>>295219Wizards, I remember reading these paragraphs when I was younger, and was so struck by them that I copied them down. I’ve translated them as literally as possible. Life has always been hard, but I think good things await us hereafter.
Agedum, si quis velut e sublimi specula circumspiciat, ita ut Iovem Poetae facere praedicant, quot calamitatibus hominum vita sit obnoxia, quam misera, quam sordida nativitas, quam laboriosa educatio, quot iniuriis exposita pueritia, quot sudoribus adacta iuventus, quam gravis senectus, quam dura mortis necessitas, quot morborum agmina infestent, quot immineant casus, quot ingruant incommoda, quam nihil usquam non plurimo felle tinctum, ut ne commemorem ista, quae homini ab homine inferuntur mala, quod genus sunt, paupertas, carcer, infamia, pudor, tormenta, insidiae, proditio, convitia, lites, fraudes. Sed ego iam plane ton ammon anametrein aggredior. Porro quibus admissis ista commeruerint homines, aut quis Deus iratus eos in has miserias nasci coegerit, non est mihi fas in praesentia proloqui. Verum ista qui secum perpendat, nonne Milesiarum virginum probabit exemplum etiam si miserandum? At quinam potissimum sibi vitae taedio fatum accersivere Nonne sapientiae confines? Erasmus.
Come now, if any man just as if from a sublime watchtower may look around, thus as the Poets preach Juppiter to do, with how many calamities the life of man may be bothersome, how wretched and dirty a nativity, how laborious an education, a boyhood exposed to how many injuries, a youth driven by how many sweats, how heavy an old age, how hard [is] the necessity of death, how many groups of diseases may attack, how many falls may threaten, how many inconveniences may assault, how [there is] nothing ever not dyed without much poison, so that lest I may recall these things, which evils are borne in to man from man, [of] which sort they are, poverty, jail, infamy, shame, torments, ambushes, betrayal, reproaches, lawsuits, tricks. But now I plainly begin to count the sand. Then with which things admitted, men may have deserved these things, or which angry god may have forced them to be born into these miseries, it is not right for me in the present to say. But he who with himself may weigh these things, shall he not prove even the example of the Milesian virgins to be pitied? But they who then especially by taedium of life have summoned fate to themselves, are they not similar to wisdom?
Tamen quoniam piorum vita nihil aliud est, quam illius vitae meditatio, ac velut umbra quaedam, fit ut praemii quoque illius aliquando gustum aut ardorem aliquem sentiant. Id tametsi minutissima quaedam stillula est, ad fontem illum aeternae felicitatis, tamen longe superat universas corporis voluptates, etiam si omnes omnium mortalium deliciae in unum conferantur. Usque adeo praestant spiritualia corporalibus, invisibilia visibilibus. Hoc nimirum est quod pollicetur Propheta: 'Oculus non vidit, nec auris audivit, nec in cor hominis adscenderunt, quae praeparavit Deus diligentibus se'. Atque, haec est Moriae pars, quae non aufertur commutatione vitae, sed perficitur. Hoc igitur quibus sentire licuit, contingit autem perpaucis, ii patiuntur quoddam dementiae simillimum, loquuntur quaedam non satis cohaerentia, nec humano more, sed dant sine mente sonum, deinde subinde totam oris speciem vertunt. Nunc alacres, nunc deiecti, nunc lacrymant, nunc rident, nunc suspirant; in summa, vere toti extra se sunt. Mox ubi ad sese redierint, negant se scire, ubi fuerint, utrum in corpore, an extra corpus, vigilantes an dormientes, quid audierint, quid viderint, quid dixerint, quid fecerint, non meminerunt, nisi tamquam per nebulam, ac somnium, tantum hoc sciunt se felicissimos fuisse, dum ita desiperent. Itaque plorant sese resipuisse, nihilque omnium malint, quam hoc insaniae genus perpetuo insanire. Atque haec est futurae felicitatis tenuis quaedam degustatiuncula. Erasmus
Nevertheless because the life of pious men is nothing other, than the meditation of that life, and just as if a certain shadow, it is made so that also sometimes they may sense a taste of that reward or some heat. Although it is a very minute little drop, to that fountain of eternal happiness, withal by far it exceeds all the pleasures of the body, even if all the delights of all mortals may be conferred into one. Unto such a degree do spiritual things stand before bodily things, the invisible to the visible. This no wonder is that which the Prophet promises: “The eye hath not seen, nor hath the ear heard, nor into the heart of man have they ascended, which things God hath prepared for those loving Him.” And, this is that part of Foolishness, which is not borne away by the change of life [death], but it is perfected. On this account for whom it was lawful to feel, however it happens to very few, they suffer a certain little similitude of madness, they speak certain things not enough coherent, nor by human custom, but they give sound without mind, from thence repeatedly they turn all the appearance of the mouth. Sometimes eager, sometimes dejected, sometimes they cry, sometime they laugh, sometimes they whisper; in sum, verily they are wholly outside of themselves. Soon when they shall have returned to themselves, they deny themselves to know, where they may have been, whether in body, or outside [of] the body, watching or sleeping, what they may have heard, what they may have seen, what they may have said, what they may have done, they do not remember, until just as if through a mist, and a dream, only they know this — themselves to have been most happy, while thus they would be mad. There they lament themselves to have regained wisdom, they may prefer nothing of all things, than perpetually to be insane in this type of insanity. And this is a certain thin tiny taste of that future felicity.