Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/91

Rh should for our misfortune be so blind." The interpreter answered me: "My good man, would it then be wisdom to torment ourselves by thinking of death? Just because everyone knows he cannot escape her, it is better not to heed her, but to look at one's own goods, and to be of a cheerful mind. If she comes, she comes. In some hours everything will be at an end, and perhaps even in an instant. Why, therefore, should, because some die, the others cease to be merry? For in the place of each one how many again are born." To this I said: "If wisdom consists in this, then I understand it amiss," and then I was silent.

14. But I will not conceal this, that when I beheld the countless number of Death's arrows, it came into my mind: "Whence, then, does Death take that mass of arrows, that she never exhausts them?" And I look, and behold quite clearly that she had no arrows at all, but only a bow; the arrows she took from the people, each one from that person whom she intended to strike. And I observed that these people themselves trimmed and prepared these arrows, some even pertly and audaciously carried them to her, so that it was sufficient for her to take the arrows from them and to shoot them in the heart. And I cried: "Now I see that it is true: 'Et mortis faber est quilibet ipse suæ.'" I already see that no one dies who