April 16, 2020
A LAUGHING MATTER
It is natural, in this time of plague, for the subject of death to occupy the attention of Homo sapiens.
I am offering some healthy ways to approach this subject, on the theory that it is not wise to think morbidly about a phenomenon which is universal and inevitable. As is my wont, I prefer the humorous approach.
For example, I am delighted by the story of the Japanese poet who instructed his students to add some carefully wrapped packages to his funeral pyre, without looking into them. They did so under the assumption the contents were manuscripts which the poet did not want published. Imagine the surprise at the cremation ceremony when the packages turned out to contain fireworks!
Bertrand Russell wrote:
The late F. W. H. Meyers used to tell how he asked a man at a dinner table what he thought would happen to him when he died. The man tried to ignore the question, but, on being pressed, replied: "Oh well, I suppose I shall inherit eternal bliss, but I wish you wouldn't talk about such unpleasant subjects."
Humorous epitaphs are also a source of enjoyment.
The following are extracted from "Everybody's Book of Epitaphs" (London, Saxon & Co. 1995)
1. Here lies JOHN BUNN
Who was killed by a gun.
His name wasn't Bunn,
But his real name was WOOD.
But Wood wouldn't rhyme with gun.
So I thought Bunn should.
2. For Sir John Strange, a lawyer:
Here lies an honest lawyer -
that is Strange
3. Poems and epitaphs are but stuff
Here lies ROBERT BURROWS, that's enough.
4. Here lies the body of Geordie Denham,
If ye saw him now ye wadna ken him.
[would not know him]
5. Owen Moore is gone away,
Owin' more than he could pay.
6. Here lies TAM REID,
Who was chokit to deid
Wi' taking a feed
O' butter and breed
Wi' owre muckle speed,
When he had nae need,
But just for greed.
Here is a small selection of death cartoons from the New Yorker. More can be found at https://www.art.com/gallery/id--b711138/death-new-yorker-cartoons-posters.htm
And finally, a few poems.
1.
nobody loses all the time by e.e. cummings
i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle
Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added
my Uncle Sol's farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when
my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner
or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who'd given my Unde Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol's coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol
and started a worm farm)
2. Death Poem by Moriya Sen'an
Ware shinaba
sakaya no kame no
shita ni ikeyo
moshi ya shizuku no
mori ya sen nan
Bury me when I die
beneath a wine barrel
in a tavern.
With luck
the cask will leak.
3. And a Victorian skipping-rope refrain:
"It wasn't the cough that carried him off," It was the coffin they carried him off in."
This comes from Victorian times. Before the advent of penicillin If you did not look after yourself, a cold went straight to the chest, turned from pneumonia into double pneumonia and you were dead within a fortnight. "It wasn't the cough that carried him off," girls sang over skipping-ropes, "It was the coffin they carried him off in."
This couplet is often mistakenly attributed to the witty American poet, Ogden Nash.
END
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