1899.] on Epitaphs. 17 



very curious ; but although a striking expression occurs here and 

 there, much of their language is, to the ear of a modern, in the 

 highest degree grotesque. Such phrases as " May his memorial abide 

 in the seat of Eternity," or " May he be granted the breath of the 

 North wind," seem appropriate enough on a funeral monument, but 

 aspirations like those to be found in the ninth and tenth paragraphs 

 of the first inscription quoted, " May I attain the field of peace, 

 may one come with jugs of beer and cakes, the cakes of the Lords 

 of Eternity," " May I receive many slices from the joint upon the 

 table of the great God," are less attractive. 



I do not remember that the Old Testament, filled though it is 

 with passages which have been and will be used as epitaphs, contains 

 anything that was intended as such. I have met, however, with one 

 exceedingly fine Phoenician epitaph which makes me doubt whether 

 there were none amongst the inhabitants of Southern Palestine. It is 

 on a sarcophagus in the Louvre, brought from Sidon, a place which, if 

 it was as beautiful in early days as it is now, might well have made 

 poets of its rulers. 



In the month of Bui, the fourteenth year of my reign, I, King Ashmanezer, 

 King of the Sidonians, son of King Tabnith, King of the Sidonians, spake King 

 Ashmanezer, King of the Sidonians, saying : " I have been stolen away before my 

 time — a son of the flood of days. The whilom Great is dumb ; the son of Gods 

 is dead. And I rest in this grave, even in this tomb, in the place which I have 

 built. My adjuration to all the Ruling Powers and all men : Let no one open 

 this resting place, nor search for treasure, for there is no treasure with Us ; and 

 let him not bear away the couch of my Rest, and not trouble Us in this resting 

 place by disturbing the couch of my slumbers. . . . For all men who should open 

 Ihe tomb of My rest, or any man who should carry away the couch of My rest, or 

 anyone who trouble me on this couch : Unto them there shall be no rest with the 

 departed ; they shall not be buried in a grave, and there shall be to them neither 

 son nor seed. . . . There shall be to them neither root below nor fruit above, nor 

 honour among the living under the sun. . . . 



To find many examples of anything really good done by the early 

 world in this department, we must, as is so often the case, turn to 

 Greece. There we shall find a rich harvest from which, however, 

 the limit wisely set to your lectures will allow me only to glean a 

 very few specimens. Most of these have been treasured up for the 

 world by the admirable persons who compiled the various editions of 

 the ' Anthologia,' a work to which this century has done more justice 

 than its predecessor. Chesterfield's judgment of it is, next to his low 

 standard in one branch of morality, the greatest blot on the fame of 

 that wise man. 



The briefest of selections from the epitaphs of which we have the 

 good fortune to have excellent translations in English verse, is all I 

 can attempt. First then may come the immortal distich on Leonidas 

 and his three hundred : — 



Go Stranger and to Laceda3mon tell 

 That here, obeying her commands we fell. 



Vol. XVI. (No. 93.) o 



