Tombstone inscriptions

in memory of the best people

The inscriptions on tombstones are epitaphs, the last words dedicated to the dead. When choosing a monument, you need to think about what the material, shape, size will be, and also how you can add a tombstone. As a rule, artistic elements are used, including inscriptions. It is very difficult to choose words that could reflect your feelings and tell about a person close to you. Employees of the site company are ready to help and select the best epitaphs for the tombstone.

Short epitaphs

Stars don't die
They just go beyond the horizon ...
***
Who is dear, he does not die,
Only with us ceases to be ...
***
Loved ones don't leave.
Only with us cease to be ...
***
People can't live forever
But happy is he who remembers the name!
***
Terrible moment of fate cruel
He left us a lifelong sorrow ...
***
The rock of your fate is cruel
Left us with a lifetime of pain...
***
Eternal rest, Lord, grant them,
And let eternal light shine on them...
***
To the one who was dear in life
From those who remember and mourn.
***
I raised you, but I didn't save you.
And now the grave will save you.
***
Clouds cover the sun again
Again, we have no power over fate ...
***
Living under the carpet of the Most High
Resting under the shadow of the Almighty...
***
There is a faith that conquers eternity
And man is in the immortality of the soul
***
To the one who was dear in life,
Whose memory after death is dear ...
***
Without you, the sun has dimmed for us
And the earth is empty...
***
From that world on the stone of faith
Cure for sorrow...
***
Whoever believes in God is blessed
Even though he doesn't know...
***
We begin to admire late -
Almost always how to leave.

Epitaphs - gravestone inscriptions

Quiet, trees
Leaves do not make noise.
Mommy is sleeping
You don't wake her up.
***
You don't wait for me
I will not come to you.
You don't write to me
I will wait for you...
***
Everything was in it
Soul, talent and beauty.
Everything sparkled for us
Like a bright dream.
***
Won't smooth out time
Your deep footprint.
Everything in the world is
You just don't exist.
***
We stand frozen
Under a tree without leaves
How much is it -
Bad and good -
Is there more ahead of us?
But don't be afraid -
Open your heart
And boldly go ahead of success and adversity
And I?
And I will follow you.
After all, we are me and you.
***
Don't reach out with your hand
You won't be with me
your death parted
Forever us with you.
***
Our sorrow cannot be measured
And do not shed tears
We are you, as if alive,
We will love forever.
***
We come here
To put flowers
It's very difficult, dear
We can live without you.
***
Dying forever!
And there will be no repetition ...
Only a distant star
Accept our reflection.
***
Into the hands of Almighty God
Creator of life and death
I give my spirit...
***
Be happy people!
Life is like the sun - one!
Let neither blizzards nor heat cool
Joyful moment of fire.
***
We all mourn
That you are no longer with us
But time does not turn back.
We will keep the memory forever
In our loving hearts.
***
Grief is not asked
Grief is immeasurable
Everything precious in the world is lost...
***
Don't be ashamed passerby
Remember my ashes
For I am already at home, and you would still be a guest ...
***
We lost you early
Separation from you is hard
But your image is bright and sweet
Always in our memory.
***
When a loved one leaves
There is an emptiness in the soul
Which can't be cured by anything.
***
Nobody could save you
Passed away very early
But the bright image is your own
We will always remember.
***
An evil death crept up on me,
I left you forever.
Oh how I wish I could live
But that's my destiny
***
Love for you, dear son,
He will die with us.
And our pain and our sorrow
Can't express in words.
***
Like dew drops on roses
There are tears on my cheeks.
Sleep well, dear son,
We all love you, remember and mourn.
***
Great sorrow cannot be measured
Tears of grief do not help.
You are not with us, but forever
You will not die in our hearts.
***
There will always be a mother's tear for you,
The sadness of a father, the loneliness of a brother,
The grief of grandparents.
***

You left early without saying goodbye
And without saying a word to us,
How can we live on, making sure
That you won't come back.
***
You left life incomprehensibly early,
Parents are saddened.
A wound bleeds in their hearts.
Your son is growing up without knowing the word "mother".
***
After leaving life, you still live
In our thoughts, dreams.
You can't survive what is given to you by fate.
We remember you in joy and in pain.
***
How hard it is to find the words
To measure our pain with them.
We can't believe in your death
You will be with us forever.
***
To your untimely grave
Our path will not grow.
Your native image, dear image,
Will always lead us here.
***
Sorrow of the soul does not cry out with tears,
A raw grave cannot understand grief.
What a pity that your life
Was so short
But your memory will be eternal.
***

The will begins
The feeling continues
The mind, having brought to the Obsalyutny, completes.
***
What was, is now,
And what will be, has already been.
And the dust will return to the ground as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it.
***
Oh light of hope!
Oh, the oppression of black fears!
Only one thing is true:
This life is flowing.
Here is the truth, and everything else is a lie:
A flower that has faded will not bloom again.
***
Like a heavy load we carry the burden of loss,
We will keep love and memory for years,
Time has no power over memory
And sorrow will never leave us.
***
The soul is tired of betrayal
General vanity and vanity
And should she look for evidence
In defense of your rights...
***
If only once to see the image of your beloved,
Hear your own voice.
We would change everything for this
And they gave their lives without thinking.
***
Our longing and pain cannot be measured.
To see you, not to return.
And it's so unbearable to live
And it's hard for us to believe that you're not there.
***
People leave, they can't be returned
And secret worlds cannot be revived...
And every time I want again
From this irreversibility to scream ...
***
Bitter sadness in the heart
Lies bathed in tears.
It's hard for us, we're sorry
That you are not, dear (our dear), with us.
***
All of us, all of us in this world are perishable
Copper quietly pours from maple leaves ...
May you be blessed forever
That came to flourish and die.
***
My friend, do not be sad about the past,
Let the irrevocable not gnaw at you.
You can't step into the same river...

