20 Bight Hon. Sir M. E. Grant Duff [Jan. 27, 



been written by the poets themselves, the fourth apparently not by 

 the great comedian but by an admirer : — 



Mortalis imrnortalis flere si foret fas, 

 Flerent divse Camoense Naevium poetam. 

 Itaque postquani est Orcino traditus thesauro 

 Oblitei sunt Roma? loquier Latina lingua. 



If it were fitting that immortals should weep for mortals, 

 The Muses themselves would weep for Nsevius. 

 For since he has gone to the Treasure House of Oreus 

 Men have forgotten at Rome to speak the Latin tongue. 



Adolescens, tamen etsi properas, hoc te saxum rogat, 

 Utei ad se aspicias : deinde quod soriptu'st legas : 

 Hie sunt poetaa Pacuvei Marcei sita 

 Ossa, hoc voleham nescius ne esses, vale. 



Youth, albeit thou art in haste, this stone entreats thee 



To look upon it and to read the words with which it is inscribed : 



Here lie the bones of Marcus Pacuvius the poet, 



I wished thee to know this, and so farewell. 



That of Ennius is finer, especially the two last lines : — 



Nemo me lacrumis decoret nee funera fletu 

 Faxit, cur, volito vivu per ora virum. 



Let no one weep or raise funeral lamentations for me. 

 Why ? Because still alive I flit from mouth to mouth of men. 



The fourth, that on Plautus, regrets that after his death Come;ly 

 mourns, the stage is deserted, while Laughter, Jest and Verse all weep 

 together. 



Postquam morte datu'st Plautus, comcedia luget ; 



Scena est deserta, dein Risus, Ludu', Jocusque ! 



Et numeri innumeri simul omnes collacrumarunt. 



Goldwin Smith mentions a suggestion that the famous elegy of 

 Propertius upon Cornelia was intended to be inscribed upon her 

 tomb. I should much doubt this, but if it had been it certainly 

 would have been amongst the most remarkable epitaphs of the world. 

 He has translated it very well in his ' Bay Leaves,' and there is another 

 version even more beautiful in a small volume of poems by the late 

 Sir Edmund Head. This last is indeed one of the best translations 

 or paraphrases in English of a Latin poem to be found anywhere. 



Morcelli cites two lines from another poem by Propertius which 

 is, in effect, an epitaph and a very graceful one. 



Hie Tiburtina jacet aurea Cynthia terra, ; 

 Accessit ripae laus Aniene tugs. 



Here in the soil of Tibur lies the golden Cynthia ; 

 Anio ! a new honour has been added to thy banks. 



The oldest Christian epitaphs in the Catacombs are of the greatest 

 simplicity, bearing no trace of the definite dogmatic beliefs which 

 were later imported into inscriptions of this kind. They are chiefly 

 brief outpourings of natural affection or such expressions of non- 



