Famous Last Words

[gamba]

"Hin ist alle meine Kraft, alt und schwach bin ich".

"Gone is all my strength, old and weak am I." ( literal translation ).

To whom are these words attributed ?

Come on now this is an easy one - Very true, & adored & loved by so many of us.


Any further suggestions ? I believe the great Ludwig made a remark of some significance before departing.

[Roehre]

"Hin ist alle meine Kraft, alt und schwach bin ich".

"Gone is all my strength, old and weak am I." ( literal translation ).

To whom are these words attributed ?

Come on now this is an easy one - Very true, & adored & loved by so many of us.


Any further suggestions ? I believe the great Ludwig made a remark of some significance before departing.

AFAIK it's Haydn.
Beethoven's (attributed) last words are Plaudite Amici, commoedia finita est (Applause my friends, the play is over), though Schade, zu spät (a pity, too late) might be the real ones (on receiving bottles of his beloved Rheinwein just before sliding away into the coma which lasted until seconds before his passing away)

[gamba]

Roehre,


You're quite right. I extracted it from the tail - end of Hans Keller's book on the Haydn quartets.

I once heard a familiar voice from R3 talks etc. in the BBC club Glasgow one evening. It was Hans Keller. I made a polite enquiry about a choice of appropriate quartet material for a group of beginners. He was most helpful.
I had already discovered Mozart k156 & 157 which had his strongest approval. But, big surprise, there was a Haydn, only one. Don't go looking around for anything else, said he. This is op.42 in D min. Real music & a delight to play. " It is the only great quartet that is easy to play - so far as anything great is easy to play. The claims & demands it makes upon our musicality are nowise modest; it must finally be re - emphasized that only the demands it makes on our playing ability are." So said he.

Anyway, I can now die happy, I've played 'cello in a Haydn quartet.

[ardcarp]

And whose final words were, "Bugger Bognor"? I aspire to such pith when my end is nigh.

[Pabmusic]

And whose final words were, "Bugger Bognor"? I aspire to such pith when my end is nigh.

George V. I've never actually been to Bognor.

Here's one. Who said ""Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something…" (though presumably not in English). His head was later stolen (reputedly by the grandfather of George W. Bush).

[Keraulophone]

Nellie Connally, wife of Governor John Connelly: “You certainly can’t say that the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome, Mr. President."

JFK: "No, you certainly can’t."

[Roehre]

Whose last word was "Mozart"?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Whose last word was "Mozart"?

Mahler.

[Pabmusic]

Whose last word was "Mozart"?

Isn't it aid to have been Mahler? If you can believe such a fortuitous and apposite saying.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Isn't it aid to have been Mahler? If you can believe such a fortuitous and apposite saying.

I posted Dannie Abse's poem on this a few weeks ago on the "Poetry" Thread:

Last Words

Splendidly, Shakespeare's heroes,
Shakespeare's heroines, once the spotlight's on,
enact every night, with such grace, their verbose deaths.
Then great plush curtains, then smiling resurrection
to applause - and never their good looks gone.


The last recorded words, too
of real kings, real queens, all the famous dead,
are but pithy pretences, quotable fictions
composed by anonymous men decades later,
never with ready notebooks at the bed.

Most do not know who they are
when they die or where they are, country or town,
nor which hand on their brow. Some clapped-out actor may
imagine distant applause, but no real queen
will sigh, "Give me my robe, put on my crown."

Death scenes, not life-enhancing,
death scenes not beautiful, nor with breeding;
yet bravo Sidney Carton, bravo Duc de Chavost
who, euphoric beside the guillotine, turned down
the corner of the page he was reading.

And how would I wish to go?
Not as in opera - that would offend -
nor like a blue-eyed cowboy, shot and short of words,
but finger-tapping still our private morse,
" ... love ... you"
before the last flowers and flies descend.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What's happened to the "Tell them I said something!" post? This is familiar (Oscar Wilde-ish, were it not for the wallpaper) but I can't recall the source. And Bush's grandfather????

Einstein???

[Pabmusic]

I posted Dannie Abse's poem on this a few weeks ago on the "Poetry" Thread:

Last Words

Splendidly, Shakespeare's heroes, etc….

I can't help but recall Richard Oppenhemer's "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" at the first atom bomb explosion. Richard Feynman (who was also there - and who had not closed his eyes) recalled something like "O f**k".

The quote from the Bhagavad Gita came later.

[Pabmusic]

What's happened to the "Tell them I said something!" post? This is familiar (Oscar Wilde-ish, were it not for the wallpaper) but I can't recall the source. And Bush's grandfather????

Einstein???

Well, I've had no takers.

It's the Mexican revolutionary (we'd call him a terrorist now) Pancho Villa. He invaded the USA (New Mexico) and was filmed by Holywood doing it. He actually timed his attack on a town so that the light was good for filming.

He was eventually killed in Mexico in an ambush. Later, his head disappeared from the grave. A persistent suspect is Prescott Bush, a leading light in the "Bones Society" at Yale in the 1920s. Here's a quote from a website (ignore the English!):

"According to legend, George W. Bush's grandpappy Prescott Bush pilfered the head of Geronimo from its grave in Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. It is now allegedly part of a collection of famous noggins stolen by various generations of Yalies belonging to the Skull and Bones. Among the collection are supposedly not only the skulls of Geronimo, but of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, and numerous others."

[Tevot]

How about this one?

"Shoot straight you bastards. Don't make a mess of it."

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Pabmusic]

How about this one?

"Shoot straight you bastards. Don't make a mess of it."

Best Wishes,

Tevot

Surely (if the film's anything like correct) Edward Woodward...