I had never been born, or else that I had perished in my mother's womb, than I had so unprofitably spent the time that was granted to me to do penance, and misused it so wretchedly in pride.
Disciple
Lo, we all die: as water falleth down into the earth, and turneth not again. And God will not that man's soul perish, but withdraweth from him, that he be not fully lost that is of himself abject. Wherefore hear now my counsel. Repent ye of all thine offences, and do penance for thy misdeeds that be passed, and turn ye to thy Lord God by good deeds. For He is full benign and merciful: and if it so be that the end be good, it sufficeth to heal of soul.
The Image of Death answered
What word is this that thou speakest? Shall I turn me and do penance? Seest thou not the anguish of death that overlieth me? Lo, am so greatly feared with the dread and horror of death, and so bounden with the bonds of death, that I may not see nor know what I shall do. But right as the partridge constrained under the claws and nails of the hawk is half dead for dread, right so all vice [1] is gone from me; thinking not else but how I might in any wise escape this peril of death, the which nevertheless I may not escape.
O that blessed penance and turning from sin
- ↑ Douce 114 reads ' witte.'
