And what are you that, missing you,
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet
Poem (1921-10-31), “The Philosopher,” st. 1, Ainslee’s Magazine, Vol. 48, No. 3
(Source)
First collected in A Few Figs from Thistles (1922).
Quotations about:
bereavement
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
CHORUS: You are neither the first nor the last of mortals
to lose a good wife. You have to learn
that death is a debt we all must pay.[ΚΥΚΛΩΨ: οὐ γάρ τι πρῶτος οὐδὲ λοίσθιος βροτῶν
γυναικὸς ἐσθλῆς ἤμπλακες· γίγνωσκε δὲ
ὡς πᾶσιν ἡμῖν κατθανεῖν ὀφείλεται.]Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Alcestis [Ἄλκηστις ], l. 417ff (438 BC) [tr. Leuschnig/Leuschnig (2019)]
(Source)
To Admetus. While meant as consolation, it also points out that Admetus himself is putting off that debt, and is mourning his wife, Alcestis, not because he "lost" her, but because he asked her (and everyone else) to die in his stead and only she would do so.
Some translators, as noted, indicate the line is given by some sort of leader of the Chorus.
(Source (Greek)). Other translations:Thou'rt not the first, nor shalt thou be the last
Of mortal men, to lose a virtuous wife:
For know, death is a debt we all must pay.
[tr. Potter (1781)]For 'mong men
You are not the first, nor yet shall you be last,
To lose a virtuous Consort; be assur'd
That death's a debt exacted from us all.
[tr. Wodhull (1782)]For in no wise the first, nor the last of mortals hast thou lost thy dear wife: but learn, that to die is a debt we must all of us discharge.
[tr. Buckley (1858)]For not the first;, nor yet the last of men art thou
of loving Wife who's been depriv'd; thou must allow
that all of us who're present here are bound to die!
[tr. HBL (1884), "Coryphaeus"]Thou'rt not the first
Or last of mortals who has lost a wife
Famed for her vitue, but remember that
The debt of dying mustr be paid by all.
[tr. Cudworth (1888)]Thou art by no means the first nor yet shalt be the last of men to lose a wife of worth; know this, we all of us are debtors unto death.
[tr. Coleridge (1891)]Not first of mortals thou, nor shalt be last
To lose a noble wife; and, be thou sure,
From us, from all, this debt is due -- to die.
[tr. Way (1894)]For thou art not the first nor last of men
To lose a noble wife; remember too
That all of us are bound, sometime, to die.
[tr. Beloit College (1908)]Thou shalt not be the last, nor yet the first,
To lose a noble wife. Be brave, and know
To die is but a debt that all men owe.
[tr. Murray (1915)]You are not the first and will not be the last to lose a noble wife. We all are doomed to die.
[tr. Aldington (1930), "Leader"]Admetus, you are not the first man to lose a dear wife,
Nor will you be the last. Have patience, then, and remember
That death comes to all of us.
[tr. Fitts/Fitzgerald (1936), "Choragus"]You are not the first of men, nor the last, to lose a noble wife. Consider: death is a debt that every one of us must pay.
[tr. Vellacott (1953)]For you are not the first or last of mortals to lose a noble wife. Know that death is a debt we all must pay.
[tr. Kovacs (1994), "Chorus-Leader"]You are not the first or last man on earth to lose a noble wife. Recognize that we are all death's debtors.
[tr. Davie (1996), "Chorus-Leader"]For you are neihter the first nor the last of mortals
to lose a noble wife; understand that
everyone is obliged to die.
[tr. Rabinowitz (1999)]You’re neither the first
nor will you be the last who has lost a noble wife.
You must accept the fact that we are all fated to die.
[tr. Theodoridis (2008)]You are neither the first nor the last mortal
Who has lost a good wife. Understand this:
Dying is a debt we all have to pay.
[tr. @sentantiq (2020)]
My son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Letter to Thomas Carlyle (1842-02-28)
(Source)
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.
At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
A Grief Observed, ch. 1 (1961)
(Source)
After the death of his wife, Joy Davidman. Opening words.
For as much as I hate the cemetery, I’ve been grateful it’s here, too. I miss my wife. It’s easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she’s never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War (2005)
Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It follows marriage as normally as marriage follows courtship or as autumn follows summer.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
A Grief Observed (1961)
Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.
Xenophon (c. 431–355 BC) Greek historian and essayist
(Attributed)
(Source)
In Anon. Mental Recreation Or, Select Maxims, Sayings And Observations Of Philosophers (1831).
He first deceas’d; She for a little tri’d
To live without him: lik’d it not, and di’d.Henry Wotton (1568–1639) English author, diplomat, politician
“Upon the Death of Sir Albertus Moreton’s Wife” (1651)
(Source)
Recorded in his Reliquiae Wottonianae (1672).
I can’t think of a more wonderful thanksgiving for the life I have had than that everyone should be jolly at my funeral.
Lord Mountbatten (1900–1979) British statesman and naval officer (Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, b. Prince Louis of Battenberg)
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in Richard Hough, Mountbatten (1980).
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, — so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German writer, critic, philanthropist, Nobel laureate [Paul Thomas Mann]
The Magic Mountain (1924)
The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth —
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity.Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet
“The Bustle in a House” (c. 1866)
Never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement. I will not try it. Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.
Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801–1866) Scottish letter-writer, wife of Thomas Carlyle [née Jane Baillie Welsh]
Letter to Thomas Carlyle (27 Dec 1853)
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet [Wystan Hugh Auden]
“Stop All the Clocks [Funeral Blues],” st. 3 (1936)
(Source)
This stanza is not in the original version of the poem, for the verse play The Ascent of F6 (1936) (with Christopher Isherwood).
Instead, it appears in the revised cabaret song that Auden wrote in 1937-1938. It is this latter version, less tied to the play, that is commonly collected, and that gained popularity when recited in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).
I cannot forgive my friends for dying; I do not find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, ch. 2 “Age and Death” (1931)
(Source)
