Epitaphs

[LeMartinPecheur]

"Here lies I and my two daughters
Who died of drinking Cheltenham waters.
If we had stuck to Epsom salts
We wouldn't be lying in these here vaults."


(From c.50-yr old memory of a book of funny epitaphs: please excuse any transcription errors.)

[mercia]

Posterity will ne'er survey
a nobler grave than this.
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh
Stop, traveller, and piss.



Beneath this smooth stone by the bone of his bone Sleeps Master John Gill;
By lies when alive this attorney did thrive, And now that he's dead he lies still.

[Frances_iom]

N HOC DOMO QUAM A VERMICULIS
ACCEPI CONFRATIBUS MEIS SPE
RESURRECTIONIS AD VITAM
JACEO SAM : PERMISSIONE DIVINA
EPISCOPUS HUITUS INSULAE
SISTE LECTOR ) — ( VIDE ; AC RIDE
PALATIUM EPISCOPI
OBIT : XXX DIE MENSIS MAY ANNO 1662.

Bishop Rutter

[Petrushka]

I have a couple of books of these epitaphs somewhere in tombstone-shaped paperbacks edited by the wonderful Fritz Spiegl. One I remember well is the epitaph for the trumpeter at the first performance of Handel's Messiah.

Many of the above are familiar to me from these books.

[Pabmusic]

The Children and Sir Nameless

Sir Nameless, once of Athelhall, declared:
"These wretched children romping in my park
Trample the herbage till the soil is bared,
And yap and yell from early morn till dark!
Go keep them harnessed to their set routines:
Thank God I've none to hasten my decay;
For green remembrance there are better means
Than offspring, who but wish their sires away."

Sir Nameless of that mansion said anon:
"To be perpetuate for my mightiness
Sculpture must image me when I am gone."
- He forthwith summoned carvers there express
To shape a figure stretching seven-odd feet
(For he was tall) in alabaster stone,
With shield, and crest, and casque, and sword complete:
When done a statelier work was never known.

Three hundred years hied; Church-restorers came,
And, no one of his lineage being traced,
They thought an effigy so large in frame
Best fitted for the floor. There it was placed,
Under the seats for schoolchildren. And they
Kicked out his name, and hobnailed off his nose;
And, as they yawn through sermon-time, they say,
"Who was this old stone man beneath our toes?"

Thomas Hardy's take on Ozymandias.

[Pabmusic]

Mark Twain (a non-believer):

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it".

[mangerton]

I was rather struck by Old Scarlett's picture and epitaph when I visited Peterborough Cathedral a few years ago:

You see old Scarlitt's picture stand on hie,
But at your feete here doth his body lye.
His gravestone doth his age and Death time show,
His office by thes tokens you may know.
Second to none for strength and sturdye limm,
A Scarebabe mighty voice with visage grim.
Hee had interd two Queenes within this place
And this townes Householders in his lives space
Twice over: But at length his own time came;
What for others did for him the same
Was done: No doubt his soule doth live for aye
In heaven: Tho here his body clad in clay.

[gamba]

Where ere you be
Let your wind go free
For holding mine
Was the death 'o me

[Flosshilde]

Mark Twain (a non-believer):

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it".

Wasn't it Mark Twain who said that 'Reports of my death have been grossly exaggerated' when a newspaper published (prematurely) his obituary?

[Pabmusic]

Wasn't it Mark Twain who said that 'Reports of my death have been grossly exaggerated' when a newspaper published (prematurely) his obituary?

Yes indeed.

[gradus]

Tiger! Tiger! my mistake,
I thought that you were William Blake.
Ogden Nash: Epitaph for an Explorer

[Padraig]

Carl Nielsen, Composer of the Week, yesterday, 22.04

Jens Vejmand

It's none but Jens Roadman
his life was full of stones
but now he's gone they gave him
not one to thank his bones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqDoVui_rLI

[salymap]

Aboutwhom was it said " His sins were scarlet but his books were read".? I always liked that one.

[mercia]

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: His sins were scarlet, but his books were read

Hilaire Belloc

[mercia]

Jedediah Goodwin, 1827-1876, Auctioneer

Going! Going!! Gone!!!