Many of you have written to me with additions to my post on epitaphs and famous last words. I thought I would list them all here, for your continued enjoyment.
Oh, and I’ll also take the ones left in the comments into the original post.
Here they all be:
From Dan :
Epitaph of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – “Steel True, Blade Straight.”
From reader Noggie:
Lord Byron’s epitaph:
“One who possessed beauty without vanity,
strength without insolence,
courage without ferocity,
and all the virtues of man,
without his vices.
This praise would be unmeaning flattery if inscribed over human ashes,
is but a just tribute to the memory of my dog.”
From Dave J.:
The epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren, in the crypt of his archictectural crowning glory, St. Paul’s Cathedral: “Lector Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice” (Reader, if you seek his monument, look about you).
From Mike Ramsey:
Joan of Arc’s last words: “Hold the cross high so I may see it through the flames!”
Also from Mike R:
Pablo Picasso’s last words: “Drink to me!”
From Steve Wilson:
Stonewall Jackson’s last words: “Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees.”
Also from Steve:
Robert E. Lee’s last words: “Strike the tent.”
From BP:
BP says in the comments: There’s an old story told in my family of an ancestor who rose up on her deathbed, exclaimed “Oh the flames!” and promptly died.
From Mark Lippert – (Mark, do you have a blog? Besides Pat McCurdy?):
Socrates’ last words: “I drank what?”
From The 5th dentist:
Last words of Billy the Kid: “Quien es?” (who’s there?) He was then promptly shot.
Also from The 5th dentist:
Poet and wild-drinking man Charles Bukowski’s epitaph: Don’t try.
John sent in this absolute GEM:
H.L. Mencken’s epitaph was: “If, after I depart this vale, you ever rememberr me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.”
Pat sent in this tale:
At her prodding [Sam Houston] began attending church services in Washington, joined the Baptist church in Huntsville, and was baptised in a Baptist ceremony at Rocky Creek near Independence in 1854. When he
died in 1863 Margaret was at his side, and his last words were “Texas…Texas…Margaret.” [margaret being, of course, his wife.]
Personally, I hope my epitaph reads something like “damn, that bitch lived a long, long time.”
Put it in your will. Make sure of it. Or, you can go the John Keats route – and put the argument over the epitaph into the epitaph itself.
“Against her loved one’s wishes, Emily Jones would like her epitaph to say: ‘Damn, that bitch lived a long long time.'”
In the liner notes for “Shadows in the Rain” by the Police, Sting noted that “I woke up in my closes again this morning” would be fitting.
http://users.sisna.com/clio95/shadowsintherain.html#anchor46888
Sigh … I wish H.L. Mencken would come back from the dead for a year just to make journalism fun and well-done again.
Dear Red:
…and; let us not forget Napoleon Buonaparte, who; for all of his failures as a man, loved completely.
His last word: “Josephine”.
Best,
-Will
Will,
I know! I did cover that one in the first post … kind of amazing to contemplate.
And Sid,
That Mencken epitaph kind of says it all. What a LEGACY. Also, to leave INSTRUCTIONS on your gravestone, and instructions like that … it is an amazing testament to who that man was