Page:A history of Bohemian literature.pdf/302

Rh women should take superior rank. A few years ago, they add, a noble example of this was given in the kingdom of England under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, for she decreed that all men should give their right hand to women, a worthy custom that still endured.

Solomon, who had hitherto listened attentively to the petitions and to the queen's answers, now suddenly exclaims, "Vanity of vanities, and everything is vanity." He then tears away the mask which the queen wore, and she appears as a hideous hag. Yet shortly afterwards Solomon is, by means of flattery, again won over to her side and conducted to the street of married people, where he is unable to resist the female attractions that offer themselves to him. Fearful calamities are the consequence of Solomon's weakness, and the pilgrim despairingly exclaims, "Oh, that I had never been born, never passed through the gate of life! for after having surveyed all the vanities of the world, nothing but darkness and horror are my part. O God, God! if there is a God, have mercy on wretched me!" The pilgrim, whom his companions have meanwhile abandoned, now hears a voice from on high which exclaims, "Return from where you came into the house of your heart, and then close the doors." The voice is that of Christ, who appears to the pilgrim and instructs him in true religion; the teaching, needless to say, is strictly in accordance with the doctrine of the Unity. The pilgrim is then received into heaven, and the last chapter consists in a prayer to Christ, ending with the Latin words, Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis.

It is impossible to render justice to the Labyrinth in a few pages, and no book lends itself less to quotation. Komenský, who is generally diffuse and addicted to repe-