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| Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection. |
The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557.
The 1903 footnotes are shown as [ ] and my own as [ ].
👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown.
Sancte Thoma
Ora pro nobis.
The Remembrance of Death (Pt 5 of 5)
Now, if thou thinkest this reason but a sophistical subtlety, and thinkest while thou art a young man thou mayest for all this think thy death far off, that is to wit as far as thou hast by likelihood of nature many years to live, then will I put thee an homely example, not very pleasant, but nathless very true and very fit for the matter.
If there were two, both condemned to death, both carried out at once toward execution, of which two the one were sure that the place of his execution were within one mile, the other twenty miles off – yea, an hundred, an ye will – he that were in the cart to be carried a hundred miles would not take much more pleasure than his fellow in the length of his way, notwithstanding that it were a hundred times as long as his fellow's, and that he had thereby a hundred times as long to live, being sure and out of all question to die at the end.
Reckon me now yourself a young man in your best lust[1] – twenty years of age if ye will. Let there be another, ninety. Both must ye die, both be ye in the cart carrying forward. His gallows and death standeth within ten mile at the farthest, and yours within eighty. I see not why ye should reckon much less of your death than he, though your way be longer, since ye be sure ye shall never cease riding till ye come at it.
And this is true, although ye were sure that the place of your execution stood so far beyond his.
But what if there were to the place of your execution two ways, of which the one were four score mile farther about than your fellow’s, the other nearer by five mile than his ; and when ye were put in the cart ye had warning of both, and though ye were shewed that it were likely that ye should be carried the longer way, yet it might hap ye should go the shorter, and whether ye were carried the one or the other ye should never know till ye come to the place ; I trow ye could not in this case make much longer of your life than of your fellow’s.
Now in this case are we all, for our Lord hath not indented[2] with us of the time. He hath appointed what we may not pass, but not how soon we shall go, nor where, nor in what wise. And therefore if thou wilt consider how little cause thou hast to reckon thy death so far off by reason of thy youth, reckon how many as young as thou have been slain in the selfsame ways in which thou ridest, how many have been drowned in the self-same waters in which thou rowest. And thus shalt thou well see that thou hast no cause to look upon thy death as a thing far off, but a thing undoubtedly nigh thee and ever walking with thee. By which – not a false imagination, but a very true contemplation – thou shalt behold him and advise him such as he is, and thereby take occasion to flee vain pleasures of the flesh that keep out the very[3] pleasures of the soul.
Footnotes
[1] i.e., vigour.
[2] i.e., made a contract. Cf. The days of man are short, and the number of his months is with thee: thou hast appointed his bounds which cannot be passed. Job xiv. 5
[3] i.e., true.
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SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.
The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.
