Study Avodah Zarah folio 18B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
And who can say that this is the case, that I will be saved by this utterance? R' Meir said to him: You will now see. There were these carnivorous dogs that would devour people; R' Meir took a clod of earth, threw it at them, and when they came to devour him, he said: God of Meir answer me! The dogs then left him alone, and after seeing this the guard gave the daughter of R' Ḥanina ben Teradyon to R' Meir.
לסוף אשתמע מילתא בי מלכא, אתיוה אסקוה לזקיפה. אמר: ״אלהא דמאיר ענני!״ אחתוה. אמרו ליה: מאי האי? אמר להו: הכי הוה מעשה.
Ultimately the matter was heard in the king’s court, and the guard, who was brought and taken to be hanged, said: God of Meir answer me! They then lowered him down, as they were unable to hang him. They said to him: What is this? He said to them: This was the incident that occurred, and he proceeded to relate the entire story to them.
אתו חקקו לדמותיה דרבי מאיר אפיתחא דרומי, אמרי: כל דחזי לפרצופא הדין לייתיה. יומא חדא חזיוהי, רהוט אבתריה, רהט מקמייהו, על לבי זונות. איכא דאמרי: בשולי גוים חזא, טמש בהא ומתק בהא. איכא דאמרי: אתא אליהו אדמי להו כזונה, כרכתיה. אמרי: חס ושלום, אי רבי מאיר הוה לא הוה עביד הכי.
They then went and engraved the image of R' Meir at the entrance of Rome where it would be seen by everyone, and they said: Anyone who sees a man with this face should bring him here. One day, Romans saw R' Meir and ran after him, and he ran away from them and entered a brothel to hide. Some say he then escaped capture because he saw food cooked by non-Jews and dipped [temash] this finger in the food and tasted it with that other finger, and thereby fooled them into thinking that he was eating their food, which they knew R' Meir would not do. And some say that he escaped detection because Elijah came, appeared to them as a prostitute and embraced R' Meir. The Romans who were chasing him said: Heaven forbid, if this were R' Meir, he would not act in that manner.