Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie,
Sans wine, sans song, sans singer and – sans End! Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubdiyat of Omar Khayyam
If any ask for him, it shall be said
Hobson has supped, and’s newly gone to bed. John Milton, On the University Carrier
Charlie Crocker? I am dead. The Italian Job 1969 starring Michael Caine & Noel Coward & Benny Hill & Raf Vallone & Tony Beckley & Rossano Brazzi & Maggie Blye & Irene Handl & John le Mesurier & Fred Emney & John Clive & Graham Payn & Michael Standing et al, director Peter Collinson, film of Sicurezza van robbery
Vital spark of heav’nly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying. Alexander Pope, The Dying Christian to his Soul, 1730
But thousands die, without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college, or a cat. Alexander Pope, Epistles to Several Persons, 1735
‘There is no terror, brother Toby, in its [Death’s] looks, but what it borrows from groans and convulsions – and the blowing of noses, and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man’s room – Strip it of these, what is it?’ – ’Tis better in battle than in bed,’ said my uncle Toby. Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
One of the clear characteristics of death is that the movement from being alive to being dead is a passage. It’s the great passage in one’s life. Marvin Meyer, Harvard University
He made death his ladder to the skies. Edmund Spenser
[Death is] nature’s way of telling you to slow down. American life insurance proverb cited Newsweek 25th April 1960
Just Death, kind umpire of men’s miseries. William Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the Sixth II v 29
Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please. ibid. III v 69
All comfort go with thee,
For none abides with me. My joy is death. William Shakespeare, The First Part of the Contention (2 Henry VI) II iv 88-89, Duchess
Resign to death; it is not worth th’ enjoying. ibid. III i 334, York to self
Lo! now my glory smeared in dust and blood;
My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me; and, of all my lands
Is nothing left me but my body’s length.
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
And, love we how we can, yet die we must. William Shakespeare, III Henry VI V ii 23
They say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention, like deep harmony. William Shakespeare, Richard II II i 5
More are men’s ends marked than their lives before:
More are men’s ends marked at the close,
As the last tastes of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things lost past. ibid. II i 11
Who shall hinder me?
I will despair, and be at enmity
With cozening hope. He is a flatterer,
A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
Who gently would dissolve the bonds of life,
Which false hope lingers in extremity. ibid. II ii 67-72, Queen to Bushy et al
Is not my teeming date drunk up with time? ibid. V ii 91, Duchess of York to York
The worst is death, and death will have his day. ibid. III ii 103
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let’s choose executors, and talk of wills. ibid. III ii 145
But whate’er I be,
Nor I, nor any man that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased
With being nothing. ibid. V v 38-41, Richard to self
Mount, mount, my soul; thy seat is up on high,
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die. ibid. V v 111-112, Richard, dying at the hand of Exton
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet III ii @21
Death’s the end of all. ibid. III iii 91, Nurse to Romeo
Well, we were born to die. ibid. III iv 4, Capulet to Paris
Death, death, O amiable, lovely Death! William Shakespeare, King John III iv 25, Constance to King et al
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily. William Shakespeare, I Henry IV IV i 134
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough: this earth, that bears thee dead,
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. ibid. V iv 89
Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remembered in thy epitaph! ibid. V iv 100
And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
Not he which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell
Remember knolling a departing friend. William Shakespeare, II Henry IV I i 98-103, Northumberland to Morton
Thou’lt forget me when I am gone. ibid. II iv 279-280, Sir John to Doll Tearsheet
A man can die but once. We owe God a death. ibid. III ii 232-233, Feeble to others
He that dies this year is quit for the next. ibid. III ii 257
Faith, I will live as long as I may, that’s the certain of it, and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my rest. That is the rendezvous of it. William Shakespeare, Henry V II i 13-15, Nim to Bardolph
Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger;
The greater therefore should our courage be ...
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out –
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
Which is both beautiful and good husbandry,
Besides, there are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.
Thus may we gather honey from the weed
And make a moral of the devil himself. ibid. IV i 1-14, King Harry to Gloucester
The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes. ibid. V IV ii 48, Grandpre
If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss, as if to love,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour. ibid. IV iii 20-22, King Harry
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us. ibid. IV iii 38-39, King Harry
Thou know’st ’tis common – all that lives must die,
Passing though nature to eternity. William Shakespeare, Hamlet I ii 72-73, Queen to Hamlet
To be, or not to be – that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? – To die – to sleep –
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die – to sleep –
To sleep! Perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office...’ ibid. III i 56-73
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others we know not of? ibid. III i @77