A Discourse of Life and Death
Original
written in French by Philipe de Mornay
English translation by Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke
1592
It seems to me strange, and a thing much to be marvelled, that the laborer to repose himself hasteneth as it were the course of the Sun; that the Mariner rows with all force to attain the port, and with a joyful cry salutes the descryed land; that the traveller is never quiet nor content till he be at the end of his voyage; and that we in the meanwhile tied in this world to a perpetual task, tossed with continual tempest, tired with a rough and cumbersome way, cannot yet see the end of our labor but with grief, nor behold our port but with tears, nor approach our home and quiet abode but with horror and trembling.
This life is but a Penelope’s web, where we are always doing and undoing; a sea open to all winds, which sometime within, sometime without never cease to torment us; a weary journey through extreme heats, and colds, over high mountains, steep rocks, and thievish deserts. And so we term it in weaving at this web, in rowing at this oar, in passing this miserable way.
Yet lo when death comes to end our work, when she stretcheth out her arms to pull us into the port, when after so many dangerous passages and loathsome lodgings she would conduct us to our true home and resting place; instead of rejoicing at the end of our labor, of taking comfort at the sight of our land, of singing at the approach of our happy mansion, we would fain (who would believe it?) retake our work in hand, we would again hoist sail to the wind, and willingly undertake our journey anew.
[last paragraph]:
Neither ought we to fly death, for it is childish to fear it; and
in fleeing from it, we meet it. . . . It is enough that we constantly
and continually wait for her coming, that she may never find
us unprovided. For as there is nothing more certain than death, so is
there nothing more uncertain than the hour of death, known only to God,
the only Author of life and death, to whom we all ought endeavor both
to live and die.
Die to live,
Live to die.