A Quodlibet of Epitaphs

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Kelly Jones
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A Quodlibet of Epitaphs

Post by Kelly Jones » Sun Feb 21, 2010 8:45 pm

CAST A COLD EYE ON LIFE, ON DEATH
HORSEMEN, PASS BY!

William Butler Yeats



VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT
(Invoked or not invoked, the god is present.)

Carl Jung



The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (like the cover of an old book, its
contents worn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for
worms. Yet the work itself shall not lost, for it will, as he
believed, appear once more In a new and more beautiful
edition, corrected and amended by its Author

Benjamin Franklin



"here is deposited what was mortal of Isaac Newton"

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



AGAINST YOU I WILL FLING MYSELF,
UNVANQUISHED AND UNYIELDING, O DEATH!

Virginia Woolf



"Don't Try"

Charles Bukowski (by himself)



I am ready to meet my Maker.
Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

Winston Churchill (by unknown)



"So we beat on, boats against
the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past."

F. Scott Fitzgerald (by himself; from The Great Gatsby)




"I was Henry the King
To me Diverse realms were subject, I was duke and count of many provinces.
Eight feet of ground is now enough for me, whom many kingdoms failed to satisfy.
Who reads these lines, let him reflect, upon the narrowness of death.
And in my case behold, the image of our mortal lot.
This scanty tomb doth now suffice,
For whom the Earth was not enough."

Henry II (by Ralph of Diceto)



"Then elpizo tipota. The fovamai tipota. Eimai eleftheros." ("Δεν ελπιζω τιποτα. Δε φοβαμαι τιποτα. Είμαι ελευθερος")
+ Translation: "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."

Nikos Kazantzakis (by himself)



"Because we do not know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you cannot conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless..."

Brandon Lee



Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite.
+ Translation from Irish: "I told you I was ill."

Spike Milligan (by himself) - 1918 - 2002




"Here lies the body of Jonathan Swift,
Professor of Holy Theology, for thirty
years Dean of this cathedral church,
where savage indignation can tear his
heart no more. Go, traveller, and if you
can imitate one who with his utmost
strength protected liberty. He died in the year 1745, on the 19th of October,
aged seventy-eight"

Jonathan Swift (unknown) 1667 - 1745




"Here lies a knave,
Where in the grave,
His first good deed,
Was feed the weed."
+ from Monty Python's Flying Circus

Ron Obvious





"Here lies the bones of Senator Vrooman
Whose head was as hard as the heart of a woman
Whose heart was as soft as the head of a hammer
Dame Fortune inspired him to eminence, damn her!

Senator Vrooman (Ambrose Bierce)
Fictional future senator used as one of five examples under "Epitaph", from The Devil's Dictionary.




"Since I am so quickly done for
I wonder what I was begun for?"

Infant





"Stop ye travellers as you pass by
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, soon you shall be -
Prepare yourself to follow me."

Graffiti response:
"To follow you
I am not content --
How do I know
which way you went?"

from Tasmania, Australia [Just a joke....]



"...my after-the-fact opinion is
I should have gotten out of there
faster than I did. I was not arrogant
at any point; I was more polite
than they actually deserved.
The place is a religious shithole."

Dan Rowden (suggested antehumously by Diebert van Rhijn)


.

Carmel

Re: A Quodlibet of Epitaphs

Post by Carmel » Mon Feb 22, 2010 1:51 pm

"I intend to live forever- so far, so good." ~Stephen Wright
--

Epitaphs:

Jim Morrison: "Kata Ton Daimona Eaytok" Translation: Holding back the Demons

Emily Dickinson: "Called Back"

Robert Frost: "I had a Lover's Quarrel with the World."

Voltaire, when asked on his deathbed to forswear Satan: "There is no time to make new enemies."

Sylvia Plath: "Even amidst firece flames the golden lotus can be planted"

Nick Drake:
"and now we rise
and we are everywhere"

Carmel's epitaph? maybe something like:

"what fades renders permanent
this moment
minus
me"

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Dan Rowden
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Re: A Quodlibet of Epitaphs

Post by Dan Rowden » Mon Feb 22, 2010 3:37 pm

Carmel wrote:
Robert Frost: "I had a Lover's Quarrel with the World."
I rather like this one.

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