The Book of the Craft of Dying/toure
HERE SHOWETH A CHAPITLE TAKEN OUT OF A BOOK CLEPED TOURE OF ALL TOURES: AND TEACHETH A MAN FOR TO DIE
Against his will he dieth that hath not learned to die. Learn to die and thou shalt con[1] to live, for there shall none con to live that hath not learned to die; and he shall be cleped a wretch that cannot live and dare not die.
If thou wilt live freely learn to die wilfully;[2] and if thou ask of me how many it learneth, I shall tell it thee anon.
Thou shalt understand that this life is not else but death; for death is a passing as every man knoweth well. Wherefore men say of a man when he dieth that he passeth; and when he is dead he is passed. This life is not but only a passing, yea, forsooth, and that a full short passing. For all the life of a man's youth — if he lived a thousand year — were not as a moment in regard to the other life that ever shall last; other in joy withouten end, other in torment everlasting. This witnesseth to us well earls, kings, and emperors, which some time had the joy of this world, and now in hell wallowing and weeping, crying and saying: Alas, what is now worth to us our power, honour, noblesse, joy, and boasts ! Sooner it is passed than the shadow. For as the shot of an arblaster[3] passeth, right so passeth our life. Now be we born, and now be we dead anon; and all our life is not a moment. Now we be in torment everlasting: our joy is turned into weeping, carols to sorrow, garlands, robes, games, feasts, and all goods to us be fallen. Such be the songs of hell. And Holy Writ telleth us that this life is not but a passage, and for to live is not but for to pass. Then for to live is not but for to die, and that is sooth as the Paternoster. For when thou beginnest for to live, anon thou shalt begin for to die: and all thine age and thy time that is passed, death hath it conquered and holdeth.
Thou sayest that thou hast now forty years. That is not sooth. The death hath them, and never shall they thee hold.
Therefore is the wit of this world folly. These clerks see not this thing; and yet day and night they do this thing. And the more that they [have] it done, the less they it know: for alway they die, and yet con they not die. For day and night diest thou, as I have to thee said; yet in another manner I shall teach thee this clergy,[4] that thou con die well and live well.
Now hearken and understand. Death is not else but a departing of the body and of the soul, as every man knoweth. Now teacheth us the wise man, Caton. Learn we, he sayeth, for to die. Depart we the spirit from the body. Oft so die the great philosophers, that this life so much hated, and this world so much dispraised — and so much desired the death, that they fell down by their own will: but that was to them little worth for they had not the grace nor the truth of Jesu Christ.
But these holy men, that loved and dreaded God, that out of three deaths hath passed. Twain, for they be dead unto sin, and dead unto the world; and they abiden the third death, that is departing of the body and the soul. Betwix them and paradise is not but a little wall, which they pass through thought and desiring. And if the body be on this half, the heart and the spirit is on the other half. There they have (the) conversation, as Saint Paul saith: their place, their joy, their comfort and their desiring. And therefore they hate this life that is but death, and desire the bodily death.
Death unto the good man is end of all evils, and entry and gates of all goods. Death is the running brook that departed from (the) life. Death is on this half, and life is on the other half. But the wise men of this world (that) on this half on the running brook see so clearly, and on that other half see not — and therefore Holy Writ clepeth them fools and blind. For this death they clepen life, and the death that these good men beginning of life, they clepen the end. And therefore they hate so much (the) death that they wot not what it is; nor beyond the running brook they have not dwelled. And he can nought[5] that goeth not out.
Then, if thou wilt wit what is good and what is evil, [cast out the world and learn to die. Depart thy body from thy soul through thought, send thine heart into that other world, that is into heaven, into hell, and into purgatory. And then thou shalt see what is good and what is evil].[6]
In hell thou shalt see more sorrow than man may devise. In purgatory more torment than man may endure. In paradise more joy than man may desire. Hell will teach thee how God shall venge deadly sin. Purgatory will show thee how God shall venge venial sin. In paradise thou shalt see aptly virtues and good works rewarded highly.
In these three things standeth what behoveth for to con well for to live, and well for to die.