“Epitaphiana”

Skip the B.S.

by Skip Eisiminger

“A tombstone is one of the few things that can stand upright and lie on its face.”—Mary Wilson Little

“Caution: gravity.”—The Wordspinner

CLEMSON, SC—(Weekly Hubris)—6/14/10—Perhaps to avoid the lapidary exaggerations that Mary Wilson Little warns of, the Spartans declared that the only people deserving of names on tombstones were women who died in childbirth and men who died in defense of the state. Consequently, historians have many Spartan names but far less Spartan cultural history than Athenian. This is not to say that a nation’s history is written on its tombstones, but a great deal may be deduced about a buried civilization if epitaphs were permitted. This is why I started collecting and writing these “postponed compliments” many years ago. The collecting part was easy given the many anthologies available; the writing was a struggle to be original.

James Dickey, my old professor and mentor at the University of South Carolina (1972-74), used to have his students write epitaphs or elegies as a verse exercise. We were free to write one for ourselves if we could imagine such a thing, or for someone we knew. One example from my “blue period” are some verses called “Elegy for an Agrarian”:

Ms. O’Toole was no one in particular and several graduate-school granolas I knew in general.

One morbid habit I developed in this period involved usurping well known epitaphs like Alexander Pope’s couplet for Isaac Newton:

and then adding a contemporary kicker:

The problem with this genre, of course, is that it requires the writer to be half a thief.

I’ve always found interesting what people choose for their epitaphs though I realize the sentiments are often written or selected by survivors, and there’s not a lot room to expatiate. While Lord Byron felt “my name alone” would suffice, Thorstein Veblen wanted no epitaph; indeed, as he wrote in his will, he wanted “no tombstone, slab, epitaph, effigy, tablet, inscription, or monument of any kind or nature . . . .”

Quite the opposite was the case of Ludolph van Ceulen. In 1610, the German mathematician gave written orders for picarried out to the 35th digit to be carved in stone, for this “Ludolphine Number” represented 14 years of his life. The stone was engraved and erected in Leiden’s St. Peter’s Churchyard. Though the 200-pound stone was lost for almost 400 years, in 2000, it was found and restored to its rightful place. Meanwhile, pi has been carried out to 1.24 trillion places. It’s perhaps best that Ludolph never learn of this.

As Mary Wilson Little warned, hyperbole is commonplace on tombstones. Often, the least restrained epitaphs are written by admiring survivors when the deceased left no instructions in the will. Cardinal Bembo, a great admirer of Raphael Sanzio, was chosen by the family to write the Renaissance master’s inscription. Here’s a free translation from the Latin: “Here lies Raphael. During his life, Nature trembled lest she be shown up, and at whose death, she shook lest she die with him.”

As for a modest example, nothing surpasses Veblen’s cipher mentioned earlier.

The last thing the tattooed man wants to see is a misspelling upon his flesh, and the same is true of those who have purchased a headstone inscription. Under one engraved hourglass is this line, “Thy glass is rum” (instead of “run”). One can only wonder why the error was allowed to stand. Another stone states, “Lord, she is thin” (instead of “thine”). Perhaps thin is what she really wanted to be because that typo was also allowed to stand. Surely the best of this genre is the phrase “battle-scared veteran” that was revised to read, “battle-scarred.” Having only been shot at by virtual bullets in the Cold War, I still feel confident that both phrases apply.

Far more common than the mistaken epitaph is the occupational variety. These include, “The defense rests,” for a lawyer; “Return to sender,” for a pious postman; “I didn’t wake up this mornin’,” for a bluesman; and “By and by, God caught his eye,” David McCord’s epitaph for a head waiter. The occupation-celebrity subheading includes Richard Burbage’s “Exit, Burbage,” Edgar Poe’s “Nevermore,” Alfred Hitchcock’s “Involved in a plot,” Dorothy Parker’s “Excuse my dust,” and Clark Gable’s “Back to the silents.”

The rejected epitaph is my smallest category; I have only one. In 1980, an Anglican couple whose infant child had just died went to discuss funeral arrangements with their vicar. When asked for the epitaph, the wife produced a crumpled sheet of paper on which she had copied: “A tiny flower lent, not given, to bud on earth and bloom in heaven.” To his everlasting shame, God’s ambassador said he could not allow it because it took the salvation of the child for granted.

Finally there’s comic relief, the largest subheading. Examples include, “Rest in peas” for a vegetarian, “Yada, yada, yada” for a nonentity, and “Member of the placebo group” for an unlucky volunteer.

When I began assigning epitaphs myself, my verse composition students often wanted to know if I had written one of my own. I said I had, but I had written it in Latin:

And I sent them off to translate it. Until I told them, few ever realized this four-word tribute expresses our family’s wish that our daughter’s cat, Magnificat, should rest eternally, which is mostly what she had done for the 12 years we had her.

Actually I have several epitaphs for myself, but the one I’m fondest of at the moment is:

I’m sure that will never be carved in stone because I keep changing my mind . . . and where would anyone put it? I’ve left instructions that I be cremated.