Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation / With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens

by Saint Thomas More

And thus will I finish this piece of the night's fear. And glad am
I that we are past it, and come once unto the day, to those other
words of the prophet, "A sagitta volante in die." For methinketh
I have made it a long night!

VINCENT: Forsooth, uncle, so have you, but we have not slept in it, but been very well occupied. But now I fear that unless you make here a pause till you have dined, you shall keep yourself from your dinner over-long.

ANTHONY: Nay, nay, cousin, for I broke my fast even as you came in. And also you shall find this night and this day like a winter day and a winter night. For as the winter hath short days and long nights, so shall you find that I made you not this fearful night so long but what I shall make you this light courageous day as short.

And so shall the matter require well of itself indeed. For in these words of the prophet, "The truth of God shall compass thee round about with a shield from the arrow flying in the day," I understand the arrow of pride, with which the devil tempteth a man, not in the night (that is, in tribulation and adversity), for that time is too discomfortable and too fearful for pride, but in the day (that is, in prosperity), for that time is full of lightsome pleasure and courage. But surely this worldly prosperity in which a man so rejoiceth and of which the devil maketh him so proud, is but a very short winter day. For we begin, many full poor and cold, and up we fly like an arrow shot into the air. And yet when we be suddenly shot up into the highest, ere we be well warm there, down we come unto the cold ground again. And then even there stick we still. And yet for the short while that we be upward and aloft—Lord, how lusty and how proud we be, buzzing above busily, as a bumblebee flieth about in summer, never aware that she shall die in winter! And so fare many of us, God help us. For in the short winter day of worldly wealth and prosperity, this flying arrow of the devil, this high spirit of pride, shot out of the devil's bow and piercing through our heart, beareth us up in our affection aloft into the clouds, where we think we sit on the rainbow and overlook the world under us, accounting in the regard of our own glory such other poor souls as were peradventure wont to be our fellows for silly poor pismires and ants.

But though this arrow of pride fly never so high in the clouds, and though the man whom it carrieth up so high be never so joyful thereof, yet let him remember that, be this arrow never so light, it hath yet a heavy iron head. And therefore, fly it never so high, down must it needs come, and on the ground must it light. And sometimes it falleth not in a very cleanly place, but the pride turneth into rebuke and shame and there is then all the glory gone.

Of this arrow speaketh the wise man in the fifth chapter of the book of Wisdom, where he saith in the person of them that in pride and vanity passed the time of this present life, and after that so spent, passed hence into hell: "What hath pride profited us? Or what good hath the glory of our riches done unto us? Passed are all those things like a shadow . . . or like an arrow shot out into the place appointed; the air that was divided is forthwith returned unto the place, and in such wise closed together again that the way is not perceived in which the arrow went. And in like wise we, as soon as we were born, are forthwith vanished away, and have left no token of any good virtue behind us, but are consumed and wasted and come to naught in our malignity. They, lo, that have lived here in sin, such words have they spoken when they lay in hell."

Here shall you, good cousin, consider, that whereas the scripture here speaketh of the arrow shot into its place appointed or intended, in the shooting of this arrow of pride there be divers purposings and appointings. For the proud man himself hath no certain purpose or appointment at any mark, butt, or prick upon earth, at which he determineth to shoot and there to stick and tarry. But ever he shooteth as children do, who love to shoot up cop-high, to see how high their arrow can fly up. But now doth the devil intend and appoint a certain mark, surely set in a place into which he purposeth—fly this arrow never so high and the proud heart on it—to have them both alight at last, and that place is in the very pit of hell. There is set the devil's well-acquainted prick and his very just mark. And with his pricking shaft of pride he hath by himself a plain proof and experience that down upon this prick (unless it be stopped by some grace of God on the way) the soul that flieth up with it can never fail to fall. For when he himself was in heaven and began to fly cop-high, with the lusty light flight of pride, saying, "I will fly up above the stars and set my throne on the sides of the north, and will be like unto the Highest," long ere he could fly up half so high as he said in his heart that he would, he was turned from a bright glorious angel into a dark deformed devil, and from flying any further upward, down was he thrown into the deep dungeon of hell.

Now may it, peradventure, cousin, seem that, since this kind of temptation of pride is no tribulation or pain, all this that we speak of this sorrow of pride flying forth in the day of prosperity, would be beside our matter.

VINCENT: Verily, mine uncle, and so seemed it unto me. And somewhat was I minded so to say to you, too, saving that, whether it were properly pertaining to the present matter or somewhat digressing from it, methought it was good matter and such as I had no wish to leave.

ANTHONY: But now must you consider, cousin, that though prosperity be contrary to tribulation, yet unto many a good man the devil's temptation to pride in prosperity is a greater tribulation, and more hath need of good comfort and good counsel both, than he who never felt it would believe. And that is the thing, cousin, that maketh me speak of it as of a thing proper to this matter. For, cousin, as it is a right hard thing to touch pitch and never defile the fingers, to put flax unto fire and yet keep them from burning, to keep a serpent in thy bosom and yet be safe from stinging, to put young men with young women without danger of foul fleshly desire—so it is hard for any person, either man or woman, in great worldly wealth and much prosperity, so to withstand the suggestions of the devil and occasions given by the world that they keep themselves from the deadly danger of ambitious glory. And if a man fall into it, there followeth upon it a whole flood of all unhappy mischief: arrogant manner, high solemn bearing, overlooking the poor in word and countenance, displeasant and disdainful behaviour, ravine, extortion, oppression, hatred and cruelty.