Written in heaven are the names of two martyrs, which Christ has there inscribed in golden letters; the same, in marks of blood, He has handed down written upon earth. By this crown the happy Iberian land flourishes throughout the world; this place seemed to God worthy to hold their bones, that it might be the chaste host of blessed bodies. Here, stained with twofold slaughter, the ground drank in warm streams; the inhabitants now throng the sands smeared with holy gore, beseeching with voice, with vows, with offerings. Foreigners too, and the world's settlers, come hither, for fame, the herald, has run through all lands that here are patrons of the world, whom suppliants may compass round in prayer.
No one here, in his asking, has heaped up prayers in vain; the suppliant returns hence joyful, his weeping wiped away, perceiving granted all that he justly besought. So great is the care of these intercessors for our perils that they suffer no one to have poured forth even a murmur of the voice in vain; they hear it, and straightway bear it to the dawning of the eternal King. Thence, from the very fount, lavish gifts flow in upon the wretched, gifts which water the causes of suppliants with the remedies they have sought. Never has good Christ denied anything to His witnesses — to witnesses whom neither chains nor cruel death affrighted from confessing the one God at the cost of their blood, of their blood; but such a loss a longer light repays. This kind of death is becoming, this worthy of upright men:
to give up to the foeman's steel the limbs, woven of languid veins and doomed to be consumed by disease, and by death to conquer the foe. A beautiful thing it is to suffer the blow beneath the persecutor's sword; through the wide wound a noble gate is opened to the just; the soul, washed in the red fount, leaps forth from the seat of the heart. Nor had these soldiers, whom Christ calls to the everlasting belt, led before a life untrained in harsh toil; their wonted valor, in war and arms, now fights for the faith. They leave Caesar's standards, they choose the sign of the cross; and in place of the windy dragons which they bore upon their cloaks, they bear before them the noble Wood that subdued the dragon. They count it base, with hands unburdened, to carry javelins, to strike a wall with engines, to gird a camp with ditches, to defile impious hands with bloody slaughters.
At that time, by chance, the fierce ruler of the worldly court had commanded the upright descendants of Israel to go to the altar, to offer sacrifice to the black idols, to become deserters of Christ. The plague, girded with steel, pressed upon their free faith; but that faith, mighty, of its own accord sought out the rods, and the axes, and the cloven claws, undaunted, for the love of Christ. The prison binds with hard fetters their fettered necks; through every forum the torturer plies his barbarous hands; truth is reckoned a crime, the faithful voice is punished. Then too, valor cut down by the sword smote the mournful ground, and, heaped upon the dreary pyres, drank in flames with its mouth; sweet then it was for the just to be burned, sweet to endure the steel.
Here the dear hearts of two brothers grow warm, whom a faithful comradeship had joined through all time; they stand ready to bear whatever the final lot might bring — whether the neck must be offered to the public axe after the violence of the rattling rods, after the fiery scaffolds, or the breast must be offered to leopards or lions. 'Shall we, begotten unto Christ, be consecrated to Mammon, and, bearing the form of God, serve the world? Far be it that the heavenly fire should mingle itself with darkness! Let it suffice that life, taken captive at first under the bond, has paid every debt, having discharged the things of Caesar; it is time that to God be repaid whatever is God's own. Go, masters of the standards, and you, tribunes, withdraw; carry off the golden torques, the rewards of the wounded!
From here the bright wages of the angels now summon us. There Christ presides over white-robed cohorts, and reigning from His high throne condemns the infamous gods, and you, who fashion for yourselves as divine the laughable monsters you ought to deride.' As they speak these things, the martyrs are overwhelmed with a thousand torments; a binding stiffness wraps both their hands in fetters, and steel, with heavy rings, encircles their galled necks. O outworn forgetting of a silent antiquity! These things are begrudged us, and their very fame is extinguished; for a blasphemous henchman once made off with the records, lest learned ages, by tenacious little books, should scatter through the ears of posterity the order, the time and manner of the passion, thus betrayed by sweet tongues.
Yet this alone the ancient silences withhold: how long they were fed with constant chains, or with what hair; with what grief the torturer afflicted the men, or with what pomp he adorned them. That praise is not hidden, nor does it grow old with time: that gifts sent upward flew away through the air, which, shining forth, would show the way of heaven to lie open. A ring, figuring the faith of the one, is borne upon a cloud; this man, as they say, gives a pledge of his mouth, a napkin, which, snatched up by a breath from on high, enter the inmost part of the light. Through the axis of the flowing sky the gleam of gold is hidden, and long the woven whiteness flees the gaze that follows it; they are borne up even to the stars and are seen no more. The bystanding throng saw this, the executioner himself saw it, and held back his hand, faltering, and grew pale with amazement; yet nonetheless he completed the blow, lest the glory should perish.
Do you now believe, you once-brutish heathenry of the Vascones, what sacred blood your cruel error has sacrificed? Do you believe that the spirits of your victims are reckoned unto God? Behold how openly the ferocious demons are tamed here — they who, having seized their prey after the manner of wolves, devour the inmost parts, strangle minds, and mingle themselves with the very senses. Then the man, now filled with his own foe, stands raging, breathing out foaming spittle, twisting his raw eyes, to be purged by the questioning not of his own crimes — you would hear, though no torturer stands by, the mournful wailings; the body is torn through scourges, yet no scourge is seen; and he himself grows and is suspended by hidden bonds.
By these means the martyrs' power shakes the foul brigand; this it constrains, racks, burns; this it strikes with chains; the plunderer, harassed, strips himself off from the marrow he had abandoned. He leaves the booty unharmed, flees with dry jaws, and from the lowest nail even to the hair restores all unharmed, confessing that he himself is burning; for he is an inhabitant of Gehenna. Why should I speak of bodies cleansed and made white from long diseases, when an icy horror shakes the discolored limbs? Here the swelling leaves the face, here the true color returns. This good thing the Saviour Himself bestowed, that we might enjoy it, when He consecrated the martyrs' limbs to our town, which now keep safe the settlers whom the Ebro washes.
Stand now, sing the hymn, you mothers, for the little ones received back; let the glad voice of wedded wives ring out for the safety of their husbands; let this day be a feast to us, let the joy be hallowed!