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ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
Beautiful, lovely, beyond recovery, unique, well-formed — it flows away like water, and snatched off it suddenly flees from our midst. Like a beast there falls at once all comeliness and all glory; warmth and color grow chill, and thereupon the sorrow of youth departs. Why do I contrive delays? Dear flesh lying there, you are dregs, you are buried; you let yourself be what you are; into ashes, ash, you are wasted away. Why does food flow, why does the throat surge with drink and dainties? Fed on viands you are yourself a viand for the flesh, for worms, and you rot. It is yours to behold your limbs pale in death, or your face pale in death, cold to the senses, and shrunk to less than itself. The golden or tawny locks that you tossed about your ivory neck now lie low; the heart and the mouth fall silent, with which you once thundered. The eyes lack their sight, the ears their hearing, the mouth its speech; the nose lacks scents, the heart its loves, the bones their warmth.
The foot swift to evil, the eye set upon a woman, the milk-white neck and the waxen arms — all have rotted away. Arms waxen-soft, as choice as they were comely, and the supple limbs are held by a single little pit. The teeth once white, the flame-red lips, the bloom of the face and the bright cheek are now but rotten, a portion of putrid matter. Where now are the goblets, where now the courses, the thousand courses? Where is that first bloom, where that ruddy-rose complexion? Where the softer voice, where the more enticing laughter, the wanton speech and the frenzied glance bent to vile deeds? Where now the girdle, the golden ring, the golden fillet? Where now the ancestral names, the heights inherited from forefathers? Begotten of a king, that flesh has been given to worms and become a worm; born of kings and heaped with possessions, now you are defenceless.
You that were a lovely body are now a useless body, and a dark one; you are loosed by death and are but the phantom of a corpse. Earthly glory is now like the lily, tomorrow like the wind: youth in its beauty flees but a little while, and thereafter by death. Splendid breasts, splendid bodies are reckoned but a body, and youthful graves are seen to be like the graves of the aged. Soon the boy perishes as the rose put forth in spring fades away; vigor is wrested from the strong, beauty from the woman. If anyone had a lynx's eyes, the keenness of the mind, he would see, I believe, sweet things bitter and fair things foul; consider what the gleaming bodies, the living breasts, the comely limbs, and royal bones now are — mere graves. Crying out and threatening, the graves speak:
"The first and the last, the lofty and the lowliest, are taken in here." Man is a slight thing, man is a brief thing, man is a non-being; man is gravel and earthen clay, storing earthly things in his mind. Man is a little flower and an animated little statue. The breath quickens, cherishes, fills, drives, and moves him — for a short while. As soon as the breath deserts these bones the man perishes, and is filthy flesh; he is flesh more loathsome than any or all flesh; dead, our flesh is more vile, sick, more loosened than other flesh, and thus no corpses are laid away. Quickly it teems with worms, and (it is plain enough) the diseased thing splits open, and soon through harsh things, through scourges, through every savage thing it falls apart. That it quickly grows sickly, that it quickly grows foul, I pass over; that it quickly turns putrid, that it quickly wastes away, I forbear to say.
Add that it is more horrid, more bristling, more fierce in death, more foully it reeks, more grievously the sick thing aches — and at once it is pus. Yours is no dread of the death or corpse of a beast; rather the terror assails you, or the fever rushes in, from a fellow human. Smitten beside the road, here a man, there a beast — each breathes out its last; is the fear of the one greater, or of the other? Of the man, plainly. A lifeless beast on the level of the meadow brings you no dread; far more frightful to you is the funeral of a buried brother. You will fear by night to look again upon the bones, or to go near them, when you would in no wise be afraid to walk past a lifeless beast. Our corpses and our funerals, it is left to be — and it is known to be — fouler and more horrid. Man is a light breath and a brief vapor; for a short while he appears; he appears and shines forth; at once he hides away, becomes grass, withers.
