANNA.

"Afterwards the angel appeared to Anna his wife, saying, 'Fear not,
neither think that which you see is a spirit. For I am that angel who
hath offered up your prayers and alms before God, and am now sent to
tell you that a daughter will be born unto you.... Arise, therefore,
and go up to Jerusalem; and when you shall come to that which is
called the Golden Gate (because it is gilt with gold), as a sign of
what I have told you, you shall meet your husband, for whose safety
you have been so much concerned.'" (Gospel of St. Mary, chap. iii.
1-7.)

The accounts in the Protevangelion and in the Harleian MS. are much
expanded: relating how Anna feared her husband was dead, he having
been absent from her five months; and how Judith, her maid, taunted
her with her childlessness; and how, going then into her garden, she
saw a sparrow's nest, full of young, upon a laurel-tree, and mourning
within herself, said, "I am not comparable to the very beasts of the
earth, for even they are fruitful before thee, O Lord.... I am not
comparable to the very earth, for the earth produces its fruits to
praise thee. Then the angel of the Lord stood by her," &c.

Both the Protevangelion and Harleian MS. agree in placing the vision
in the garden; the latter adding, that she fled "into her chamber in
great fear, and fell upon her bed, and lay as in a trance all that day
and all that night, but did not tell the vision to her maid, because
of her bitter answering." Giotto has deviated from both accounts in
making the vision appear to Anna in her chamber, while the maid,