Literary Epitaphs

"Dar a mão a alguém sempre foi o que esperei da alegria."

(Holding someone's hand was always my idea of joy)

From her book, The Passion According to G.H.

"Holding someone’s hand was always my idea of joy. Often before falling asleep — in that small struggle not to lose consciousness and enter the greater world — often, before having the courage to go toward the greatness of sleep, I pretend that someone is holding my hand and I go, go toward the enormous absence of form that is sleep. And when even then I can’t find the courage, then I dream."

“This Grave
contains all that was Mortal,
of a
Young English Poet,
Who,
on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart,
at the Malicious Power of his Enemies,
Desired
these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone:
Here lies One
Whose Name was writ in Water.”

"Cast a cold eye
On life On death
Horseman pass by"

"Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch, Lust,
Niemandes Schlaf zu sein unter soviel lidern."

(Rose, oh pure contradiction, delight
of being no one's sleep under so
many lids.)

A myth developed surrounding his death and roses. It was said: "To honour a visitor, the Egyptian beauty Nimet Eloui, Rilke gathered some roses from his garden. While doing so, he pricked his hand on a thorn. This small wound failed to heal, grew rapidly worse, soon his entire arm was swollen, and his other arm became affected as well", and so he died.

Para ser grande, sê inteiro: nada
Teu exagera ou exclui.
Sê todo em cada coisa. Põe quanto és
No mínimo que fazes.
Assim em cada lago a lua toda
Brilha, porque alta vive.
- Ricardo Reis

(To be great, be whole;
Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you.
Be whole in everything. Put all you are
Into the smallest thing you do.
So, in each lake the moon shines with splendor
Because it blooms up above.)

"Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones."

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

"Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted"

Chosen by Ted Hughes, the poem is called "Monkey" by Wu Ch’Eng-En. The quote is slightly incorrect, as the original translation is: “even in the midst of fierce flames the Golden Lotus may be planted”.

"I had a lover's quarrel with the world"

Elinor's is, "Together wing to wing and oar to oar"

"in my beginning is my end"
"in my end is my beginning"

"Não tive tempo para ter medo."

(I had no time to be afraid)

Best known for his political activities, Marighella was also a poet and wrote even during the various times he was arrested. His tomb was designed by Oscar Niemeyer: his silhouette and five bullet wounds to the chest. His epitaph is reminiscent of what Jorge Amado once wrote about him: "Here you are, anchored on your floor and you will bear fruits. You did not have time to be afraid, you have conquered the time of fear and despair."

Beneath this tree are buried the ashes of Virginia Woolf. Born January 25 1882, Died March 28 1941.

"Death is the enemy. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding o Death! The waves broke on the shore."

"Es ist niemals ein Dokument der Kultur, ohne zugleich ein solches der Barbarei zu sein"
"No hi ha cap document de la cultura que non ho sigui també de la barbàrie"

(There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.)

"Called back"

This is a direct quote from a letter she sent to her cousins, “Little Cousins, Called Back, Emily".

From the Old English poem “The Battle of Maldon”: “and ne forhtedon ná”. (and be not afraid)

He is buried in a simple grave at the Cimetière de Plainpalais in Geneva.

"The Stone the Builders Rejected." ~ Jack London

(The second half of this quote, found in the Bible, reads “has become the capstone.” but London only included the first half.)

"Aqui jaz um grande poeta.
Nada deixou escrito.
Este silêncio, acredito,
São suas obras completas."

(Here lies a great poet.
He left no writings.
This silence, I believe,
Are his collected works.)

"O rare Ben Jonson!" Which was done at the charge of Jack Young (poet, now forgotten), who, walking there when the grave was covering, gave the fellow 18 pence to cut it.

Located in Westminster Abbey, London. He told the Dean: "six feet long by two feet wide is too much for me. Two feet by two is all I want". His name was incorrectly spelled when his gravestone was later renewed.

"Don't try"

"Somebody asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks, you make a pet out of it."
- Charles Bukowski

"And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn."

(from Wilde’s poem, The Battle of Reading Goal)

Priez pour lui.

(Pray for him)

"But there is that within me which shall tire.
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire"

The epitaph is an excerpt from the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", Byron's masterpiece, published between 1912 and 1918.

His bones lie in the church of St. Mary Magdalene, Nottinghamshire, England.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit,"

Which is the quotation Dostoevsky chose for the preface of The Brothers Karamazov.

Jam parce sepulto (Spare these remains)

*this isn't the original grave, apparently; that tombstone doesn't exist anymore.

Δεν ελπιζω τιποτα. Δε φοβαμαι τιποτα. Είμαι ελευθερος

(I hope for nothing, I fear nothing. I am free)

"Excuse my dust"

"The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks".
Camino Real

"Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea
And the hunter from the hill." (Requiem)

“Steel true,
blade straight,
Arthur Conan Doyle,
Knight,
patriot, physician and man of letters.“

I am providence

“Hic depositum est Corpus
Jonathan Swift S.T.D.
Hujus Ecclesiae Cathedralis
Decani
Ubi saeva Indignatio
Ulterius
Cor lacerare nequit.
Abi Viator
Et imitare, si poteris,
Strenuum pro virili
Libertatis Vindicatorem.”

('Here is laid the body of
Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Divinity,
Dean of this cathedral Church,
Where fierce indignation can no longer
Rend his heart.
Go, traveller, and imitate if you can
This earnest and dedicated
Champion of Liberty')

"Goddamn you all: I told you so."

That was the intended epitaph, but Wells was cremated, and there's no tombstone.