use there is a current of air on the height.
There all day long the children play about it; and there the
outcast, who has been stricken with some loathsome malady, and
is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, lays himself down
begging an alms of the passers-by by day, and by night
sheltering himself among the ashes which the heat of the sun
has warmed.'

Here, then, sits in his misery 'the forsaken grandee'; and here
yet another temptation comes to him--this time not expressly
allowed by the Lord. Much foolish condemnation (and, I may add,
some foolish facetiousness) has been heaped on Job's wife. As a
matter of fact she is _not_ a wicked woman--she has borne her
part in the pious and happy family life, now taken away: she has
uttered no word of complaint though all the substance be
swallowed up and her children with it. But now the sight of her
innocent husband thus helpless, thus incurably smitten, wrings,
through love and anguish and indignation, this cry from her:

Dost thou still hold fast thine integrity? renounce God, and
die.

But Job answered, soothing her:

Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What?
shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not
receive evil?

So the second trial ends, and Job has sinned not with his lips.

But now comes the third trial, which needs no Council in Heaven
to decree it. Travellers by the mound saw this figure seated
there, patient, uncomplaining, an object of awe even to the
children who at first mocked him; asked this man's history; and
hearing of it, smote on their breasts, and made a token of it and
carried the news into far countries: until it reached the ears of
Job's three friends, all great tribesmen like himself--Eliphaz
the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.
These three made an appointment together to travel and visit Job.
'And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not,
they lifted up their voice, and wept.' Then they went up and sat
down opposite him on the ground. But the majesty of suffering is
silent:

Here I and sorrows sit;
Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it....

No, not a word.... And, with the grave courtesy of Eastern men,
they too are silent:

So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and
seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw
that his grief was very great.

The Prologue ends. The scene is set. Aft