Bava Metzia

[Reverting to the story of R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon] yet even so,  R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon's fears were not allayed,  and so he undertook a penance. Every evening they spread sixty sheets for him, and every morning sixty basins of blood and discharge were removed from under him. In the mornings his wife prepared him sixty kinds of pap,  which he ate, and then recovered. Yet his wife did not permit him to go to the schoolhouse, lest the Rabbis discomfort him. Every evening he would exhort them,  'Come, my brethren and familiars!' whilst every morning he exclaimed, 'Depart, because ye disturb my studies!' One day his wife, hearing him, cried out, 'You yourself bring them upon you; you have [already] squandered the money of my father's house!'  So she left him  and returned to her paternal home.  Then there came sixty seamen who presented him with sixty slaves, bearing sixty purses.  They too prepared sixty kinds of pap for him, which he ate. One day she [his wife] said to her daughter, 'Go and see how your father is faring now.' She went, [and on her arrival] her father said to her, 'Go, tell your mother that our [wealth] is greater than theirs' [sc. of his father-in-law's house]. He then applied to himself the verse, She is like the merchant's ships; she bringeth her food from afar.  He ate, drank, and recovered, and went to the schoolhouse. Sixty specimens of blood were brought before him, and he declared them all clean. But the Rabbis criticised him, saying, 'Is it possible that there was not [at least] one about which there was some doubt!' He retorted, 'If it be as I [said], let them all be males; if not, let there be one female amongst them.'  They were all males, and were named 'Eleazar', after him. It has been taught: Rabbi said: How much procreation did this wicked [state] prevent in Israel. On his death-bed he said to his wife, 'I know that the Rabbis are angry with me, and will not properly attend to me. Let me lie in an upper chamber,  and do you not be afraid of me.' R. Samuel b. Nahmani said: R. Jonathan's mother told me that she was informed by the wife of R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon: 'I kept him lying in that upper chamber not less than eighteen nor more than twenty-two years. Whenever I ascended there, I examined his hair, and [even] if a single hair had fallen out, the blood would well forth. One day, I saw a worm issue from his ear, whereat I was much grieved, but he appeared to me in my dream and told me that it was nothing. ["This has happened," said he,] "because I once heard a scholar insulted and did not protest, as I should have done." Whenever two people came before him [in a lawsuit], they stood near the door, each stated his case, and then a voice issued from that upper chamber, proclaiming, "So-and-so, you are liable; so-and-so, you are free."' Now, one day his wife was quarrelling with a neighbour, when the latter reviled [her, saying,] 'Let her be like her husband, who was not worthy of burial!' Said the Rabbis: 'When things have gone thus far,  it is certainly not meet.'  Others say: R. Simeon b. Yohai appeared to them in a dream, and complained: 'I have a pigeon amongst you which you refuse to bring to me.' Then the Rabbis went to attend to him [for burial], but the townspeople of Akabaria  did not let them; because during all the years R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon slept in his upper chamber no evil beast came to their town. But one day — it was the eve of the Day of Atonement, when they were busily occupied, the Rabbis sent [word] to the townspeople of Biri,  and they brought up his bier, and carried it to his father's vault, which they found encircled by a serpent. Said they to it, 'O snake, O snake, open thy mouth, and let the son enter to his father.' Thereupon it opened [its mouth] for them. Then Rabbi sent [messengers] to propose [marriage] to his wife. She sent back: 'Shall a utensil, in which holy food has been used, be used for profane purposes!' There [sc. in Palestine] the proverb runs: Where the master hung up his weapons, there the shepherd hung up his wallet. He sent back word, 'Granted that he outstripped me in learning, was he [also] my superior in good deeds?' She returned, 'Yet at least he outstripped you in learning, though I did not know it. But I do know [that he exceeded you] in [virtuous] practice, since he submitted himself to mortification.' 'In learning'. To what is the reference? — When Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel and R. Joshua b. Karhah sat on benches, R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon and Rabbi sat in front of them on the ground,  raising objections and answering them. Said they, 'We drink their water [i.e., benefit from their learning], yet they sit upon the ground; let seats be placed for them!' Thus were they promoted. But R. Simeon b. Gamaliel protested: 'I have a pigeon amongst you, and ye wish to destroy it!'  So Rabbi was put down. Thereupon R. Joshua b. Karhah said: 'Shall he, who has a father, live, whilst he who has no father  die!' So R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon too was put down, whereat he felt hurt saying, 'Ye have made him equal to me!'  Now, until that day, whenever Rabbi made a statement, R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon supported him. But from then onward, when Rabbi said, 'I have an objection,' R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon retorted, 'If you have such and such an objection, this is your answer; now have you encompassed us with loads of answers in which there is no substance.'  Rabbi, being thus humiliated, went and complained to his father. 'Let it not grieve you,' he answered, 'for he is a lion, and the son of a lion, whereas you are a lion, the son of a fox.'  To this Rabbi alluded when he said, Three were humble; viz., my father,