CHAPTER VI
FATE DISTRIBUTES VOCATIONS
(Fate, the Gate of Life.)
And we go downward by a dark winding staircase, and behold, before the door there was a wide hall full of young folk, and on the right side there sat a fierce-looking, old man,[1] who in his hand held a large copper urn, and I saw that all those who came through the gate of life stepped up to him, and each one put his hand into the urn and drew from it a tablet on which something was written. Then each one of them went down one of the streets, some running and shouting for joy, while others crept along slowly, looked around them, groaned and lamented.
(The Callings are distributed.)
2. And I step near and looked at the tablets of some of them, and I see that one had drawn the
- ↑ "Ad eandem portam vir quidam senex astabat, aliquid quasi innuens virorum turbac nobis haud intelligentibus quid id esset. . . . Hic autem senex quem stantem videtis et habentem altera manu chartam . . . is angelus est qui præcepta dat ei qui tendit ad hunc mundum. . . . Et etiam ostendit viam quam si sucedat salvus in ea evadit."— "Tabula Cebetis," Edition of Leyden, 1640.
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