ess that was of great beauty,
and came into the room where they feasted, he told his brother of it,
and entreated him, because a Jew is forbidden by their law to come near
to a foreigner, to conceal his offense; and to be kind and subservient
to him, and to give him an opportunity of fulfilling his desires. Upon
which his brother willingly entertained the proposal of serving him, and
adorned his own daughter, and brought her to him by night, and put her
into his bed. And Joseph, being disordered with drink, knew not who she
was, and so lay with his brother's daughter; and this did he many times,
and loved her exceedingly; and said to his brother, that he loved this
actress so well, that he should run the hazard of his life [if he must
part with her], and yet probably the king would not give him leave [to
take her with him]. But his brother bid him be in no concern about
that matter, and told him he might enjoy her whom he loved without any
danger, and might have her for his wife; and opened the truth of the
matter to him, and assured him that he chose rather to have his own
daughter abused, than to overlook him, and see him come to [public]
disgrace. So Joseph commended him for this his brotherly love, and
married his daughter; and by her begat a son, whose name was Hyrcanus,
as we said before. And when this his youngest son showed, at thirteen
years old, a mind that was both courageous and wise, and was greatly
envied by his brethren, as being of a genius much above them, and such a
one as they might well envy, Joseph had once a mind to know which of his
sons had the best disposition to virtue; and when he sent them severally
to those that had then the best reputation for instructing youth, the
rest of his children, by reason of their sloth and unwillingness to take
pains, returned to him foolish and unlearned. After them he sent out the
youngest, Hyrcanus, and gave him three hundred yoke of oxen, and bid him
go two days' journey into the wilderness, and sow the land there,
and yet kept back privately the yokes of the oxen that coupled them
together. When Hyrcanus came to the place, and found he had no yokes
with him, he condemned the drivers of the oxen, who advised him to send
some to his father, to bring them some yokes; but he thinking that he
ought not to lose his time while they should be sent to bring him the
yokes, he invented a kind of stratagem, and what suited an age older
than his own; for he slew ten yoke of