[De contemptu mundi]

ends, but after those five ages, whatever remains of life is assigned to old age. Senium decrepitude, however, is the final part of old age, as it is the limit of the sixth age. In these six spaces, therefore, philosophers have described human life, in which it is changed and runs, and arrives at the limit of death. Consider, we implore and beseech you, O creature of God, to whom divine power (while other animals look down to the earth) has given a face to look upward alone, and to lift your countenance to the stars, how much weariness you are affected by in your sixth age, when cares and pains surround you on every side. Shoulders are bowed, and trembling hands, sustaining themselves even with a staff, and enervated feet can barely carry you. Constant sighs are present, a harsh cough, the senile heart does not cease to ache. Bitter death is awaited daily, the day is not known, nor the hour, nor even the moment, since now nothing becomes more certain than to expect being pierced by the arrow, to which, especially, the old man is placed as the target. Nor let the young rejoice that they are secure from that arrow, since we see every day flourishing youth being slaughtered by the bitterness of death. Cruel is its power, it spares no one. It is for everyone to die. But it makes fame endure; this is the work of virtue. Indeed, our life is like