Weeping, man is born, and is quickly taken away; he breathes out his last and is buried. He stands a brief while, soon he falls; now he is, tomorrow he is gone; here he stands but briefly. A most fleeting whirlwind and a most brief breath is man. He himself is begotten amid toils, he himself amid sorrows. Here he lifts his head, flashes out, perishes; he is like a bubble; no bubble passes away more swiftly, no breeze more fleetingly. He is earthen flesh and fleshly earth, smoke, a shadow, a lump of corruption, a wave of the abyss — nay, the abyss itself. While the breath from heaven flows into him, he is a rose, he blossoms; when the vapor has departed, at once he collapses, is dung, lies horrid. Here man is begotten of corruption, born of woman; lately a man has been sown, given over to tears, here to weep for himself. He wails at the breast, lives amid hardships; death calls, and one departs.
He who but now flourished at once falls and is buried. At once he slips away, at once he is taken off, at once he passes by. He passes, departs, rushes down; here he was a little while, here he abode briefly. Hither he quickly came forth, hence he quickly passed on, and as though he had never existed, he perishes; here he sows thistles, here wild nard. Here he seeks thistles, here he reaps thistles, here he is afflicted. He favors gladness, and weeps, loves, dreads — and thereby is weighed down. So long as man thrives, he abounds, he is in want, he runs like a wheel; he gives, he snatches, he goes, he rages, he is oppressed, he oppresses, he is burned, he burns. He burns and is burned, he chokes and is choked; he grows worse toward evil. He delights in honors, and in his toils he rests in these. A heavy cross is his who seeks the lowest by seeking the highest. Therefore he is in tumult, he clamors, he seethes, while busying himself with these things.
As a wheel is turned, as a rose is seen — and as though he might endure. The rich man is in want, he trembles; the lofty, exulting, groans; the abounding withers. At last, racked on every side by many deaths, the raging urn seizes him, crushes and snatches him away — O grievous fate! With his praise surviving him, with his name rich, the rich man is held in honor; the urn is wholly filled with rot, the homeland with his name. He becomes a rumor, he is a sound; "this man was upright, this man good, this was that famous one of noble origin, mighty in his image, full of Achilles." His fame proclaimed the man, and soon that very fame totters, withers — itself too — blooming for a brief while, after a brief while withered, rent, undone. Soon when he has passed away, here this man has ceased to be, or to be named. No longer does the soul keep warm, no longer is the living being able to be proven so. The lifeless trunk lies there; now he is silent — before he used to thunder.
He lies horrid dregs, who once stood like a flowering rose upon the summit. Rolling, nay flitting life is like a point such as the geometer's craft gives you — how swiftly taken away! Death is the greatest road, death lies open as the final line of all things, where alike the foot of earthenware and of gold treads; nothing comes too late for it. It hangs over all, here over those who serve, there over tyrants. It rushes in swiftly; it is the one road of all flesh. He who is wiser than Socrates, stronger than Hercules, is undone by a three-day fever — and thence it is known that all things are vain. Vain it is to live and vain to run, beneath this sun. Look through all things; in short, know that the master-book has told you. Behold, with eyes wide open to evils, blind to good things, the little fire of fever is for you a deathly thing — whence then are you swollen with pride? What strength have you?
The bones of that famous Hector, which now stand out so little, a single narrow pit contains. What avails you grammar? The dry bones of Socrates are held fast. Plato, the voice of the soul, Cato of justice, are reckoned dust. What avails you eloquence? That tongue of Demosthenes and of Cicero has utterly withered; the breath of art and of utterance has passed away. What avails you blood or lineage? The Fabii's lofty stock too has fallen, and their throng, dead, has melted away. Beauty exalted you, Absalom; a twofold vengeance carried you off. The milk-white flesh is now dregs; the golden locks are rendered dregs. What heights are yours? what names are yours? what praise is yours? Your heights, your names, and your former praise too — that they have fallen, you hear. What glory is yours, what grace is yours, what gift is yours? You have neither the glory nor the grace that Solomon had.