Examples of epitaphs

Tombstone texts may be quotations from the bible or other religious books. The excerpts are chosen, usually relating to death or the afterlife. The text of the epitaph, consisting of one phrase, can sometimes say more than long high-sounding phrases. The volume is not limited by anything, except in a natural way - by the size of monuments or tombstones. In addition to decoration, tomb epitaphs serve as an outlet for the relatives and friends of the deceased. This is like the last opportunity to say that they did not have time or to express feelings about death. They help to display emotions on the monument, which in a year will become a sensual reminder of the deceased to new generations.

Tombstone inscriptions can be quotes from books, sayings of great people, and even poetry. It can be a couple of lines written by yourself or a paragraph reflecting your emotions and feelings that arise from the loss of a loved one. Epitaphs are tombstone inscriptions with which you can reflect pain, sorrow, longing. The inscriptions on tombstones can characterize the deceased, be an expression of hope that the soul of the deceased is now in a better world.

George (Lord) Byron - "An Epitaph to Himself"

Nature, youth and the almighty god
They wanted me to light my lamp,
But Romanelli the doctor is terrible in his perseverance:
He defeated all three, my lamp is extinguished!
***
George (Lord) Byron - "Epitaph to William Pitt"

From the death of claws is not spared,
It smolders under a cold stone;
He is glorified by lies in the ward,
He has a bed in the abbey.
***
K. N. Batyushkov - "Epitaph"

No inscriptions are needed for my stone,
Just say here: he was and he is not!
***
A. A. Delvig - "Epitaph"

Passer-by, don't stand here! run quickly, go away
And then on tiptoe and not a shell in any way.
The clerk lies here - don't wake him up!
And that torments you! "better so."
***
A. A. Delvig - "Epitaph"

What was his life? heavy sleep.
What is death? from terrible dreams awakening.
Sleepily he smiled -
And again, maybe there the dreaming began.
***
A. A. Delvig - "Epitaph on the death of S. D. Ponomareva"

She played with earthly life like a baby with a toy.
Soon she broke it: it is true, she consoled herself there.
***
Rudyard Kipling - "Epitaphs"

I did not know how to work, I did not dare to rob,
All my life I have lied from the podium to the gullible and the young,
Lied - to the chicks.
Having met everyone whom I killed, everyone who was deceived by me,
I'll ask them, the dead, if they beat their faces in the next world
Are we liars?

I went to urinate not where all the soldiers were.
And the sniper immediately sent me to the next world.
I think you're wrong in making fun of me
Deceased in principle, without changing its rules.

Naval convoy commander

There is no worse job than shepherding fools.
Pointlessly brave - even more so.
But I brought them to their native shores
By my dying will.

Epitaph to Canadians

Having given everything, I will not rise from the ashes,
I don't need words or praise.
I did not live, dying of fear,
I, having killed fear in myself, fought.

former clerk

Do not Cry! army gave
Freedom to the timid slave.
She dragged me by the collar
From office to destiny

Where is he, having learned what it means to dare,
plucked up the courage to love
And, having fallen in love, he went to his death,
And died. Fortunately, maybe.

They quickly put an end to me -
On the first day, the first bullet in the forehead.
Children love to jump up from their seats in the theater -
I forgot that this is a trench.

Rookie

Quickly, rudely and skillfully in a short earthly way
Both my spirit and my body were drilled by the war.
I wonder what God can do to me
On top of what the foreman has already done?

I did not dare to look at death
On the attack in broad daylight
And people, blindfolded,
They took me to her at night.

Orderly

I knew that he was subordinate to me and, in order to save me, he would die.
He died without knowing that it would be the other way around!

A. - I was rich as a rajah.
B. - And I was poor.
Together. - But to the next world without luggage
We are both going.
***
Lermontov M. Yu. - "Epitaph"

(to the drowned player)

Who worked to dig a hole for others,
He himself fell into it - the writing says so.
You justified it, my Boston weirdo,
He drowned people - and drowned himself.
***
Lermontov M. Yu. - "Epitaph"

Sorry! will we see you again?
And will death want to bring
Two victims of the lot of the earth,
How to know! so sorry, sorry!
You gave me life, but you did not give me happiness;
You yourself were driven in the world,
You only tasted evil in people ...
But understand was one.
And that one when sobbing
The crowd leaned over you
He stood without wiping his eyes,
Motionless, cold and dumb.
And all without knowing the reason
They blamed him impudently,
As if the moment of your death
It was a moment of happiness for him.
But what is their exclamation to him?
Crazy! could not understand
It's easier to cry than to suffer
No sign of suffering.
***
Lermontov M. Yu. - "Epitaph of Napoleon"

