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Death

Ernest Renan

AT a first glance the literature of Wales is divided into three perfectly distinct branches: the bardic or lyric, which shines forth in splendour in the sixth century by the works of Taliessin, of Aneurin, and of Liwarc'h Hen, and continues through an uninterrupted series of imitations up to modern times; the Mabinogion, or literature of romance, fixed towards the twelfth century, but linking themselves in the groundwork of their ideas with the remotest ages of the Celtic genius; finally, an ecclesiastical and legendary literature, impressed with a distinct stamp of its own. These three literatures seem to have existed side by side, almost without knowledge of one another. The bards, proud of their solemn rhetoric, held in disdain the popular tales, the form of which they considered careless; on the other hand, both bards and romancers appear to have had few relations with the clergy; and one at times might be tempted to suppose that they ignored the existence of Christianity. To our thinking it is in the Mabinogion that the true expression of the Celtic genius is to be sought; and it is surprising that so curious a literature, the source of nearly all the romantic creations of Europe, should have remained unknown until our own days. The cause is doubtless to be ascribed to the dispersed state of the Welsh manuscripts, pursued till last century by the English, as seditious books compromising those who possessed them. Often too they fell into hands of ignorant owners, whose caprice or ill-will sufficed to keep them from critical research. 1

The Doctrine

Death's Messengers

1. Translated from the Anguttara-Nikya

DEATH has three messengers, O priests. And what are the three? 1

Suppose, O priests, one does evil with his body, does evil with his voice, does evil with his mind. Having done evil with his body, done evil with his voice, and done evil with his mind, he arrives after the dissolution of the body, after death, at a place of punishment, a place of suffering, perdition, hell. Then, O priests, the guardians of hell seize him by the arms at every point, and they show him to Yama, the ruler of the dead, saying, 2

"Sire, this man did not do his duty to his friends, to his parents, to the monks, or to the Brahmans, nor did he honor his elders among his kinsfolk. Let your majesty inflict punishment upon him." 3

Then, O priests, king Yama questions, sounds, and addresses him touching the first of death's messengers. 4

"O man! Did you not see the first of death's messengers visibly appear among men?" 5

He replies, "Lord, I did not." 6

Then, O priests, king Yama says to him, "O man! Did you not see among men a woman or a man, eighty or ninety or a hundred years of age, decrepid, crooked as the curved rafter of a gable roof, bowed down, leaning on a staff, trembling as he walked, miserable, with youth long fled, broken-toothed, gray-haired and nearly bald, tottering, with wrinkled brow, and blotched with freckles?" 7

He replies, "Lord, I did." 8

Then, O priests, king Yama says to him, "O man! Did it not occur to you, being a person of mature intelligence and years,

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