De quodam miraculo.
The Virgin's Promise to the Dying
A woman recounts how the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared among the slain after battle, censing the dead and foretelling her husband's death on the third day, which came to pass as prophesied.
A certain woman, when after the battle she was going with other citizens from Colmine to the place of combat to bury the bodies of the slain, and wanted to lead her half-alive husband to the city, he resisted, and when she asked why he would rather die there, he answered that the blessed Virgin Mary, on the same day, with a censer, preceded by two virgins with burning candles, had censed all the slain, and when she came to him and perceived that he was still alive, said: "On the third day you will die, and rejoice, because your soul, like the other souls of the slain, will fly to eternal joys," and so led with the others into the city of Kolm, on the third day he died, as she had foretold, and all the people believed her words.1234
Read the original Latin
Quedam mulier dum post conflictum cum aliis civibus de Colmine iret ad locum certaminis ad sepeliendum corpora interfectorum, et maritum suum semivivum vellet ad civitatem ducere, ille restitit, et dum quereret, quare ibi lubencius moreretur, respondit, quodd beata virgo Maria eodem die cum turibulo, precedentibus duabus virginibus cum candelis ardentibus, omnes occisos turificasset, et dum veniret ad eum, et sensisset eum adhuc vivum, ait: tercia die morieris, et gaude, quia anima tua, sicut cetere anime occisorum, ad eterna gaudia evolabit, ductusque sic cum aliis in civitatem Colmensem', tercia die mortuus est, ut predixit, et credidit omnis populus verbis ejus.
Notes
- 1 ↩lubencius is likely a scribal variant for libentius (more willingly); translated as 'would rather' to preserve the comparative sense in natural English.
- 2 ↩quodd in the source is treated as a scribal error for quod (that); translated as simple conjunction 'that' introducing the content of his answer.
- 3 ↩turificasset (had censed) is a rare or hapax form; the sense is that Mary had already performed a censing rite over the dead, a gesture of honor or preparation for burial.
- 4 ↩The vision of Mary with virgins, candles, and censer echoes liturgical and hagiographic motifs rather than a direct biblical quotation; no Moses anchor resolved.
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