On Epitaphs

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 72, 18 December 1926, Page 19

On Epitaphs

INSCRIPTIONS in honour of the dead are perhaps as old as the tombs themselves. Persia had its funereal tablets. Pyramids and Obelisks testify to Egyptian ingenuity and mortal vanity. The most ancient : Epitaphs, however, with which we are acquainted are those of Simonides of Ceos upon Megtias, the soothsayer, of the little army of Leonidas, and on the heroes who fell at Thermopyla;, preserved by Herodotus. Praise of these is superfluous; they will endure eternally. The earliest which remain to us in this country are those of the Romans or Romanized Britons, which usually commence with D. M. (Diis Manibus), followed by the name, office, and age of the deceased, but the regular series of British Epitaphs does not start until the XI. century, when they were written in the Latin tongue, and engraved upon strips of brass. They began most frequently with Orate pro anima, followed by miserrimi peccatoris, an address, says Dr. Johnson, to the last degree striking and solemn. Two centuries later we find them both in French and in English, sometimes accompanied by promises of absolution to passers-by who were willing to pray for the soul of the deceased: Vos qui ici betiez Pur I’alme Philip priez Trente jours de pardon Serra votre guerdon. or Now I lye here abyding God’s mercy under this stone in clay, Desyring you that shal this see unto the Mayden pray For me that bare both God and man; Like as ye wold, that others for ye shold When ye nor may nor can. We are now face to face with the ambiguous mediaeval soul which was so brave and yet so fearful. In 1487 we read that in Aberdeen Magnus Cobben was appointed to walk daily through the streets, ringing a bell “to name and pray” for those in trouble. He proved, no doubt, a comfort to many who had crimes on their conscience, for the pious told grim tales of eternal punishment, and of great flames, in which sinners would burn in perpetuum. One had, perhaps, strangled an old burgess on his way to Vespers; not out of malice, but because his purse of gold was needed without delay to pay for a "shorte gowne of russett velvett furred with sabilles,” and a “little paire of bedes of white aumber.” The girl had, as usual, used her arts well . . . Moreover, there were other sins. One’s soul might even now be in jeopardy. So Magnus Cobben was given twenty pence, and the sound of his prayers was pleasant. Someday one hoped for a tomb-stone, with this urgent request carefully inscribed upon it: 4 I pray ye say De Profundis if ye lettered be, But if unlearned, and ye cannot read Say Pater Nostcr, Ave, and Creed. Then, presumably, one would be secure. Towards the end of the XVI. century, epitaphs were often composed by the itinerant pedlars, who hawked them about the country. Thus it was possible to buy one along with a “fair dangling ribbon,” or a bauble. Presently it would be needed; and it is wise to be prepared. ... At this period, too, we come across obituary effusions expressing unabashed and somewhat unreasonable optimism, not unmixed with audacity. This is a good specimen: Tho I lie here all worms and mold I shall rise up like shining gold.” It was more than hope; it was certainty. And let us listen to Elizabeth Oldfield (1642). Here is the wardrobe of my dusty clothes Which hands divine shall brush, and make so gay That my immortal soul shall put them on And wear the same upon my Wedding day. In which attire my Lord shall me convoy To the high lodging of eternal joy. These lines breathe a curious magic. They enable us, as it were, to participate in her inheritance. We too, feel joyous, and the rapturous words of Traherne seem to echo in our cars: All fliat I saw, a wonder did appear; Amazement was my bliss. No details of-Elizabeth Oldfield’s life arc preserved to us. She was, most probably, obscure; had, perhaps, only busied herself with “pots and cups and things at home.” But although she could not boast, like the fantastical Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, that it had pleased God to command his servant Nature

to indue her with a poetical and philosophical genius even from her very birth. ; yet her ambitions were scarcely less magnificent. For her, Death held no sting. Our finest Epitaphs need hardly be alluded to here. We are as familiar with the classic lines of Ben Jonson the accomplished Countess , of Pembroke, as with those of Milton on Shakespeare, or Pope on Sir Isaac : Newton. These scarcely yield to any in the Greek Anthology. We are impressed, too, by the famous inscription on Sir Christopher Wren, although i in real merit it is surpassed by the latter part of that over the resting place , of Thomas Crouch in Cambridge: Aperiat Deus tumulos; et educet , Nos de supulchris. Qualis eram, dies isthaec cum Venerit, scies. ' But it is to the ingenuous ones that we turn for refreshment when we grow a little weary of these stately panegyrics. One of the most touching is, I think, the following: ■ ■ Bones among stones lie ful still While the sowle wanderis where that God will. Here is truth, without ornament or metaphor. It .makes us pause. For these two lines embody all we know, and all that we shall ever know. In the XVIII. century gay ladies were wont to write their own Epitaphs. There were times, one imagines, when the puppet-show seemed a little tawdry, and ‘masks, masking, and the unmasking of masks” palled. Days, no doubt, when pleasure ceased to please, and thoughts of death became more and more insistent- Post volupi tatem amarittido . . . What wonder, then, that they relieved their feelings i by inditing neither very scholarly nor very truthful memorials to themselves. I This one, however, by an unknown beauty, is a gem of the first water. I “. . . Je me regrette.” Here at last is somebody who had achieved perfect , happiness. For these arrogant words reveal an ame d’elite, who, it may be , conjectured, loved life extravagantly and trod a very merry path indeed. But if, as old Fuller avers of funeral inscriptions, the “shortest, plainest and truest : are the best,” surely . . Fuerent'' so startling in its briefness, is the most : memorable. Engraved on a mossy stone in an old Shoreham churchyard, : without either name or date. ‘ > Nor must we neglect the frankly hostile epitaphs which so frequently . confront us on our rambles. These give off a peculiar atmosphere of almost I personal animosity. Remember Man as thou pass by As Thou art now, so once was I, As I am now, so shal Thou be Make peace with Christ and follow me. We feel a pardonable resentment at this anonymous warning, for we are, at ! the moment, idling happily enough in the sunshine of a long-wished-for summer ’ day; freely and naturally enjoying the green pastures and the singing birds as is our due. The next one, however, which we spell out in the sleepy shadow 1 of a cedar, is even more hopeful of our approaching dissolution: My course is run, my houre is past But you are also coming fast. TEMPUS FUGIT. This goes straight to the mark; we are instantly sobered. The matter-of-fact precision of these words strips us of our smugness! and they hold more than a hint.of anguish. It is as if the dead were not at peace with the living; as if, disquieted within their narrow beds, they remember past delights, and envy us our place in the vast bright world. For the things that we love arc the things that they loved . . - Infinitely moving is the fragment of Lafcadio Hearn which comes to our mind. . And the wanderer longed to live once more, for there was ( no rest for him in the dark place where they had laid him with the pious hope—Owe cit paz descanscT Blue nights unnumbered filled the land with • indigo shadows; and the summer passed like a breath of incense . . . . but the dead within the sepulchre could not wholly die. Stars in their courses peered through the crevices of the tomb, and twinkled, and passed on; birds sang above him and flew to other lands; the bright lizards that ran noiselessly over his bed of stone, as noiselessly departed. Years came and went with lentor inexpressible; but for the dead there was no rest. : And as we wander on our way, we speculate and ponder. The glow 1 fades a little, and the birds are silent. It is, perhaps, later than we think. :—Eleanor M. Brougham, in the "New Statesman.” o