Then come friends and fellows to the sick man for to visit him and comfort him. And then all proffer and behote[1] good things; and that him need not to dread the death, and that there is no peril thereof, and that it is but a running of humours unkindly, or stopping of the sinews or the veins, that shall soon pass over.
Thus the friends of (the) bodies be enemies to (the) souls. For what time the sickness continually increaseth, and he that is sick trusteth ever of amendment, at the last suddenly he falleth and without fruit of heal yieldeth up the wretched soul; right so these that hear thy words — the which beleven[2] all together to man's prudence and worldly wisdom — they cast behind their backs thy words, and will not obey (to) thy healthful counsel.
The Image of Death said
Therefore what time they be taken with the grin of death, when there falleth upon them suddenly tribulation and anguish, they shall cry and not be heard; forasmuch as they had Wisdom in hate, and despised to hear my counsel. And right as now full few be found that be compunctious through my words for to amend them and turn their life into better, so forsooth — for the malice of the fiend in this time, and default of ghostly fervour, and the wickedness of the world, now in his eld,[3] letteth him — so that there be but few so perfectly disposed[4] to death : the which for great abstraction from the
