s, for we be all thy servants, yea, we and he
at whom the cup was found. Joseph answered: God forbid that I should so
do, whosoever stole the cup shall be my servant, and go ye your way, for
ye shall be free and go to your father. Then Judah approached near him
and spake with a hardy cheer to him and said: I beseech thee my lord to
hear me thy servant that I may say to thine audience a word, and that
thou wilt not be wroth to thy servant. Thou art next to Pharaoh; my
lord, thou demandedst first of us thy servants: Have ye a father or
brother? And we answered to thee, my lord: Our father is an old man and
we have a brother a young child which was born to him in his old age,
whose brother of the same mother is dead, and he is an only son whom the
father loveth tenderly. Thou saidst to us thy servants: Bring him hither
to me that I may see. We told to thee my lord for truth: our father may
not forego the child, if he forego him certainly he shall die. And thou
saidst to us, thy servants: But if ye bring him not with you, ye shall
no more see my visage. Then when we came to our father and told him all
these things, and our father bade us to return and buy more corn. To
whom we said: We may not go thither but if our youngest brother go with
us, for if he be absent we dare not approach, ne come to the presence of
the man; and he answered to us: Ye know well that my wife brought to me
forth but two sons, that one went out, and ye said that wild beasts had
devoured him, and yet I heard never of him ne he appeared not. If now
ye should take this my son and anything happened to him in the way ye
should bring my hoar hair with sorrow to hell. Therefore if I should
come home to my father and bring not the child with me, sith the soul
and health of my father dependeth of this child, and see that he is not
come with us, he shall die and we thy servants should lead his old age
with wailing and sorrow to hell. I myself shall be thy proper servant
which have received him upon my faith and have promised for him, saying
to my father: If I bring him not again I shall be guilty of the sin to
my father ever after. I shall abide and continue thy servant for the
child in the ministry and service of thee my lord. I may not depart, the
child being absent, lest I be witness of the sorrow that my father shall
take. Wherefore I beseech thee to suffer this child to go to his father
and receive me into thy service. Thus said Judah, with much more; as
J