Joseph and Aseneth

Historical English source page 67

xxii] ASENATH VISITS JACOB 63 as my '" father and God."^ And Joseph said to her : " Thou shalt go with me and see my father." And Joseph and Asenath came to Jacob in the land of Geshem, and Joseph's brethren met them and made obeisance to them upon their faces on the earth. Then both went in to Jacob ; and Jacob was sitting upon his bed, and he himself was an old man in a lusty old age. And, when Asenath saw him, she marvelled at his beauty, for that Jacob was beautiful to behold exceedingly and his old age as the youth of a comely man, and all his head was white like snow, and the hairs of his head were all close and thick exceed- ingly,^ and his beard white reaching to his breast, his eyes cheerful and glistering, his sinews and his shoulders and his arms as of an angel, his thighs and his calves and his feet as of a giant.* Then Asenath, when she saw him thus, marvelled ■"and fell down * and made obeisance on her face upon the earth. And Jacob said to Joseph : " Is this my daughter-in-law, thy wife? Blessed shall she be of God Most High." Then Jacob called Asenath to himself and blessed her and kissed her tenderly ; and Asenath stretched out her hands and took hold of Jacob's neck and hung on to his neck and kissed him tenderly.'^ And after 1 Lat. Syr. Arm. "God"; Slav, "father." * Syr. ins. " as of an Ethiopian " ; Arm. " as of an Indian " ; Lat. om. clause. * Syr. ins. " and Jacob was as a man who fighteth with God"; similarly Arm. * Lat. Syr. Arm. om. ; Slav. om. all to "neck." ' Syr. ins. "as one who returneth from war to his house after a long time" ; similarly Arm.