by Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601 – 1658)Nature was crafty, and perhaps even dishonest, when she brought us into this world. She arranged for us to do so without knowledge and therefore without suspicion. For we come darkly, even blindly into this world, and begin to live without noticing that we are alive and without knowing what it is to live. As a child, man is hushed by any childish thing, content with any toy or trinket. He seems to have entered the realm of happiness, but is really a captive to fortune. By the time he opens the eyes of the soul, and realizes he has been tricked, he is hopelessly trapped, stuck in the mud from which he was formed. And what can he do except move forward in that mud and try to escape as best he can? I am persuaded that, were it not for Nature’s universal ruse, no man or woman would want to enter a world so deceptive, and few would choose to go on living. For who would knowingly set foot in a false kingdom and true prison, only to suffer so many different punishments? In the body: hunger, thirst, cold, heat, weariness, nakedness, pain and disease; in the mind: ignorance, deceit, persecution, envy, scorn, dishonor, turmoil, sadness, fear, anger, and despair. All this in order to be condemned, in the end, to a miserable death, with the loss of everything: house, estate, belongings, honors, friends, relatives, brothers, parents, and life itself just when we have come to love it the most. Nature knew perfectly well what she was doing, and man accepted in ignorance. Whoever does not know you, O life, let him esteem you! But whoever has awakened to the truth would choose rather to be transported from the cradle to the coffin, from the womb to the tomb. A common presage of misery is the tears we cry at birth . . . And the clarion call with which this man, this woman, this king or queen, enters the world is none other than weeping, a sign that our only realm is sorrow. What can we expect of a life that begins with the screams of the mother who gives it, and the weeping of the child who receives it?
See A Pocket Mirror for Heroes, page 70.
ISBN 0385480210
Also, The Art of Worldly Wisdom.
ISBN 0385421311