Epitaphs

[vinteuil]

I like visiting graveyards and looking at tomb stones.

Reading between the lines, the epitaphs often seem to reveal more than was perhaps intended.

My current favourite -

Here lyes IOHN DIGBY
BARON DIGBY of Sherborne and EARL OF BRISTOL
Titles to which ye Merit of his Grandfather first gave Lustre,
And which he himself laid down unsully'd.
He was naturally enclined to avoid the Hurry of a publick Life,
Yet carefull to keep up the Port of his Quality;
Was willing to be at Ease, but scorned Obscurity;
And therefore never made his Retirement a Pretence to draw
Himself within a narrower Compass, or to shun such Expence
As Charity, Hospitality, & his Honour call'd for.
His Religion was that which by LAW is Established:
And the Conduct of his Life shew'd the Power of it in his Heart.

His Distinction from others never made him forget himself or them:
He was kind & obliging to his Neighbours, generous & condescending
to his Inferiours, and just to all Mankind.
Nor had the Temptations of Honour & Pleasure in this World
Strength enough to withdraw his Eyes from that great
Object of his Hope, wch we reasonably assure ourselves he now enjoys.

[Serial_Apologist]

Mine would probably be: "His sins were largely of omission. At least he meant well"

[Flosshilde]

"Gone, but not ... who was he?"

[mercia]

Here lies Ann Mann,
Who lived an old maid
But died an old Mann

[Flosshilde]

But, yes, I like visiting cemeteries as well - more for the aesthetics, but I also find epitaphs & information like dates etc interesting, & family connections. In Scotland the wife is normally given her maiden name, so it's relatively (if you'll excuse the pun) easy to trace connections.

[Byas'd Opinion]

"I told you I was ill" - Spike Milligan. However, to assuage the sensibilities of the Chichester church authorities it was only allowed to be put on his gravestone in Gaelic: "Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite". (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/s...es/3742443.stm)

[gurnemanz]

Epitaph for a Blues Singer:

"Didn't wake up this morning"

[Richard Tarleton]

Nice item on today's Wales news - a new gravestone has been erected to Private John Williams VC, one of the defenders of Rorke's Drift in 1879. Real name John Fielding, he signed up as John Williams.

He and Henry Hook rescued patients from the temporary hospital at Rorke's Drift by hacking their way through a wall while holding off the Zulus. In the film Henry Hook was played as a drunken malingerer by James Booth, but was in reality a teetotal lay preacher.

[EdgeleyRob]

Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier
(W.H. Auden).

To save your world you asked this man to die;
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

(October 1953).

[Mr Pee]

Here lies my wife,
Here lies she;
Hallelujah!
Hallelujee!

In a Leeds graveyard [1861]

[umslopogaas]

Alexander Pope provided a few, I like this one:

Intended for Sir Isaac Newton, in Westminster Abbey [being a classic author, you get it in Latin, with a translation]:

Isaac Newtonus:
Quem Immortalem
Testantur Tempus, Natura, Coelum:
Mortalem
Hoc marmor fatetur.

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

[mangerton]

Two more from Verse and Worse:

Here lies John Bunn
He was shot by a gun
His name was not Bunn but Wood.
But Wood would not rhyme with gun
But Bunn would.


And from Aberdeen:

Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Charlotte
Born a virgin, died a harlot.
She was aye a virgin at seventeen,
A remarkable thing in Aberdeen

[vinteuil]

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night,
God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light.

It did not last; the devil howling "Ho!
Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo.

[umslopogaas]

Tee Hee!

Pope again, cant find the exact reference, but something like this:

On a gravestone, in memory of an engaged couple who were killed by a lightning strike while working in the 18th century cornfields somewhere in rural England:

Here lie two lovers,
Who had the mishap,
Though both very chaste,
To die of a clap.

[vinteuil]

Yes: Pope's "Epitaph on the Stanton-Harcourt Lovers" -

'HERE lye two poor Lovers, who had the mishap,
Tho very chaste people, to die of a Clap."