Epitaph for Rabelais
(after Ronsard)
However midsummer-early it was,
never did the rising sun see him
before he'd downed his first drink.
Never, however late it sunk,
did night find him not drinking.
Boy, was he thirsty, round the clock!
That's how he could sing all these:
Gargantua's mighty cudgel
and mightier mare, Panurge's bulk,
and where the Papimaniacs gaped,
their laws, customs, housing loony,
and Brother Jean, so bold and boozy.
and the battles of Epistemon,
all those boisterous excesses;
but Death the teetotaller
dragged from this world the drinker,
forcing him to slake his thirst
on the murky bosom of wide
Acheron's choking mud-flows.
Passer-by, whoever you are,
set out on his grave-slab beer-mugs
green-stuff flagons saveloys
and hams. If under that sod
there's anything he feels for still,
it's them he fancies, not lilies,
however freshly gathered in.
Scarron's Epitaph for Himself
He who sleeps beneath, while living
aroused less envy than pity.
A thousandfold the pains of dying
racked him before expiring.
You, passer-by, quiet should be kept,
no sound that might stir his breast.
Poor Scarron living never slept.
This grave gives him his first night's rest.
Max's Epitaph
Here lies a scribbler
in rhyme and prose
whose words died first -
but for these.
Or
Here lies a scribbler
of prose and rhymes,
whose words were lost
in those bad times.
Or
Here lies a hack -
unwanted work
in prose and verse.
Which was worse?
Now who cares?
I wonąt be back.
Or
He who lies here
Thought his writing the best.
The world disagreed.
Ignore this with the rest.
Max Richards
Doncaster, Victoria
Wednesday 25 July 2007
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