He stood, hands clasped, face averted, in stupefaction.

Simonides respected his suffering, and waited in silence.
"Master Simonides," he said, at length, "I can only tell my story; and I will not that unless you stay judgment so long, and with good-will deign to hear me." "Speak," said Simonides, now, indeed, master of the situation--"speak, and I will listen the more willingly that I have not denied you to be the very person you claim yourself." Ben-Hur proceeded then, and told his life hurriedly, yet with the feeling which is the source of all eloquence; but as we are familiar with it down to his landing at Misenum, in company with Arrius, returned victorious from the AEgean, at that point we will take up the words.
"My benefactor was loved and trusted by the emperor, who heaped him with honorable rewards.

The merchants of the East contributed magnificent presents, and he became doubly rich among the rich of Rome.

May a Jew forget his religion?
or his birthplace, if it were the Holy Land of our fathers?
The good man adopted me his son by formal rites of law; and I strove to make him just return: no child was ever more dutiful to father than I to him.

He would have had me a scholar; in art, philosophy, rhetoric, oratory, he would have furnished me the most famous teacher.