Yes, no one blames your shadow,
The man of rock! you are with people that rock is above you;
Who knew to elevate you, only he could overthrow:
Great things don't change anything.
***
Maykov A. N. - "Epitaph"

Here, in the valley of sorrow, in a peaceful abode
The earth accepts us:
The poor inhabitant of the world will lie down to rest
On the breast of the mother.
Soon moss will cover the inscription on the tomb
And the name will be erased;
But for those powerless time is a wreck,
Whose memory
Immerse yourself in thought and tears from the heart
Sweet will vomit.
***
Pushkin A. S. - "My epitaph"

Here Pushkin is buried; he is with a young muse,
With love, laziness spent a merry age,
He did not do good, but he was a soul,
By God, good man.
***
Pushkin A. S. - "Epitaph to a baby"

In radiance, in joyful peace,
At the throne of the eternal creator,
With a smile he looks into earthly exile,
He blesses his mother and prays for his father.

There are situations when the verbal expression of feelings is regulated by unwritten rules of behavior that are stricter than usual, up to the prohibition to speak out. In such cases, the myriad variety of individual shades of feeling is reduced to a common denominator - to pronouncing the memorized words of an ancient prayer or to sacred silence. This is how they behave in the temple at the hour of worship, at the monuments during the public ritual of laying flowers. This is how people speak to eternity in the language of epitaphs - inscriptions carved by them on the stone of cemetery tombstones.

The domestic tradition of inscriptions of this kind is not very ancient, because for its occurrence it was necessary not only to create and introduce writing. The need to inscribe tombstones must have arisen and developed in the human soul.

The decoration of the form could be brought to such a refinement as an acrostic reproducing the name of the deceased, Irina Glebovskaya (1725):

Having a debt to go to the grave,
River: may the earthly womb receive me,
Even after the light has gone past the future,
On the 10th of October in the morning of the current.
I am Volodymyr's daughter.

Russian epitaphs did not escape the fate that this genre had on Western European soil, where writings of this kind had long been divided into two unmerged directions. There were epitaphs that were created in order to become real inscriptions in cemeteries, but literary fictions also arose, no one would have thought to offer them for execution in stone. Alas, these illegitimate offspring of poets often turned out to be more talented than those who had the legal right to a place in the sacred territory of the cemetery.

This, however, corresponds to the personal composition of the authors. The most prominent national poets wrote epitaphs for cemetery monuments very rarely. These poets, at least as well as others, knew the bitterness of loss, they also buried their loved ones - but they were silent, just as the closest relatives are still silent at mourning ceremonies, other people speak according to an unwritten law. It is clear that with some other human combinations, among these “other people” there may be a real and touched to the living artist of the word, which is why it happens, along with the usual, unmemorable performances, to hear such a funeral speech and read such an obituary that leaves us an indelible mark, imperceptibly form the attitude to life and death, the spiritual culture of all those around. Let us note that all or almost all the best of what was said and written on this sad occasion did not arise by order, but spontaneously.

The tombstone is a custom item. The architect and sculptor who create it have the professional ability to feel the will of the customer, adapt to it, without leaving the estimate of allowed expenses, for them this is a normal creative situation. But to the poet it will seem like a bondage, he is accustomed to another much greater degree of freedom. Involving a great poet among the co-authors of the tombstone project is a delicate task, few people managed to solve it. The quality of the cemetery epitaphs of the golden age of Russian poetry, based on the material of the capital, was characterized by Pushkin:

Merchants, officials of the deceased mausoleums.
A cheap cutter ridiculous ideas,
Above them are inscriptions in both prose and verse.
About virtues, about service and ranks;
Amorous crying over the old widow's horn.
("When out of town, thoughtful, I wander", 1836)

In other words, in the first place is actually rich bad taste, boasting that she is able to pile up entire mausoleums on her graves, in the then sense of the word - imitation of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the ancient seven wonders of the world, the gigantic tomb of the Carian king Mausoleum and his sister wife of Artemisia. No matter how much money was invested in these pretentious structures, the inscriptions on them still turned out to be cheap ...

A.S. Pushkin
My epitaph

Here Pushkin is buried; he is with a young muse,
With love, laziness spent a merry age,
He did not do good, but he was a soul,
By God, good man.

Epitaph for a baby. Book. N.S. Volkonsky

In radiance and joyful peace,
At the throne of the eternal creator,
With a smile he looks into earthly exile,
He blesses his mother and prays for his father.

Addressing Kutuzov:

In your coffin delight lives!
He gives us a Russian voice;
He tells us about that year,
When the voice of the people's faith
I called out to your holy gray hair:
"Go save!" You got up and saved.
("In front of the tomb of the saint", 1831)

***
M.Yu. Lermontov

Epitaph

The simple-hearted son of freedom
For feelings, he spared no life;
And true traits of nature
He often liked to write off.

He believed dark predictions
And talismans, and love,
And unnatural desires
He gave his days as a sacrifice.

And in it the soul kept a reserve
Bliss, torment and passions.
He died. Here is his grave.
It was not made for humans.

Epitaph of Napoleon

Yes, no one blames your shadow,
The man of rock! You are with people that rock is above you;
Who knew to elevate you, only he could overthrow:
Great things don't change anything.

