Puns in epitaphs have been very common, and may be found in Greek and
Latin, and still more plentifully in our English compositions. In the
French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and other languages, examples
may also be found. Empedrocles wrote an epitaph containing the
paronomasia, or pun, on a physician named Pausanias, and it has by
Merivale been happily translated:--
Pausanias--not so nam'd without a cause,
As one who oft has giv'n to pain a pause,
Blest son of Æsculapius, good and wise,
Here, in his native Gela, buried lies;
Who many a wretch once rescu'd by his charms
From dark Persephone's constraining arms.
In Holy Trinity Church, Hull, is an example of a punning epitaph. It is on
a slab in the floor of the north aisle of the nave, to the memory of "The
Worshipful Joseph Field, twice Mayor of this town, and Merchant
Adventurer." He died in 1627, aged 63 years:--
Here is a Field sown, that at length must sprout,
And 'gainst the ripening harvest's time break out,
When to that Husband it a crop shall yield
Who first did dress and till this new-sown Field;
Yet ere this Field you see this crop can give,
The seed first dies, that it again may live.
_Sit Deus amicus,
Sanctis, vel in Sepulchris spes est._
On Bishop Theophilus Field, in Hereford Cathedral, ob. 1636, is another
specimen:--
The Sun that light unto three churches gave
Is set; this Field is buried in a grave.
This Sun shall rise, this Field renew his flowers,
This sweetness breathe for ages, not for hours.
He was successively Bishop of Llandaff, St. David's, and Hereford.
The following rather singular epitaph, with a play upon the name, occurs
in the chancel of Checkley Church, Staffordshire:--
To the Memory of the Reverend JAMES WHITEHALL, Rector of this place
twenty and five years, who departed this life the second daie of
March, 1644.
White was his name, and whiter than this stone.
In hope of joyfole resurrection
Here lies that orthodox, that grave divine,
In wisdom trve, vertve did soe clearly shine;
One that could live and die as he hath done
Suffer'd not death but a translation.
Bvt ovt of charitie I'll speake no more,
Lest his friends pine with sighs, with teares the poor.
From Hornsea Church we have the epitaph of Will Day, gentleman; he lived
34 years, died May 22nd, 1616:--
If that man's life be likened to a day,
One here interr'd in youth did lose a day,
By death, and yet no loss to him at all,
For he a threefold day gain'd by his fall;
One day of rest is bliss celestial,
Two days on earth by gifts terrestryall--
Three pounds at Christmas, three at Easter Day,
Given to the poure until the world's last day,
This was no cause to heaven; but, consequent,
Who thither will, must tread the steps he went.
For why? Faith, Hope, and Christian Charity,
Perfect the house framed for eternity.
On the east wall of the Chancel of Kettlethorpe Church, co. Lincoln, is a
tablet to the memory of "Johannes Becke, quondam Rector istius ecclesiæ,"
who died 1597, with the following lines in old English characters:--
I am a BECKE, or river as you know,
And wat'red here ye church, ye schole, ye pore,
While God did make my springes here for to flow:
But now my fountain stopt, it runs no more;
From Church and schole mi life ys now bereft,
But no ye pore four poundes I yearly left.
We may add that the stream of his charity still flows, and is yearly
distributed amongst the poor of Kettlethorpe.
Bishop Sanderson, in his "Survey of Lincoln Cathedral," gives the
following epitaph of Dr. William Cole, Dean of Lincoln, who died in 1600.
The upper part of the stone, with Dr. Cole's arms, is, or was lately, in
the Cathedral, but the epitaph has been lost:--
Reader, behold the pious pattern here
Of true devotion and of holy fear.
He sought God's glory and the churches good.
Idle idol worship he withstood.
Yet dyed in peace, whose body here doth lie
In expectation of eternity.
And when the latter trump of heaven shall blow
Cole, now rak'd up in ashes, then shall glow.