O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.
Ver. 13. O spare me, that I may recover strength] Ut refociller, reficiar. Job maketh the like request, Job 10:20. Some breathing while they would have, and a time to recollect themselves, before that last, great encounter. They say in effect, Differ, habent parvae commoda magna morae.
Before I go hence, and be no more] No more seen among men. It is said that Richard III caused the dead corpses of his two smothered nephews to be closed in lead, and so put in a coffin full of holes, and hooked at the ends with two hooks of iron; and so be cast into a place called the Black Deeps, at the Thames' mouth, whereby they should never rise up nor be any more seen. "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not," Genesis 42:36. The righteous perish, Isaiah 57:1. When once I go hence, saith David here, viz. to my long home, Ecclesiastes 12:5, there will be a Non ego, an end of me and to this world; wherefore I beg a little respite.
Sοι μεν τουτο, Yεε, σμικρον, εμοι δε μεγα .