It seems to me like this, king: the life of man on earth, comparing our uncertain times, is as if, while you are sitting at the table with your leaders and officials in the wintertime, with the fire in the middle of the room warming the rafters, but outside winter rain or snow whirling furiously everywhere, a sparrow comes flying swiftly into the house through one door and goes out through another. During the time when it is inside, it does not feel the winter storm, but nevertheless after a very short time of calm that passes in a moment, it goes back from the winter to the winter and is lost to your sight. Thus the life of man appears here for a little while; but what follows, or what comes before, we do not know at all. Therefore, if this new teaching in any way brings us more certainty, it seems worth following.
--Venerable Bede (672/3-735), Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book II, Chapter 13
Talis mihi videtur, rex, vita hominum praesens in terris, ad comparationem eius quod nobis incertum est temporis, quale cum te residente ad coenam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumali, accenso quidem foco in medio et calido effecto coenaculo, furentibus autem foris per omnia turbinibus hiemalium pluviarum vel nivium, adveniensque unus passerum domum citissime pervolaverit qui cum per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud exierit. Ipso quidem tempore quo intus est, hiemis tempestate non tangitur, sed tamen parvissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis clabitur. Ita haec vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidve praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si haec nova doctrina certius aliquid attulit, merito esse sequenda videtur.
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