***
V.S. Solovyov

Vladimir Solovyov
Lies in this place.
First there was a philosopher
And now he has become a skeleton.
Being kind to others
He was also an enemy to many;
But madly in love
He himself plunged into a ravine.
He lost his soul
Not to mention the body
The devil took her
The dogs ate him.
Passerby! Learn from this example
How pernicious is love, and how useful is faith.

***
I.A. Bunin

The inscription on the tombstone

Bear, Lord, sins and atrocities
Above Your mercy!
Slave of the earth and vain desires
Forgive his sins for his sorrows.
I kept the covenant of love holy in my life:
In the days of longing, against the mind,
I did not harbor a snake of enmity against my brother,
I have forgiven everything, according to your word.
I, knowing the silence of the grave
I, who accepted the sorrows of darkness,
From the bowels of the earth I proclaim the good news
Verbs of Unsunseting Beauty!

***
M.I. Tsvetaeva

Epitaph

To the one who lies here under the spring grass,
Forgive, Lord, evil thought and sin!
He was sick, exhausted, out of this world,
He loved angels and children's laughter.

Did not crush the snow-white lilac stars,
Although I wanted to overcome the Lord ...
In all sins he was a tender child,
And so, God forgive him!

Michelangelo Buonarroti

For the beauty that's buried here
Timelessly, there is only one consolation:
Life brought her mortal oblivion,
And now life has been restored by death.
***

Why not to the faces, crumpled by old age,
You came, Death, and plucked my flower?
- Because there is no shelter in heaven
Stained with decay and depravity.
***

Death did not wish to inflict a wound
With weapons of years and an abundance of days
The beauty that rested here - so that she

“Every person is a world that is born with him and dies with him; Under every tombstone lies the history of the world.

Heinrich Heine

"BE HAPPY WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE..."

One day, a young but very unhappy man decided to commit suicide. Namely, shoot yourself. Since this young man was not only unhappy, but also extremely shy, in order not to bother anyone and not cause undue attention to himself, he chose the city cemetery as a place for committing an act of suicide. Time and date also picked up what you need - midnight, on the full moon. And so, quietly stepping through the moonlit cemetery, our young man began to look for a bench, sitting on which he could calmly settle accounts with the villainous fate. Benches, as luck would have it - or fortunately, were nowhere to be found. Having passed several dozen graves, the young man suddenly almost cried out in surprise: in front of him, illuminated by the full moon, stood a girl, all in black clothes and ... with wings behind her back. And only after looking closely, he sighed calmly: it was an ordinary monument. Such as are often placed on the graves of children and young girls. The young man's attention was involuntarily attracted by the text carved at the foot of the angel. The name of the girl... the date of birth and death... and - the inscription in Latin:

"Heus tu, viator lasse, qui me praetereis. Veni hoc et queiesce pusilu. Cum diu ambulareis, tamen hoc veniundum est tibi. Bene vive, propera..."

The young man knew Latin and, after reading the text, froze in even greater surprise. “Hey, passerby, you seem to be tired of walking. Get some rest here. Your path is still long, though it will end here. Go and be happy while you are alive…” read the text of the epitaph.

These unusual words had a magical effect: backing away from the black angel, bumping into fences and bushes, the young man took a revolver from his pocket and threw it aside. Then he turned and started running away.

So a few words inscribed on the grave saved the life of Stefan Zweig, in the future - the famous Austrian writer.

"IF YOU FEEL THE HAPPiest SOMETIME..."

What is an epitaph? This word consists of two Greek: "epi" - "above" and "taphos" - "grave". So in ancient Greece, the tombstone speech was originally called, and later - the tombstone inscription. It is believed that the art of epitaph originated in Ancient Greece, although numerous hieroglyphs that covered the sarcophagi of the ancient Egyptians, and grave inscriptions in Ancient Judea, Babylon, Parthia, not to mention Ancient China and, especially, Japan, where grave inscriptions acquired art status.

Nowhere, perhaps, can one find such laconic and equally beautiful sayings as in old Japanese cemeteries:

"It's too late to cover a grave stone with a warm blanket"

"It's not hard to die, it's hard to live"

“Bad deeds for eternity are dust, good deeds are also dust. But how do you want to be remembered?

One of the Russian TV journalists who visited Japan enthusiastically spoke about the beauty of Japanese cemeteries, citing unusual and wise inscriptions he had read on gravestones. One of them - it was the grave of a young woman - especially struck him. The text read:

“While you were alive, you did not appreciate me, my dear. How she died - then, at least appreciate it, at least don’t appreciate it, I don’t care, my dear ... "

An old French proverb teaches: “If one day you feel like the happiest person in the world, go to the cemetery. And when you feel the most miserable - go there again. This advice is often given by philosophers and psychologists. And for good reason: there, in the cemetery, in uncomfortable silence, peering at the faded photographs of the dead, reading the mournful lines on the cold gloomy slabs, one involuntarily sobers up - both from the insane euphoria of happiness and from debilitating mental pain.

Let us, dear reader, take a short walk through the cemeteries of the world and get acquainted with what people write on the graves. And they write, as it turns out, everything ...

"WE ALL SIT IN THE GUTTER..."

