Another of the king’s chief men, approving of his wise words and exhortations, added thereafter: “The present life of man upon earth, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the house wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your ealdormen and thains, while the fire blazes in the midst, and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter into winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all. If, therefore, this new doctrine tells us something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.”
— Bede the Venerable, Ecclesiastical History of the English People 2.13, tr. A. M. Sellar. This famous episode, an account (ca. 627 AD) of King Edwin’s chief priests and wise men counseling him to reject their historic idolatry and embrace Christian faith, is so evidently stylized as to raise some questions about its historicity—could it really have been so unanimous and unambiguous a discussion?—but this speech at least has the authentic ring of pre-Christian paganism. We don’t know much regarding where we’ve come from, nor where we’re going; but whatever is out there is most likely cold, dark, and grim, so you’d best enjoy the brief light and warmth while it’s yours. This is the quintessential tragic mode of paganism (see also Iliad XXIV, Odyssey XI). And Edwin’s nameless counselor illustrates marvelously both how powerful and evocative the tragic view is—and how intrinsically ripe it was to be supplanted by a “new doctrine” which insisted that life’s foundational reality is not tragedy, but comedy.