Yours is royal magnificence; yet you will be no higher than the offspring of Philip, and in deserts inferior — let this too be written. To him belonged modesty, leisure, the royal throne, lordly bearing, sport, battles, and all the city-walls lying open at his will. He saw the farthest and uttermost bounds of the world, a man destined to be born to rule; he was made lord over peoples, cities, and rulers. He had conquered all things; yet he is conquered, having followed the fates that met him. After being a man, he is ash, as it were the breeze of a whirlwind dissolved. He was a flower, he is now dung — that most mighty one, that strong one; now scarce a little basket or a small urn holds him for whom before the whole world scarce sufficed. Where is now the Babylonian glory, where now dread Nebuchadnezzar, and the might of Darius, and that Cyrus? In what manner have they, swept on by their powers, passed away. Their fame is left behind and is fixed fast; but they themselves have rotted.
Where now is the court and the Julian pomp? Caesar, you are perished. You yourself were fiercer than the most truculent, more powerful than the world. That you might subdue the world's outermost parts with blood and the very stars with glory, your arms were stirred to raging, and battles and might. With the old man your son-in-law you joined arms — and not well; nor would you suffer to be his father-in-law, or a faithful comrade to him. You who are now but ash were once as great a man as the world. By force the compass of city and world was made subject to you. Behold, you are dissolved into a heap of dust, an urn of cinders; Caesar, you are both naked and well-nigh nothing — O that fierce one! Where now is Marius, and Fabricius who knew not gold? Where is the noble death and the memorable deed of Paulus? Where now is the divine, the Philippic, the heaven-born voice of Cicero? Where the peace of Cato for citizens and his wrath against rebels?
Where now is Regulus, or where Romulus, or where Remus? Rome of old stands in name; the bare names we hold. How swiftly fleeting and rolling is the orbit of the sphere; mighty hearts, strong bodies have passed away. Both briefly flourished and quickly fell the wave of those of old; their glory has ended, all their ground has passed away. We too are taken off, and we set out toward what they did too. We go to the depths, we lose the heavens, slack of mind. Death calls; we shall go, and we shall not retain the world's honors. Death hangs over all living things; we shall all go. We shall go, we shall go, and we shall return. To what? To the depths. Bodies that seek the depths are confessing themselves to be mire; free is the path of the mind to the heavens, of the flesh to the depths. This well receives, that ill despises, each at its own first beginnings.
The flesh stands fast, the mind groans; Eve presses down the man, and thence comes guilt; the mind lifts up and cleanses, but the flesh weighs down the heart and defiles its acts. While the moon bears its sweet quarrels and the horns that meet — this one waxes and that one wanes, both made as it were one. Why, fleshly flesh and earthen earth, do you labor to bear it? Fleshly, earthen thing, the dice-throw of time turns you about by the hours. Time and all things ignorant of time are whirled round so as to stand still; each thing is proved to run on, none of these fleeting things to run back. Behold how the best things of the body run like the wind; remember that single things run, that blind ages run on. The world is dissoluble, nay rolling, like a globe; all its things are crashing down through pestilence, wasted with diseases. Its light has shone; behold, its loveliness has utterly withered; its light has blossomed and quickly fallen; now it is mire.
Behold how, like rivers, the rolling masses of things run on. The world's honor crashes down, and flees, and flows away, as the world of days rolls by. As a wheel is turned, and thereby is figured as a wheel the world, since it is indeed rolling and changeable and tottering toward ruin. Its supposed estate is void; its standing is an unstable standing. It goes and returns like the sea; in short, now it is in evil case, tomorrow worse there. Earthly glory, how like gravel it stands, undermined; like gravel by the stream, glory is borne away, driven by the whirlwind. All things are flowing, none abiding, that are good in the world. Within, the reed laughs at outward honors. Earthly glory, glassy glory, plainly glassy — at once its emptiness is taken away and dissolved. If I judge rightly, there comes a change with each of the days; and rightly I judge: there comes a change, there comes the flight of all things.
How, like dreams, the world and all things vainly withdraw; and very many signs proclaim that the times of the Judge are near. Stars are reported seen of flame, and the moon of iron; the sun is borne without light, the earth undermined by a chasm. The earth trembles in places; the impudent shade of the Furies roars; a warlike troop is reported seen running through the air. Dead hosts are reported seen running, flocking together. The gravest signs and very many portents are beheld. Grace crashes down, order grows cold, iniquity surges; each man is bent on guile; to be honest is shameful, to be chaste. Justice is crushed by the cross, flock by flock, leader by leader, and king by him who rules, host upon host, summit upon summit, nation too upon nation. All slippery things are now made public, nothing is hidden; inborn or furious infamies are cultivated. Ah!
