The question is asked, “How do they represent the death or end of man?” Thus answered,—“To intimate the end of man they paint a spindle, and the end of the thread cut off, as if broken from the distaff: so indeed by the poets the Fates are feigned to spin the life of man: Clotho indeed bearing the distaff; Lachesis spinning whatever lot is declared; but Atropos, breaking the thread, is rendered unchangeable and inexorable.” This thread of life Prospero names when he speaks to Ferdinand (_Tempest_, act iv. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. i. p. 54) about his daughter,— “If I have too austerely punish’d you, Your compensation makes amends; for I Have given you here a thread[179] of mine own life Or that for which I live.” “Their thread of life is spun,” occurs in _2 Henry VI._ (act iv. sc. 2, l. 27). So the “aunchient Pistol,” entreating Fluellen to ask a pardon for Bardolph (_Henry V._, act iii. sc. 6, l. 44, vol. iv. p. 544). says,— “The duke will hear thy voice; And let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut With edge of penny cord and vile reproach. Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.” The full application of the term, however, is given by Helena in the _Pericles_ (act i. sc. 2, l. 102, vol. ix. p. 325), when she says to the Prince of Tyre,— “Antiochus you fear, And justly too, I think, you fear the tyrant, Who either by public war or private treason Will take away your life. Therefore, my lord, go travel for a while, Till that his rage and anger be forgot, Or till the Destinies do cut his thread of life.” The same appendix to Horapollo’s _Hieroglyphics_ (p. 220) assigns a burning lamp as the emblem of life; thus,— [Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._] Quo modo vitam. Vitam innuentes ardentem lampada pingebant: quòd tantiſper dum accenſa lampas eſt, luceat, extincta verò tenebras offundat, ita & anima corpore ſoluta, & aſpectu & luce caremus. “To intimate life they paint a burning lamp; because so long as the lamp is kindled it gives forth light, but being extinguished spreads darkness; so also the soul being freed from the body we are without seeing and light.” This Egyptian symbol Cleopatra names just after Antony’s death (_Antony and Cleopatra_, act iv. sc. 15, l. 84, vol. ix. p. 132),— “Ah, women, women, look Our lamp is spent, it’s out.” Similar the meaning when Antony said (act iv. sc. 14, l. 46, vol. ix. p. 123),— “Since the torch is out, Lie down and stray no farther.”