Let's start with the epitaphs of famous people. Here is the beginning of the text inscribed on the slab under which the great physicist Newton is buried in Westminster Abbey:

“Here lies Isaac Newton, who, with the unparalleled power of his mind and the power of mathematics, first explained the movement of the planets, the paths of comets, the ebbs and flows of the ocean ...”

A stone's throw from Newton's grave rests the ashes of another outstanding scientist - Charles Darwin. On the wall there is a small bas-relief depicting Darwin and the inscription:

"Charles Darwin born February 12, 1809. Died April 19, 1882. Author of The Origin of Species and other natural science writings"

On the tombstone of the great mathematician Leibniz, there are only two words: "To the genius of Leibniz."

“He pulled lightning from the sky, and then scepters from tyrants,” is carved on the bust of Benjamin Franklin, American philosopher, freedom fighter, naturalist, inventor of the lightning rod and rocking chair.

“He who stopped the sun - moved the earth,” is written on the pedestal of the monument to Nicolaus Copernicus, which stands in the city of Torun.

“Finally happy” - this short phrase, not at all related to science or to his merits before it, was asked to be placed on his grave by one of the creators of the doctrine of electricity - Ampère.

On the grave of Vsevolod Bagritsky, who died in the Great Patriotic War, the lines of Marina Tsvetaeva are written:

“I will not accept eternity!

Why was I buried?

I didn't want to go to the ground

From my beloved land!

The inscription on the grave of Andrei Tarkovsky at the Russian cemetery of Saint Genevieve de Bois in Paris: "To the man who saw an angel."

Here is a tombstone from the Saltykov family cemetery, near the estate of the writer M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Spas-Ugol: “Passer-by, you are walking, not lying like me. Stay and rest on my coffin. Tear off the blade and remember fate. I'm home. You are visiting. Think about yourself. Like you, I was alive, You will die, like me ... "

On the monument to the legendary Moscow doctor Fyodor Gaaz, his famous motto is carved: “Hurry to do good!”

Another famous epitaph is inscribed on the grave of Alexander Griboyedov: “Your mind and deeds are immortal in Russian memory, but why did my love survive you” (To Alexander Griboyedov - Nina Griboyedova. Tbilisi.)

And, finally, one of the most brilliant epitaphs adorns the grave of the English writer Oscar Wilde. This is one of his famous paradox quotes: "We all sit in the gutter, but some of us look at the stars."

"MEMO" OF THE GREAT

The famous Hungarian mathematician, one of the creators of non-Euclidean geometry, Janos Bolyai wrote in his modest testament: “No monument should be erected over my grave - only an apple tree in memory of three apples: two, Eve and Paris, who turned the Earth into hell, and an apple Newton, who again raised the Earth to the circle of celestial bodies. Alas, even such a request by Boyai was not fulfilled. He died in dire poverty and was buried in a common grave. And to the record in the Reformed Church, someone added: “His life was spent without any benefit ...”

Something similar happened to the French writer Jules Renard. “In my monument,” he jokingly wrote in his Diary, “gouge a small hole on the top of the head so that the birds fly there to drink.” He did not wait for the monument. He spent his last days in a hospital for the poor. Until the last day, he did not stop keeping a Diary, with bitter irony noting in it his thoughts and feelings - the feelings of a person so sick that he was no longer able to control the administration of natural needs ...

Many of the famous writers, poets and artists composed their own epitaphs. Far from always, they were actually intended for their future graves, but we would be curious to know what they reported in these, albeit often joking, but in many respects true "reminders" about themselves.

Epitaph of the poet Konstantin Batyushkov:

No inscriptions are needed for my stone,

Just say here: he was and he is not!

Epitaph of Alexander Pushkin:

Here Pushkin is buried; he is with a young muse,

With love, laziness spent a merry age,

He did not do good, but he was a soul,

By God, good man.

Mikhail Lermontov came up with the following lines for himself:

The simple-hearted son of freedom

For feelings, he spared no life;

And true traits of nature

He often liked to write off.

He believed dark predictions

And talismans, and love,

And unnatural desires

He gave his days as a sacrifice.

And in it the soul kept a reserve

Bliss, torment and passions.

He died. Here is his grave.

It was not made for humans.

The popular satirist poet of the early 20th century, Vladimir Solovyov, considered that the funerary lines about him should certainly be the simplest and at the same time moralizing:

Vladimir Solovyov

Lies in this place.

First there was a philosopher

And now he has become a skeleton.

Being kind to others

He was also an enemy to many;

But madly in love

He himself plunged into a ravine.

He lost his soul

Not to mention the body

The devil took her

The dogs ate him.

Passerby! Learn from this example

How pernicious is love, and how useful is faith.

TWO MOST BEAUTIFUL EPITAPHI

If we talk about Russian literary epitaphs, then perhaps the most beautiful of them were composed by two outstanding Russian poets - Ivan Bunin and Marina Tsvetaeva. Impeccably elegant, subtle, sensitive Bunin wrote many beautiful lines. Among them is the "Grave Inscription":

Bear, Lord, sins and atrocities

Above Your mercy!

Slave of the earth and vain desires

Forgive his sins for his sorrows.

I kept the covenant of love holy in my life:

In the days of longing, against the mind,

I did not harbor a snake of enmity against my brother,

I have forgiven everything, according to your word.

