Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/51

Rh Rh on another excursion comes across an old man, bent double, with tottering steps, white hair, wrinkled visage, and toothless gums. He asks his attendants what this means. They tell him it is due to old age. "And what will be the end of it all?" he asks. "No other than death," they reply. "And is that the end of all men?" asks the Prince, and learns that sooner or later death comes to all men. From that day the Prince is plunged in thinking to himself, "One day death will carry me off too; shall I be swallowed up into nothing? Or is there another life, or another world?"

The Hermit Barlaam ap-

of the East Gate, he comes across an old man, decrepit, wrinkled, bent, and tottering, with white hairs. "Who is this man?" he asks. "And why does he look so strange? Is he of some peculiar species of men? Or do all men become like that?" His charioteer replies, "This man's appearance is due to his age, and all men become like him when they are old." The Prince orders his charioteer to turn back, saying, "If such an old age awaits me, what have I to do with pleasure and joy?"

Going out another time by the West Gate, he sees a dead man on a bier, his relatives mourning round him. He learns what death is, and cries out, "Wretched youth, that old ago can destroy! Wretched health, that so many maladies can destroy! Wretched life where man remains for so short a time!"

The fourth time the Prince