'To pleasant songs my work was erstwhile given, and bright were all my labours then; but now in tears to sad refrains am I compelled to turn.Thus my maimed Muses guide my pen, and gloomy songs make no feigned tears bedew my face.Then could no fear so overcome to leave me companionless upon my way.They were the pride of my earlier bright-lived days: in my later gloomy days they are the comfort of my fate; for hastened by unhappiness has age come upon me without warning, and grief hath set within me the old age of her gloom.White hairs are scattered untimely on my head, and the skin hangs loosely from my worn-out limbs.
'Happy is that death which thrusts not itself upon men in their pleasant years, yet comes to them at the oft-repeated cry of their sorrow.Sad is it how death turns away from the unhappy with so deaf an ear, and will not close, cruel, the eyes that weep.Ill is it to trust to Page 2Fortune's fickle bounty, and while yet she smiled upon me, the hour of gloom had well-nigh overwhelmed my head.Now has the cloud put off its alluring face, wherefore without scruple my life drags out its wearying delays.
'Why, O my friends, did ye so often puff me up, telling me that I was fortunate? For he that is fallen low did never firmly stand.'
While I was pondering thus in silence, and using my pen to set down so tearful a complaint, there appeared standing over my head a woman's form, whose countenance was full of majesty, whose eyes shone as with fire and in power of insight surpassed the eyes of men, whose colour was full of life, whose strength was yet intact though she was so full of years that none would ever think that she was subject to such age as ours.One could but doubt her varying stature, for at one moment she repressed it to the common measure of a man, at another she seemed to touch with her crown the very heavens: and when she had raised higher her head, it pierced even the sky and baffled the sight of those who would look upon it.Her clothing was wrought of the finest thread by subtle workmanship brought to an indivisible piece.This had she woven with her own hands, as I afterwards did learn by her own shewing.Their beauty was somewhat dimmed by the dulness of long neglect, as is seen in the smoke-grimed masks of our ancestors.On the border below was inwoven the symbol II, on Page 3that above was to be read a 1 And between the two letters there could be marked degrees, by which, as by the rungs of a ladder, ascent might be made from the lower principle to the higher.Yet the hands of rough men had torn this garment and snatched such morsels as they could therefrom.In her right hand she carried books, in her left was a sceptre brandished.