Drunken wantonness wages war by night and by day. The sacred voice displeases; the unlawful is alike allowed and pleasing. He who wishes to be good is wretched, is a burden, is irksome; he who demands evil things walks about imperious. No way of justice remains, for the Virgin has withdrawn, and with her sisters entering in, has yielded the heavens. Right crashes down, is hindered; evil craft prospers, evil craft profits. Fraud stands fast, love lies low, order weeps, craft pleases, and gluttony is brazen-faced: believe these to be the going-before and sure heralds of the end. For the end comes; the world's honor perishes by the foe, by ruins, by seditions, by floods, by fire, by tempests, by strife, by lust, by fraud, by pestilence, by bloodshed, by wars. Rise up, rise up, and take up hope again, trembling in hope;
Behold the kingdoms running their course, the world's summits tottering. The last times, unless holy Scripture deceives, are being enacted. The prophetic sayings and the heavenly words are being fulfilled. Fleshly glory, full of cinders, is borne along like the dice. Threateningly that Judge hangs over us, that Judge. God the Censor is at hand; let the guilty awake; Christ is near. What now holds him back? Lo, fierce Antichrist hangs over us. The impious stock comes, the evil stock, the beast of perdition. Under whose leadership the Dragon's tail shall drive the stars down into the depths. The impious one hangs over us; the son of impiety is near; he hangs, he hangs over us, and gains the headship over those laid low beneath him. Under his rule it shall be multiplied and shall reign — death, tribulation, and suffering so great as never before. Now the seventh trumpet, the very last plague, is now being hastened.
Behold the falling-away which your reading, Paul, foretells; the kingdoms are seen to totter, Rome to fall back behind, nor is its throne or estate held lofty as before. The slippery deed now is made public, becomes a thing of the open. Rome, your former glory is dead, your King is lacking to you. With these signs going before — nay, following in order — that impious one hangs over us, or his horror and his fire. And there are open, threatening signs, signs of fury, so that you may know for certain that the last times are now near. A flame-vomiting, black, bristling, winged dragon was seen of late in the air — nothing of jest do I now intend to say — it appeared to all the horsemen and the husbandmen. It fled, it shuddered, and the flight of that dragon terrified them.
A horrid plague passed through the towns and flew across them; and through very many places — so the greatest report bears it — it travelled. Coming forth into a twofold head among the English countryside, a woman came forth and ended in two legs. Two legs indeed, but twice two arms stood upon her. Two breasts, four udders made this creature monstrous. I would have you believe that I speak the truth determined, that I write what is real. Her movement was a pair, her path a pair, her sitting, a pair of women. Of these women — nay sisters, O wonder! — the one passed away, and the other, mournful, survived. After a brief while at last each part fell, loosed by death; each part fell, the one followed the other in dying.
A man, a magician in his deeds, went into the Iberian regions, (the things I make known in verses, these I assert with true witnesses); he, of no seed, declared himself to have been born of a simple virgin — O madness! — and a throng of brethren believed him. To the uttermost the most evil viper said that he was the Christ; this all but proclaims, or points to, the presence of Antichrist. No lesser in his arts is one in the regions of the East, known and brought forth, and himself ruined in the order of his mind. And this impious one said that he was the great Elijah; hence know more surely that the last times are near. Rash, impious nation, while it is permitted, let us bewail our impious deeds. That Judge comes threateningly — let us be terrified. Let no one cease to lay hold of right, no one to lament evils; joys draw near to those who weep, wrath to the irreverent.
Now the seventh trumpet, the very last plague, the light at once holy and dread, thunders out, presses on, flashes forth, rushes in — and the wrath comes. Nation guilty of evil, let us with weeping cover over our slippery joys; nation guilty of evil, let us flee the things that are fleeing. We shrink from standing, we have flowed away to evils; let us stand for good things. The last hour, the worst of times, are here — let us keep watch!