Simplicissimus (56 page)

God be with you, world, for in your abode men neither lead a saintly life nor die the same death: the one dies in the cradle, the other in childhood, the third by the noose, the fourth by the sword, the fifth on the wheel, the sixth at the stake, the seventh drowns in water, the eighth in wine, the ninth dies from gluttony, the tenth from poison, the eleventh dies suddenly, the twelfth in battle, the thirteenth through a magic spell and the fourteenth drowns his poor soul in the inkwell.

God be with you, world, I abhor your conversation: the life you give us is a miserable pilgrimage, an inconstant, uncertain, hard, rough, transient and impure voyage full of poverty and error, more rightly to be called a death than a life, in which we die every moment through all the ills of inconstancy and the many and various ways of death. Not content with the bitterness, with which you are surrounded and seasoned, you also deceive most with your flattery, encouragement and false promises; the wine from the golden chalice in your hand is bitter and false, making men blind, deaf, mad, drunk and senseless. Oh, how happy are they who avoid your company, despise your brief, fleeting, momentary pleasures, reject your society and do not perish with such a sly, false-hearted deceiver. For you turn us into a dark abyss, a wretched clod of earth, a child of anger, a stinking corpse, a filthy vessel on the dung-heap, a vessel of putrefaction full of stench and vileness; after you have toyed with us, dragging us hither and thither and tormenting us with flattery, caresses, threats, blows, trials and tribulations, anguish and torture, you consign our wasted bodies to the grave, leaving the soul to an uncertain fate. For although nothing is more certain than death, we do not know how, when and where we will die, nor (and this is the pity of it) where our soul will go and what will happen to it. But woe to the poor soul that has served you, o world, that has obeyed you and sought out your lustful and lascivious pleasures, for once such a sinful and unregenerate soul has, in a sudden moment of terror, departed from the body it is no longer surrounded, like the body in life, with servants and friends, but is led by a host of its most fearful enemies before the Judgment Seat of the Lord. Therefore farewell, o world, for I know there will come a time when you will abandon me, not only when my poor soul appears before the implacable judge, but also when the dreadful judgment
Go, o damned souls, to the eternal flames
is spoken.

Farewell, o world, o base, vile world, o stinking, miserable flesh! It is because of you, for following, serving and obeying you, that the unrepentant sinner is sentenced to eternal damnation where nothing awaits him for all eternity but suffering without respite instead of past delights, thirst without assuaging instead of carousing, hunger without repletion instead of gluttony, darkness without light instead of splendour and magnificence, pain without relief instead of pleasure, wailing, crying and moaning instead of power and triumph, heat without cooling, fire without quenching, cold without measure and misery without end.

God be with you, o world, for then, instead of your promised pleasures and delights, evil spirits will seize the condemned soul and drag it down to hell in the twinkling of an eye where all it will see and hear will be the terrible figures of the devils and the damned, nothing but darkness and smoke, fire without brightness, screaming, wailing, gnashing of teeth and blasphemy. All hope of grace and mitigation will be gone, rank and position will count for nothing, the higher a person has risen and the greater his sins, the lower he will be cast down, the harsher the torment he will suffer. From those to whom much has been given, much will be demanded; the more splendour a person has received from you, o base, vile world, the more suffering and torture he will be given here, for that is what divine justice requires.

God be with you, o world, for although the body remains with you for a while, lying in the earth and rotting, it will rise again on the Day of Judgment and after the final sentence will burn in hell for all eternity with the soul. Then the poor soul will say, “Curses on you, world! You made me forget God and myself and follow you in dissipation, evil, sin and shame all the days of my life. Cursed be the hour when God created me! Cursed be the day when I came into the base vile world! O mountains, hills, rocks, come and fall on me and hide me from the terrible wrath of the Lamb, hide me from the face of Him who sits in the Seat of Judgment. Alas, woe is me, for all eternity alas!”

Therefore, o world, o unclean world, I beg you, I beseech you, I implore you, I admonish you, I protest that you shall have no part of me; and I for my part want no part of you, will not place my hopes in you, for you know what I have resolved, namely
Posui finem curis, spes et fortuna valete
– I have put an end to cares, hope and fortune, farewell!’

I pondered deep and long on all these words and was so moved by them that I abandoned the world and became a hermit once more. I would have liked to live beside my mineral spring in the depths of the forest, but the local country folk would not allow it, even though it was the right kind of wilderness for me. They were still afraid I would reveal the existence of the spring and their ruler would force them to build roads and paths to it, now that peace was well established. Therefore I went to another wilderness and once more lived the life I had in the Spessart, though whether I will persevere in it, like my father, I cannot say. God grant us His grace so that we all come to that which we most desire, namely a blessed

END.

German Literature from Dedalus

Dedalus features German Literature in translation in its programme of contemporary and classic European fiction and in its anthologies.