I, who know the silence of the grave,

I, who accepted the sorrows of darkness,

From the bowels of the earth I proclaim the good news

Verbs of Unsunseting Beauty!

And yet the most beautiful, in my opinion, epitaph belongs to the pen of Marina Tsvetaeva. This poem is simply impossible to just read and forget. Written in May 1913 in Koktebel, it captivates with its simple rhythm and some otherworldly, incomprehensible, frighteningly alluring meaning:

You go, you look like me

Eyes looking down.

I dropped them too!

Walker, stop!

Read - chicken blindness

And poppies typing a bouquet,

That they called me Marina

And how old was I.

Don't think that here is a grave

That I will appear, threatening ...

I loved myself too much

Laugh when you can't!

And the blood rushed to the skin

And my curls curled ...

I was too, passerby!

Walker, stop!

Pick yourself a wild stalk

And a berry after him, -

Cemetery strawberries

There is no bigger and sweeter.

But don't just stand there.

Lowering his head to his chest

Think of me easily

It's easy to forget about me.

How the beam illuminates you!

You're covered in gold dust...

"A BEE BUZZED AT THE WINDOW..."

Let's get back to real epitaphs. Some of them, despite their outward simplicity and even unattractiveness, cannot be read without heart trembling. Perhaps these inscriptions are devoid of any artistic merit, but they are absolutely sincere, as they were composed not by a cold mind, but by a hot, aching heart. And therefore it is very difficult to read them in a calm and even voice.

Here, for example, are the touching words of a husband, widowed after thirty-three years of marriage, who complains that the death of his wife has broken his heart.

“Oh, if it would be heaven’s will that the fate that carried you away befell us both!” And then, a little lower, the words: "With her death, she upset me for the first time."

The Roman aristocrat Julia Philemation, distinguished by kindness and charity, deserved from her freedmen the following elegant epitaph: "Her character, her beauty, all her happy gifts were sweeter than honey."

Here is another inscription read in a Roman cemetery. Some woman, apparently not particularly jealous, but loving her husband, gives him the following advice from the depths of her grave:

"My friend, drive away sorrow, have fun and come to me."

And here are some epitaphs from the cemeteries of Perm. Maria Zhuravleva, one of her relatives left the following farewell lines:

"Our life without you,

Like midnight deaf.

In a foreign and unknown land,

Oh sleep, our Manichka, sleep, dear,

With the Lord in a bright paradise.

A quiet, timid, powerless protest of a shocked consciousness breaks through the words of the epitaph of the merchants Cherdyntsevs:

“Here is the cold grave of the father and the mother hid. Your coffin of God is thrown to the ground, a white cross erected over you, it is consecrated with a heartfelt prayer, sprinkled with sincere tears. May you be buried in the grave, may you be forgotten by others, but at my call, relatives, you, as it used to be, alive, will quietly rise above me.

On the cross-tombstone of Countess Gendrikova and Goflektris Schneider there is an inscription from which we learn that both women, courtiers of the last Empress Alexandra Romanova, were hostages of the Bolshevik regime, both were brutally murdered. On their monument are poems by an unknown author:

“... And at the threshold of the grave

Breathe into the mouth of your slaves

Inhuman forces

Pray humbly for your enemies."

On the tombstone of the children's writer E. F. Trutneva, an open book with a quatrain is depicted:

"A bee buzzed by the window

And suddenly flew into the school with a bullet.

She thinks about school:

"What a merry, noisy hive!"

“SORRY THAT THE AIR LEFT ME IS WHAT YOU DID NOT BREATH…”

An artless epitaph can be read on the gravestone of Anna Titova from the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery:

“The body of the servant of God, Anna, was laid in this place, who was married for 16 years and 2 months to the St. Petersburg copper workshop master Yakov Titov. She died suddenly on the day of the feast of Alexander Nevsky at a meeting of guests, bringing at the end of the table herself to eight people, and went out with a glass to another room for pouring to bring to others. And as she put it, she said: “Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God! Why is it dark in my eyes?" And she said to her husband: “Yakov Matveyevich, sir! hold me, I will fall, ”and sinking like that, she died on August 30, 1776, at three o’clock in the afternoon. From the birth of her life was 32 years and 7 months ... "

But the inscription on the surviving modest monument to Pavlik Permyakov This artless epitaph dedicated to the child (1887-1902) is also capable of touching any soul:

"Rest, dear child,

Only in death is the desired peace,

Only in death eyelashes are thick

Do not flash with hot tears ... "

The monument was erected by inconsolable parents. Like this one:

“The last gift to dear children Borya and Misha Melnikov. Sleep, dear children, sound sleep. Everlasting memory"

This “gift” is a concrete cross on a roughly made stone quadrangle, which were placed in the mid-20s.

Someone said: the meaning of any tombstone can be expressed in these words: "Forgive me that during our lifetime we did not give you bread, but after death we gave you a stone." Pay attention and think hard: regret (about not given "bread", attention, love ...) sounds almost in every epitaph.

"Dear angel, I'm sorry - it's my fault that I was not next to you at the hour of death."

“Forgive me for wearing flowers under the starry sky To your stove. I'm sorry that I was left with air, How did you not inhale ... "

A few more touching epitaphs:

“Hush, birches, Don’t make noise with leaves, Don’t wake my son Seryozha!”

