«Mostrando vas la vía a otros, ¡oh, hermano!, y tú frecuentemente perdido andas, y más hoy todavía.» - Petrarch

Neither exhortations to virtue nor the argument of approaching death should divert us from literature; for in a good mind it excites the love of virtue, and dissipates, or at least diminishes, the fear of death.

Per bene star si scende molte miglia.

Now that the time that calls me to depart
draws near, I think, or will not be too long,
like one whom losses make acute and wise,
I keep on wondering where I left the way
that leads to a safe haven on the right:
and on the one hand I am stung
by shame and sorrow making me turn back;
and on the other cannot break
the habit of a pleasure grown so strong
that now it dares to play for time with death.