There was a man who, as punishment for a crime irrelevant to this history, spent a term in the land of the dead. When the end of his sentence approached, he asked the king of that land about that which confused him most about the customs there.
"Why is it, great king, that this is far from a dismal land? The dead have such feasts and entertainments as are never possible elsewhere without months to separate them, but here there is never any rest among those said to be forever resting in the matter of revels."
The king tested him with these words. "Where did you hear that this kingdom was ever dismal?" The man responded with citations from several classics, whereupon the ruler of all subjects nodded, satisfied. "It is because today the dead are deluded and think their duties done, whereas wiser men in earlier ages, relieved at last of the obstacle of sleep, set themselves ceaselessly to laborious tasks that they might not be found unprepared when at last it comes."
The man spread the warning of the ultimate monarch among the living and trained his body relentlessly, interrupting his exercises only when he judged more exertion would be wasted and never for the purpose of pleasure. Accordingly he was remembered as the first of the sword prophets. Reverent gratitude became attached to his name after at last it came, by the prepared; the unready regretted their indolence.
Finis
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