“You left us very early. No one could save you. Forever there is a wound in our heart. As long as we are alive, you are with us.

“My heart is burning, Your death has burned Without you, what is the world to me And worldly affairs.”

"You will not return, you will not look back, You will not become wise and gray-haired, You will remain in our memory Always alive and young."

"That's all... Your eyes closed Your lips tightened There is a shadow on your eyelashes But you can't believe your parent's heart, That you, son, were gone on this day"

AND LAUGHTER AND SIN

The compilers of the anthology “Russian Poetry Epitaph” write in the preface: “The moment of death of a loved one is always a shock that exacerbates the feeling of fragility and fragility of human existence. There is a need to comprehend life, obeying which neither a philosopher nor a poet begins to philosophize and think in verse. This is how the part of authors whose epitaphs cannot be read without a smile is correctly defined. For example:

“... And how did he return home from the grave

I have been longing for a long time.

I bent down to look at my chest - I lost you like a heart ... "

Curiosities of this kind are not uncommon.

Here are excerpts from epitaphs from Moscow cemeteries:

“Sleep well, dear husband, candidate of economic sciences”

"To a dear husband - from a dear wife"

"From my wife and Mosenergo"

“(So-and-so), a merchant's daughter. She lived in the world for eighty-two years, six months and four days without a break.

Inscription at the Odessa cemetery:

"Brother Monet from sisters and brothers - in good memory."

At a cemetery in Jerusalem: "I loved you, and you loved me, thank you for burying me." “Sleep well, wife of the famous singer Rasul Tokumbaev” (surname changed).

Epitaphs from St. Petersburg cemeteries:

“Here lies the maiden Anna Lvovna Stallion. Cry, unfortunate sister, pour bitter tears, father. You, maiden Anna Lvovna, sleep in cold blood in the grave.

“I just lay down to rest. And the doctor immediately: - Died? To the morgue!

Chalk inscription on the grave of a woman of "easy virtue":

“Deadly silence. It's the first time I'm alone."

Here are some epitaphs from old English cemeteries (translated by Marshak). The inscription on the grave of an English soldier:

I, a grenadier, lie in the damp ground,

I caught a cold after drinking a glass of beer.

Don't drink beer when it's hot

And drink alcohol - and you will be alive!

On the grave of the poet:

Here, under the stove lies a poet.

waiting for trump cards in the deck of years,

and crosses and worms fell out.

Another inscription:

Laid down under the grave

careless Uncle Peter.

Just because on a May day

I left my sweater at home.

And here are literary translations of French epitaphs (translator - V. Vasiliev). On the grave of the wife of the poet Du Laurent:

“My wife sleeps here. Oh what

Peace to her, and peace to me!

On the grave of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who died of stone disease (commissary of finance, under which a cruel taxation system was introduced):

Here Colbert became the prey of the earth,

a severe illness struck him down.

Five stones were found in the opened corpse,

Of which the hardest heart was.

On the grave of an unknown traveler:

Do not cry, what is put in this urn

Pathfinder Pierre mortal ashes.

Pierre traveled a lot around the world,

But I haven't been to heaven yet.

On the pharmacist's grave:

"Here he will rest, who all his life without laziness got up on his knees in front of his backside."

EPITAPHI FROM ALEKSANDROVICH'S COLLECTION

Talking about various curious epitaphs, one cannot fail to mention the collection of the famous translator G. Alexandrovich. Here are some of the more interesting ones:

"He lies in a coffin of cypress wood and amuses the most exquisite worms." (Epitaph on the grave of a rich man in the English city of Leeds.)

“Here old Martin Elginbrod Rests on a hard bed. Have mercy on his sinful soul, O God! He would certainly have built you in paradise, When you were him, and he was you. (Epitaph on the grave of Martin Elginbrod in the Scottish city of Aberdeen.)

"This house doesn't pay taxes on chimneys. No wonder old Rebecca couldn't resist such a place." (Epitaph on the grave of Rebecca Bogges in the English city of Folkestone.)

“The most terrible thing for him is that you are reading this epitaph on his grave for free.” (Epitaph on the grave of a usurer. Père Lachaise cemetery.)

"He conquered all the flowers except the immortelle." (Epitaph on the gardener's grave).

“May the Lord forgive him some of his sins for the many thousands of tourists that he attracts to our city.” (The inscription on the grave of the famous robber Dick Turpin in the English city of York.)

"He never repaid any debts except debts to nature." (Epitaph on the grave of a mot. Pere Lachaise cemetery.)

"Although universally recognized as untalented, he was not elected to the Academy." (Auto-epitaph of the 17th century French satirist Pyrrho. Père Lachaise cemetery.)

“Here lies Esther Wright, whom God called to himself. Her inconsolable husband, Thomas Wright, America's finest stonecutter, hand-crafted this inscription and is willing to do the same for you for $250." (Epitaph on the grave of Esther Wright in the US city of Minneapolis.)

"Here lies Mr. Gerald Bates, whose inconsolable widow Ann Bates lives at 7 Elm Street and, at 24, has everything you could ask for in an ideal wife." (Epitaph on the grave of J. Bates in Charleston, USA).

