José Miguel João de Portugal e Castro, Marquis of Valença and Count of Vimioso (1706-1775):
‘De repentina morte’José Miguel J. de Portugal, Epigrammatum liber unus (Lisbon: ex praelo Michælis Rodrigues, 1732), p. 35. My translation.
De brevitate queri vitae nos saepe solemus;
Cum mage sit nobis mors metuenda brevia
'On sudden death'
We often complain of how life passes by so swiftly, when a swift death ought to be more worrisome to us.
Alexander Pope
‘Adriani morientis ad animam, or, the Heathen to His Departing Soul’
Ah, fleeting Spirit! wand’ring fire,A loose translation of the last words of Emperor Hadrian, from the Historia Augusta (Vita Hadriani, 25.9):
That long hast warm’d my tender breast,
Must thou no more this frame inspire,
No more a pleasing cheerful guest?
Whither, ah whither, art thou flying,
To what dark undiscover’d shore?
Thou seem’st all trembling, shiv’ring, dying,
And Wit and Humour are no more!
Animula, vagula, blandula
Hospes comesque corporis
Quae nunc abibis in loca
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos.
Andrzej Krzycki (1482-1537)
In imaginem mortis et infantis
Qualis eras primum, qualis sis deinde futurus,
Aspice! Quod medium? spes, labor atque nihil.
On an image of death and a child
What were you at the beginning? What will you be in the future?Andrzej Krzycki, Andreae Cricii carmina, ed. by Kazimierz Morawski (Cracow: typis universitatis Jagellonicae, 1888), p. 243. My translation.
Lo! What about in the meantime? Hope, toil and nothing.
