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Handout #13 |
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Epitaph of an unbeliever |
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Traveler, do not neglect this epigram; stop, listen and learn before going further. In Hades there is no boat, no ferryman Charon, no Ajax guarding the keys and no hound Cerberus. All of us below, the dead, have become bone and ash and nothing else. I have told you true: go on, traveler, lest I seem too garrulous for the dead. There is no point in sending or offering perfumes and garlands; there is a stone. And do not light fires; that is useless expense. In my lifetime, if you have anything, share it with me, but by pouring drink on ashes you will make mud, and the dead do not drink. That is what I shall be, and as you pile up the earth there, you will say: I have become again what I was when I was not. Greek inscription from the first century. |
