(28) Again, Epicharmas having said: "As destined Ion to live, and yet not long, Think of thyself."- Euripides writes: "Why? seeing the wealth we have uncertain is, Why don't we live as free from care, as pleasant As we may?" Similarly also, the comic poet Diphilus having said: "The life of men is prone to change,"- Posidippus says: "No man of mortal mould his life has passed From suffering free. Nor to the end again Has continued prosperous."

(16) You have toiled without cease, and what have you got! Through toil you wear yourself out, you fill your body with grief, your long lifetime you are bringing near (to a premature end)! Mankind, whose offshoot is snapped off like a reed in a canebreak, the fine youth and lovely girl... death. No one can see death, no one can see the face of death, no one can hear the voice of death, yet there is savage death that snaps off mankind. For how long do we build a household? For how long do we seal a document! For how long do brothers share the inheritance? For how long is there to be jealousy in the land(!)! For how long has the river risen and brought the overflowing waters, so that dragonflies drift down the river! The face that could gaze upon the face of the Sun has never existed ever.

(5) For the Pythagorean Theano writes, "Life were indeed a feast to the wicked, who, having done evil, then die; were not the soul immortal, death would be a godsend." And Plato in the Phaedo, "For if death were release from everything," and so forth. We are not then to think according to the Telephus of Aeschylus, "that a single path leads to Hades." The ways are many, and the sins that lead thither. Such deeply erring ones as the unfaithful are, Aristophanes properly makes the subjects of comedy. "Come," he says, "ye men of obscure life, ye that are like the race of leaves, feeble, wax figures, shadowy tribes, evanescent, fleeting, ephemeral." And Epicharmus, "This nature of men is inflated skins."

(30) And there is set no limit, no, not one, For mortals of their course to make an end, Except when Death's remorseless final end Comes, sent from Zeus,"- Diphilus writes: "There is no life which has not its own ills, Pains, cares, thefts, and anxieties, disease; And Death, as a physician, coming, gives Rest to their victims in his quiet sleep."

(1) Since men live but for a very short period, if their life is compared with the whole of time, they will make a most beautiful journey as it were, if they pass through life with tranquillity. This however they will possess in the most eminent degree, if they accurately and scientifically know themselves, viz. if they know that they are mortal and of a fleshly nature, and that they have a body which is corruptible and can be easily injured, and which is exposed to every thing most grievous and severe, even to their latest breath. And in the first place, let us direct our attention to those things which happen to the body; and these are pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, phrensy, gout, stranguary, dysentery, lethargy, epilepsy, putrid ulcers, and ten thousand other diseases.

But the diseases which happen to the soul are much greater and more dire than these. For all the iniquitous, evil, illegal, and impious conduct in the life of man, originates from the passions of the soul. For through preternatural immoderate desires many have become subject to unrestrained impulses, and have not refrained from the most unholy pleasures, arising from being connected with daughters or even mothers. Many also have been induced to destroy their fathers, and their own offspring. But what occasion is there to be prolix in narrating externally impending evils, such as excessive rain, drought, violent heat and cold; so that frequently from the anomalous state of the air, pestilence and famine are produced, and all-various calamities, and whole cities become desolate?

Since therefore many such-like calamities are impendent, we should neither be elevated by the possession of corporeal goods, which may rapidly be consumed by the incursions of a small fever, nor with what are conceived to be prosperous external circumstances, which frequently in their own nature perish more rapidly than they accede. For all these are uncertain and unstable, and are found to have their existence in many and various mutations; and no one of them is permanent, or immutable, or stable, or indivisible. Hence well considering these things, and also being persuaded, that if what is present and is imparted to us, is able to remain for the smallest portion of time, it is as much as we ought to expect; we shall then live in tranquillity and with hilarity, generously bearing whatever may befal us.

(1) This bird said to the Hoopoe: I am afraid of death. Now this valley is wide, and I have nothing at all for the journey.

I am so filled with the fear of death that my life will leave me at the first stopping place. Even were I a powerful emir, in the hour of death I should fear no less. He who with a sword would iry to ward off death, shall have it broken like a Kalam; for alas, faith in the strength of the hand and of the sword brings only disappointment and sorrow.'

The Hoopoe replied; 'O you who are fickle and weakwilled, do you wish to remain a mere frame of bone and marrow? Don't you know that life, be it long or short, is composed of a few breaths? Don't you understand that whoever is born must also die? That he goes into the earth and that the wind disperses the elements of which his body was made?

' You were nourished for death; and you were brought into the world in order to be taken away from it! The sky is like a dish upside down, which every' evening is immersed in the blood of sunset. One could say that the sun, armed with a scimitar, is cutting off heads on this dish. Whether you be good or bad you are only a drop of water kneaded with earth. Though all your life you may have been in a position of authority, you will, in the end, give up the ghost in affliction.'

(1) (2) Long life, ending in the conviction that death is gain. Destroy your house, and with the treasure hidden in it The treasure lies under it; there is no help for it; Hesitate not to pull it down; do not tarry! For with the coin of that treasure At last of a surety that house will be destroyed, But 'twill not belong to you, because in truth When one has not done the work he gets no wages; "Man gets nothing he has not worked for." Then you will bite your finger, saying, "Alas!

