THE SILVER CUP

Then Judah, remembered that he promised Israel Benjamin’s safe return. He pleaded with Joseph, and said, Oh my lord, let your servant explain, I beg you, and please don’t be angry. You asked us if we had a father or a brother, and we said yes, we have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead. His father loves him so. And when you said to bring him down, we told you he can’t leave his father or his father would die. But you said, unless you bring him, you’ll never see my face again. We told our father. He said, Go again, and buy us a little food. So we told him we couldn’t return without our youngest brother, as you said. And my father said to us, You know that my wife bare me two sons, and the one went away from me and I never saw him again, and if you take this one from me too, and something bad happens to him, you’ll bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. If I go back to my father and the boy isn’t with us, being that his soul lives for the boy’s life, he’ll die of sorrow. I guaranteed him that I would bring the boy back home to him or I would be to blame for ever. I beg you now, let me become a slave for you and let the boy go back home with his brothers. How can I return to my father without him. I wouldn’t be able to bear watching him suffer.