This advice, which is well expressed by the words which the rich man spake to his soul, “Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry” (St. Luke xii. 19), was not acceptable to the man who was tired of life, and he at once addressed to his soul a series of remarks, couched in rhythmical language, in which he made it clear that, so far as he was concerned, death would be preferable to life.  He begins by saying that his name is more detested than the smell of birds on a summer’s day when the heavens are hot, and the smell of a handler of fish newly caught when the heavens are hot, and the smell of water-fowl in a bed of willows wherein geese collect, and the smell of fishermen in the marshes where fishing hath been carried on, and the stench of crocodiles, and the place where crocodiles do congregate.  In a second group of rhythmical passages the man who was tired of life goes on to describe the unsatisfactory and corrupt condition of society, and his wholesale condemnation of it includes his own kinsfolk.  Each passage begins with the words, “Unto whom do I speak this day?” and he says, “Brothers are bad, and the friends of to-day lack love.  Hearts are shameless, and every man seizeth the goods of his neighbour.  The meek man goeth to ground (i.e. is destroyed), and the audacious man maketh his way into all places.  The man of gracious countenance is wretched, and the good are everywhere treated as contemptible.  When a man stirreth thee up to wrath by his wickedness, his evil acts make all people laugh.  One robbeth, and everyone stealeth the possessions of his neighbour.  Disease is continual, and the brother who is with it becometh an enemy.  One remembereth not yesterday, and one doeth nothing ... in this hour.  Brothers are bad....  Faces disappear, and each hath a worse aspect than that of his brother.  Hearts are shameless, and the man upon whom one leaneth hath no heart.  There are no righteous men left, the earth is an example of those who do evil.  There is no true man left, and each is ignorant of what he hath learnt.  No man is content with what he hath; go with the man [you believe to be contented], and he is not [to be found].  I am heavily laden with misery, and I have no true friend.  Evil hath smitten the land, and there is no end to it.”

The state of the world being thus, the man who was tired of life is driven to think that there is nothing left for him but death; it is hopeless to expect the whole state of society to change for the better, therefore death must be his deliverer.  To his soul he says, “Death standeth before me this day, [and is to me as] the restoration to health of a man who hath been sick, and as the coming out into the fresh air after sickness.  Death standeth before me this day like the smell of myrrh, and the sitting under the sail of a boat on a day with a fresh breeze.  Death standeth before me this day like the smell of lotus flowers, and like one who is sitting on the bank of drunkenness.[1] Death standeth before me this