UNUSUAL EPITAPHI

Among the famous, touching and curious epitaphs, one can find simply unusual ones. Here is one of them:

“Here lie the mortal remains of someone who was handsome without vanity, strong without swagger, brave without dashing, and who combined male virtues without the associated sins. This is a praise that would be conceited boasting over human ashes, worthy of the memory of a dog named Botswain, who was born in Newfoundland in May 1803 and died at Newstead Abbey on November 18, 1808.

The famous English poet Byron ordered to write such a text on the grave of his beloved dog.

Monuments to pets are not uncommon. In Europe and the USA, there have long been entire cemeteries for animals. On one of them you can find a funny - you can’t say otherwise - epitaph to a regimental favorite:

“Regimental donkey Marsik is buried here. During his life, he kicked 3 colonels, 7 majors, 11 captains, 26 lieutenants, 98 sergeants, 670 privates and one mine "

Sad and touching is the epitaph from the cat cemetery in Hildenborough (England):

“Why do girls and cats leave home? Bobby slipped out of number 6 London Road, got hit by a car and sleeps forever here.”

The following epitaph, created in 1844 by the Oryol poet I. Suslov, is no less touching:

Under this little bump,

Blooming in a low garden,

Crooked my cat with a lame marmot

Buried in a thin box.

And yet, most of all, monuments are erected not to cats, marmots and donkeys, but to dogs. And this is understandable. As Blaise Pascle said, “The more I interact with people, the more I love my dog.” Here are some canine epitaphs:

“My dog ​​Ba-Ba. I will never forget you, and no one will replace you for me.

"Joe Follett. Not just a dog: a human being"

“Our meek little and sweet Bleinheim.

You brought a ray of sunshine into our lives and carried it away with you.”

“Here lies our dear Frou-Frou, a reliable friend and faithful companion. She made people happy and made people happy.”

And here is a completely human epitaph: “The Kingdom of Heaven to you, our dear Milchen! God be with you, faithful friend!

And finally, not an epitaph, but real poetry (quote from Lamartine's poem, in prose translation):

"Come, my faithful friend, the consolation of my days, Lick my tear-stained face, put your heart on my heart, and we will love each other - for the sake of love."

But back to human graves. Mikhail Zoshchenko in his book “Before Sunrise” recalls the Hermitage librarian I.F. Luzhkov, who lived in St. Petersburg at the end of the 18th century. According to contemporaries, this librarian treated all funeral matters with extraordinary zeal and almost daily attended the funerals of dead people completely unfamiliar to him, dug graves for the poor in cemeteries for free, liked to write epitaphs and carved on the tombstone of one of his relatives:

Here is another unusual epitaph. In the necropolis of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra there is a burial of a 17-year-old offspring of a famous noble family, who died in 1827. On the monument, not without malice, it is explained why the lad reposed at such a young age:

“Here is buried the Artillery Junker School, the harness-junker Count Vasily Vasilyevich Orlov-Denisov. His life ended from excessive diligence in the sciences and diligence excellent for the service; good manners and good manners promised him a faithful servant to the Sovereign and a useful son to the Fatherland.

And here is a barely distinguishable inscription on the grave of a two-year-old girl (the epitaph belongs to the famous Russian historian Nikolai Karamzin. “One tender mother,” Karamzin recalled, “asked me to compose a tombstone for her dead two-year-old daughter. I offered her a choice ... five epitaphs; she chose the latter and ordered to carve it on the coffin...):

“Rest, dear ashes, until a joyful morning!”

A few more unusual epitaphs:

"He was not a wise man,

And he was not known as a brave man,

But bow down to him

He was a man"

“Become a better person and figure out who you are before you meet someone new and hope they understand you.”

“Born on a Tuesday, he entered the army on Tuesday, received his retirement on Tuesday, and finally died on Tuesday.”

“We must live joyfully, colorfully, brightly,” such a motto-epitaph is inscribed on the grave of the artist Pyotr Ivanovich Subbotin-Permyak.

"REAL ESTATE"

We started our story about epitaphs with the story of Stefan Zweig, the story of how a few words inscribed on a grave saved the life of a young writer. Having started "in health", let's finish this sad topic on a major wave. To do this, we quote a short story by the famous Russian poet Igor Guberman. He talks about how a comic epitaph, composed by him, brought his friend back to life.

“My friend was in his thirties when he got married. He adored his wife, and outwardly their happiness seemed complete and cloudless. But a year later he divorced. I did not know the reasons and did not ask, we were not so close people. Married again. We just became more friendly during this period. And somehow he came to me to say goodbye: he decided to die. And, of course, he told me the reason (now it will become clear). After listening to him, I lit a cigarette and slowly answered this:

Look, I have no right to interfere in your fate. You have decided - your business. But I want to warn you in a friendly way: I will spoil, I will vulgarize and compromise your heroic departure with some dirty epitaph. So decide.

And by evening I had already brought him an epitaph:

Money, fame and power

neglected this dust and decay,

from real estate

the deceased had only a member.

My friend was both angry and laughing, he called me a bad name a couple of times, but he was clearly thinking. And I left, I fulfilled my duty. And then the main thing happened: he got better! And everything in his family became good. And what is the reason for this - the mystical power of the epitaph, is clear to everyone who understands ... "

Alexander Kazakevich