Epitaphs

Some Queer Epitaphs

Chenango Union, February 19, 1891

As the Union and Telegraph have given us some curious epitaphs, of late, I thought it would not be out of place to furnish some others.

 

In the Episcopalian burial ground in my native country, I read what three sons had inscribed on the tombstone of their father: 

"The faults you have seen in us,

take care to shun,

Look well at home:

enough there's to be done."

 

Another:  A man about seventy-five years of age, who died before I left England, requested that a tombstone be erected at the head of his grave, and that the following curious epitaph be inscribed upon it:

 

"Who lie here?  Who do you think?

Poor old Sam, who liked a little drink.

Remember him when you pass by,

Because, when he was alive he was always dry.

Where he is now, and how he fares,

Nobody knows: nobody cares."

 

The following is copied from the works of Thomas Watson, M.D., the great physician of London, Eng., President of Middlesex Hospital.  A lady who died of ovarian dropsy ordered that, for information of posterity, the following lines be inscribed on her monument:

 

"Here lies Dame Mary Page,

Relict of Sir Gregory Page, Bart.

She departed this life, March 4, 1728,

In the 56 year of her age.

In 67 months she was tapped 66 times.

Had taken away 240 gallons of water, without ever

repining at her case, or ever fearing the operation."

 

When Alexander the Great visited the tomb of Cyrus, he found the following inscription:

 

"O, man, whoever thou art, and whenever thou

comest, (for some, I know, thou will), I am Cyrus,

the founder of the Persian empire.  Envy me not

the little earth that covers my body."

 

Alexander, the conqueror of the world, has no epitaph.

 

Thomas Doughty