Following Steven's interesting query, and Brian's and Otfried's inspired
offerings as to which quote from Horace would be good to use as a line to
send someone from this world to the next, I checked the *Acta Sanctorum*
Sept. iii, p.590C, and found the following lines uttered by the robbers to
bishop Theodard:
Quid nobis, homo, supervacuum verborum agis cursum? Tua sint tibi, quae
loqueris. Nil nostra refert. Tuarum scientiam semitarum abhorremus. Mors
solummodo, quae turres regum et tabernas pauerum aequo pulsat pede*, tibi
prae manibus instat.
At the asterisk, the Bollandists note: Credibile enim non est, haec verba
a sicariis reddita fuisse.
Indeed: if the Bollandists had consulted a concordance to Horace -- as I
did, using Lane Cooper, *A Concordance to the Works of Horace*
(Washington, 1916), p.315, they would have found the following under
'mors':
pallida Mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas | regumque turris
and found the reference to *Carm*. I.4.13.
George
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