ABSTRACT
‘Your majesty, you have changed. It seems to us that you are worried by private cares and because you have no one to whom you can confide your secret you have lost heart.’ She, unwilling as yet to reveal anything but sighing deeply, replied, ‘There is no need to question a stranger like that; the very fact that strangers live in a foreign land is reason enough for sorrow. Heaven knows the troubles I have had, one after another – and soon, apparently, there will be more in store for me.’ (Anna Komnene Alexiad 2.2.2; Leib 1.67; Sewter 76)
