Note 89 — SINDBAD THE SEAMAN[1] AND SINDBAD THE LANDSMAN. (continued 2)

This is probably classical. So the page said to Philip of Macedon every morning, “Remember, Philip, thou art mortal”; also the slave in the Roman Triumph,

Respice post te: hominem te esse memento!

And the dying Severus, “Urnlet, soon shalt thou enclose what hardly a whole world could contain.” But the custom may also have been Indian: the contrast of external pomp with the real vanity of human life suggests itself to all.