himself that his wife had assuredly played him false, and, turning to her, he began to assail her with the most rascally words that could be applied to a guilty woman, and, if he had not been in fear of the law and of his own neck, he would surely have slain her then and there with his own hands, but he managed to restrain himself, deeming it better to deal with her by legal process than to stain his hands in her blood. Not satisfied with the rating he had already given her, he betook himself, full of wrath and anger, to the tribunal, where he preferred before the judge a charge of adultery against his wife. But, seeing that it lay not within the power of the judge to pronounce condemnation upon her unless the legal statutes should have been duly observed, he ordered Filenia to be brought before him in order that he might narrowly examine her. Now, there was in Athens a law, which was held in the highest reverence, providing that any woman who might be charged by her husband with adultery should be placed at the foot of a certain red column, round which was entwined a serpent, and there make oath whether or not the accusation of adultery brought against her were true. And after she had taken the oath she was required forthwith to put her hand in the serpent’s mouth, and then, if she should have sworn falsely, the serpent would at once bite off her hand; otherwise, she received no injury. Hippolito, who had already heard rumours of this charge before the tribunal, and that the judge had sent to fetch Filenia to put her on her defence, being a youth of resource at once took action to see that she should not run into the snares of ignominious death. By way of rescuing her from condemnation he first of all stripped off all his clothes and donned in their stead some rags befitting a madman, and then, without being seen by anyone, he left his own lodging and ran straight to the tribunal as if he had been someone out of his mind, acting well the part of a crazy man as he went along the streets.