Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/90

86 these wounds. And all bought these things from them, exulting thereon and defying Death. But she heeded not, and indeed struck down and overthrew even these venders themselves. And it was a mournful spectacle for me to behold how pitiably, how suddenly, and by what manifold deaths a creature destined to immortality perisheth. I also found, in particular, that when one was most ready for life, gathered his friends together, made plans for his future life, built houses, scraped money together, and otherwise strove for his own welfare, then the arrow of Death struck him and made an end to everything, and he who had prepared for himself a dwelling in the world was very often torn away from it and his goods became useless; then another succeeded him, and the same fate befell him, and so equally the third, the tenth, the hundredth. But when I saw that none would understand the uncertainty of life, and take it to heart—indeed, that though standing close to the abyss of death they behaved as if they were certain of immortality (and it is marvellous that my heart did not burst from grief)—then I desired to raise my voice to exhort and beg them to open their eyes, and to behold Death preparing her arrows, and in some fashion to strive to escape them. But I understood that as Death herself could, by her constant cries and her incessant appearance before them in her terrible shape, achieve nothing, my feeble speech would indeed be fruitless. I then said in a low voice: "It is for ever pitiful before God that we miserable mortals