TIME AND ETERNITY.
Sir Thomas More, when a youth, painted for his father’s house in London a hanging with nine pageants, with verses over each. There were Childhood, Manhood, Venus and Cupid, Age, Death, and Fame. In the sixth pageant was painted the image of Time, and under his feet was lying the picture of Fame that was in the sixth pageant. And over this seventh pageant was (spelling modernised):
Time.
I whom thou seest with horologe in hand
Am named Time, the lord of every hour:
I shall in space destroy both sea and land.
O simple Fame, how darest thou man honour,
Promising of his name an endless flower!
Who may in the world have a name eternal,
When I shall in process destroy the world and all?
In the eighth pageant was pictured the image of Lady Eternity, sitting in a chair under a sumptuous cloth of state, crowned with an imperial crown. And under her feet lay the picture of Time that was in the seventh pageant. And above this eighth pageant was written as follows:
Eternity.
Me needeth not to boast: I am Eternity,
The very name signifieth well
That mine empire infinite shall be.
Thou mortal Time, every man can tell,
Art nothing else but the mobility
Of sun and moon changing in every degree;
When they shall leave their course, thou shalt be brought,
For all thy pride and boasting, unto naught.