Synopsis of Events from the Creation of the World

[...great] grief in his final struggle agone: refers to the 'death agony' or the final spiritual and physical struggle before passing; unless he were first certain that this would happen, expressing it in these formal words:

original German: "wann ich disen Trost nit gewiß haben kan/ würdt ich wol mit grossem Schmertzen scheiden." "If I cannot have this comfort for certain, I will surely depart with great pain."

Therefore, he begged his wife and daughter to promise him this as his final request ultimā petitionem: a dying wish or formal deathbed plea. Both obeyed his words, and his wife openly declared that just as she had always been obedient to her lord husband, she would not refuse his request in this matter either, but wished to fulfill her husband's last will voluntatem: a person's final intent or testament to the best of her ability—provided that she were prepared with sufficient instruction instructione: specifically, religious instruction or catechism in the Catholic faith for a matter of such great importance.

The minds of those standing by were remarkably moved by this sad conversation; tears were even wrung from many great men. Soon, the mourning of the women broke out into disordered wailing—for how could such grief be absent during the tearing apart of such close intimacy? The silence that had been maintained to hear the sum of his speech dissolved into various lamentations; the whole house echoed with sorrowful voices.

But who would not grieve for one whose life is in danger, who by his virtues and learning has long ago earned immortality? One of whom it is permitted to say that he was a miracle to his contemporaries and an example to posterity, and with whom a great Treasury of Learning eruditionis Thesaurus: a common metaphor for a polymath or a scholar whose mind contains a 'treasury' of knowledge would perish without an heir! But the excessive noise of the mourners was restrained...