(4) day and night subject to ceaseless wear and tear like a mere thing, unknowing what the end will be, and in spite of this mind-informed body conscious only that fate cannot save me from the inevitable grave-yard,—then I am consuming life until at death it is as though you and I had but once linked arms to be finally parted for ever! Is not that indeed a cause for sorrow? "Now you fix your attention upon something in me which, while you look, has already passed away. Yet you seek for it as though it must be still there,—like one who seeks for a horse in a market-place. What I admire in you is transitory. Nevertheless, why should you grieve? Although my old self is constantly passing away, there remains that which does not pass away." Confucius went to see Lao Tzŭ. The latter had just washed his head, and his hair was hanging down his back to dry. He looked like a lifeless body; so Confucius waited awhile, but at length approached and said, "Do my eyes deceive me, or is this really so? Your frame, Sir, seems like dry wood, as if it had been left without that which informs it with the life of man." "I was wandering," replied Lao Tzŭ, "in the unborn." "What does that mean?" asked Confucius.

(3) When Tai lay dying someone asked him: 'O Tai, you have seen the essence of things, how is it with you now?' He said: ' I can say nothing about my state. I have measured the wind all the days of my life, and now the end is come I shall be buried, and so, good night.'

There is no other remedy for death than to look death constantly in the face. We all are born to die; life will not stay with us; we must submit. Even he who held the world under the seal of his ring is now only a mineral in the earth.

(3) * Yajnavalkya/ said he, * when a man dies, what does not leave him? ' All-gods. An endless world he wins thereby.'

The FUMIGATION from MANNA. HEAR me, O Death, whose empire unconfin'd, Extends to mortal tribes of ev'ry kind. On thee, the portion of our time depends, Whose absence lengthens life, whose presence ends. Thy sleep perpetual bursts the vivid folds, By which the soul, attracting body holds: 6 Common to all of ev'ry sex and age, For nought escapes thy all-destructive rage; Not youth itself thy clemency can gain, Vig'rous and strong, by thee untimely slain. In thee, the end of nature's works is known, In thee, all judgment is absolv'd alone: No suppliant arts thy dreadful rage controul, No vows revoke the purpose of thy soul; O blessed pow'r regard my ardent pray'r, And human life to age abundant spare.

(7) In no place and by naught can the mind be destroyed, for it is unembodied; but from imaginations clinging to the body it suffers with the body's hurt. Discomfiture, rude speech, dishonour, all these things harm not the body; then why art thou wroth, 0 my spirit? Can the ill-will of others towards me touch me in this life or in births to come, that I should mislike it? Haply I may mislike it because it hinders me from gaining alms; but then the alms that I get will vanish here, my guilt will stay with me for ever. Better for me to die this same day than to live long in sin, for however long I stay, the same death-agony awaits me. One man in dreams enjoys a hundred years of bliss, and awakes; another is happy for an hour, and awakes; surely the pleasure of both, when they wake, is alike ended. And so it is at the time of death with the long-lived and the short-lived. Though I may get many gifts, and long enjoy my pleasures, I shall depart empty-handed and naked, as if stripped by robbers. " By my gains I may live to wipe out my sin and do righteousness " — ay, but he who is angry for the sake of gain wipes out his righteousness and does sin. If that for which I live is lost, what profits life itself which is spent wholly in ungodliness?

(4) Then spake Maitreyl: < If now, Sir, this whole earth filled with wealth were mine, would I now thereby be immortal? ' 'No, no I ' said Yajnavalkya. ' As the life of the rich, even so would your life be. Of immortality, however, there is no hope through wealth.

(16) Praise, glory, and honours make not for righteousness or long life, or for strength, or health, or pleasure of the body. But such will be the end sought by a wise man knowing his advantage; and he who desires mirth of spirit may give himself to drink, gambling, and the like. For glory men waste their substance, ay, even their lives. But will syllables feed them? and when they are dead, who has pleasure of it? As a child wails bitterly when its house of sand is broken down, so I deem my own spirit will be when praise and glory vanish. Praise is but sound, and being itself without thought, cannot praise me.

(3) Thou wilt pay undistracted attention to that with which I am about to set thee face to face, and hold on: O nobly-born, that which is called death hath now come. Thou art departing from this world, but thou art not the only one; [death] cometh to all. Do not cling, in fondness and weakness, to this life. Even though thou clingest out of weakness, thou hast not the power to remain here. Thou wilt gain nothing more than wandering in this Sangsara. Be not attached [to this world]; be not weak. Remember the Precious Trinity.

(23) Again he puts the same idea in these words: "No mortal is content and happy Nor is any born free from sorrow." And then again: " Alas, alas, how many are the chances of mortal calamity! How many forms it takes! None can tell the end." And further likewise: " Of what is mortal there is nothing which is happy without end."

(29) Similarly speaks to thee Plato, writing of man as a creature subject to change. Again, Euripides having said: "Oh life to mortal men of trouble full, How slippery in everything art thou I Now grow'st thou, and thou now decay'st away.

(2) Then said Maitreyi: ' What should I do with that through which I may not be immortal? What you know, Sir — that, indeed, tell me! '

(20) What is the so great fault, said I, the ignorant commit, that they should be deprived of deathlessness? Thou seem'st, He said, O thou, not to have given heed to what thou heardest. Did I not bid thee think? Yea do I think, and I remember, and therefore give Thee thanks. If thou didst think [thereon], [said He], tell me: Why do they merit death who are in Death? It is because the gloomy Darkness is the root and base of the material frame; from it came the Moist Nature; from this the body in the sense-world was composed; and from this [body] Death doth the Water drain.

(46) But let these be resigned to the follies of the theatre. Heraclitus plainly says: "But of the word which is eternal men are not able to understand, both before they have heard it, and on first hearing it." And the lyrist Melanippides says in song: "Hear me, O Father, Wonder of men, Ruler of the ever-living soul."