Memento mori
Memento mori (Latin for "remember that you have to die")[2] is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death.[2] The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards.
The most common
Pronunciation and translation
In English, the phrase is typically pronounced /məˈmɛntoʊ ˈmɔːri/, mə-MEN-toh MOR-ee.
Memento is the 2nd person singular active future imperative of meminī, 'to remember, to bear in mind', usually serving as a warning: "remember!" Morī is the present infinitive of the deponent verb morior 'to die'.[3] Thus, the phrase literally translates as "you must remember to die" but may be loosely rendered as "remember death" or "remember that you die".[4]
History of the concept
In classical antiquity
The philosopher Democritus trained himself by going into solitude and frequenting tombs.[5] Plato's Phaedo, where the death of Socrates is recounted, introduces the idea that the proper practice of philosophy is "about nothing else but dying and being dead".[6]
The
In some accounts of the
In early Christianity
Several passages in the Old Testament urge a remembrance of death. In
The expression memento mori developed with the growth of Christianity, which emphasized Heaven, Hell, Hades and salvation of the soul in the afterlife.[12] The 2nd-century Christian writer Tertullian claimed in his Apologeticus, that during a triumphal procession, a victorious general had someone standing behind him, holding a crown over his head and whispering: "Respice post te. Hominem te esse memento. Memento mori." ("Look after yourself. Remember you're a man. Remember you will die."). Though in modern times this has become a standard trope, in fact no other ancient authors confirm this, and it may have been Christian moralizing on Tertullians part rather than an accurate historical report.[13]
In Europe from the medieval era to the Victorian era
Christian Theology
The thought was then utilized in Christianity, whose strong emphasis on
Memento mori has been an important part of
Architecture
The most obvious places to look for memento mori meditations are in funeral art and
Another example of memento mori is provided by the chapels of bones, such as the Capela dos Ossos in Évora or the Capuchin Crypt in Rome. These are chapels where the walls are totally or partially covered by human remains, mostly bones. The entrance to the Capela dos Ossos has the following sentence: "We bones, lying here bare, await yours."
Visual art
Timepieces have been used to illustrate that the time of the living on Earth grows shorter with each passing minute. Public clocks would be decorated with mottos such as ultima forsan ("perhaps the last" [hour]) or vulnerant omnes, ultima necat ("they all wound, and the last kills"). Clocks have carried the motto tempus fugit, "time flees". Old striking clocks often sported automata who would appear and strike the hour; some of the celebrated automaton clocks from Augsburg, Germany, had Death striking the hour. Private people carried smaller reminders of their own mortality. Mary, Queen of Scots owned a large watch carved in the form of a silver skull, embellished with the lines of Horace, "Pale death knocks with the same tempo upon the huts of the poor and the towers of Kings."
In the late 16th and through the 17th century, memento mori jewelry was popular. Items included
During the same period there emerged the artistic genre known as
Literature
Memento mori is also an important literary theme. Well-known literary meditations on death in English prose include Sir Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying. These works were part of a Jacobean cult of melancholia that marked the end of the Elizabethan era. In the late eighteenth century, literary elegies were a common genre; Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and Edward Young's Night Thoughts are typical members of the genre.
In the European devotional literature of the Renaissance, the
Music
Apart from the genre of
Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur, |
Life is short, and shortly it will end; |
Danse macabre
The
Gallery
-
Roman mosaic representing the Wheel of Fortune which, as it turns, can make the rich poor and the poor rich; in effect, both states are very precarious, with death never far and life hanging by a thread: when it breaks, the soul flies off. And thus are all made equal. (Collezioni pompeiane. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli)
-
René of Châlon died in 1544 at age 25. His widow commissioned sculptor Ligier Richier to represent him in the Cadaver Tomb of René of Chalon, which shows him offering his heart to God, set against the painted splendour of his former worldly estate. (Church of Saint-Étienne, Bar-le-Duc)
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French 16th/17th-century ivory pendant, Monk and Death, recalling mortality and the certainty of death (Walters Art Museum)
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Memento mori ring, with enameled skull and "Die to Live" message (between 1500 and 1650, British Museum, London)
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Memento mori in the form of a small coffin, 1700s, wax figure on silk in a wooden coffin (Museum Schnütgen, Cologne, Germany)
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Mourning brooch with plaited hair, 1843 (Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, New Zealand)
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Alarm clock, mounted on model of coffin, probably English, 1840–1900 (Science Museum, London)
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Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life is a Dutch vanitas which follows the memento mori theme.
-
Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors includes a distorted image of a skull across the bottom of the painting.
The salutation of the Hermits of St. Paul of France
Memento mori was the salutation used by the
In Puritan America
The poem underneath the skull emphasizes Thomas Smith's acceptance of death and of turning away from the world of the living:
Why why should I the World be minding, Therein a World of Evils Finding. Then Farwell World: Farwell thy jarres, thy Joies thy Toies thy Wiles thy Warrs. Truth Sounds Retreat: I am not sorye. The Eternall Drawes to him my heart, By Faith (which can thy Force Subvert) To Crowne me (after Grace) with Glory.
Mexico's Day of the Dead
Much memento mori art is associated with the
This theme was also famously expressed in the works of the Mexican engraver José Guadalupe Posada, in which people from various walks of life are depicted as skeletons.
Another manifestation of memento mori is found in the Mexican "Calavera", a literary composition in verse form normally written in honour of a person who is still alive, but written as if that person were dead. These compositions have a comedic tone and are often offered from one friend to another during Day of the Dead.[23]
Contemporary culture
Roman Krznaric suggests Memento Mori is an important topic to bring back into our thoughts and belief system; "Philosophers have come up with lots of what I call 'death tasters' – thought experiments for seizing the day."
These thought experiments are powerful to get us re-oriented back to death into current awareness and living with spontaneity. Albert Camus stated "Come to terms with death, thereafter anything is possible." Jean-Paul Sartre expressed that life is given to us early, and is shortened at the end, all the while taken away at every step of the way, emphasizing that the end is only the beginning every day.[24]
Similar concepts across cultures
In Buddhism
The Buddhist practice
In Japanese Zen and samurai culture
In Japan, the influence of Zen Buddhist contemplation of death on indigenous culture can be gauged by the following quotation from the classic treatise on samurai ethics, Hagakure:[25]
The Way of the Samurai is, morning after morning, the practice of death, considering whether it will be here or be there, imagining the most sightly way of dying, and putting one's mind firmly in death. Although this may be a most difficult thing, if one will do it, it can be done. There is nothing that one should suppose cannot be done.[26]
In the annual appreciation of cherry blossom and fall colors, hanami and momijigari, it was philosophized that things are most splendid at the moment before their fall, and to aim to live and die in a similar fashion.[citation needed]
In Tibetan Buddhism
In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a mind training practice known as Lojong. The initial stages of the classic Lojong begin with 'The Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind', or, more literally, 'Four Contemplations to Cause a Revolution in the Mind'.[citation needed] The second of these four is the contemplation on impermanence and death. In particular, one contemplates that;
- All compounded things are impermanent.
- The human body is a compounded thing.
- Therefore, death of the body is certain.
- The time of death is uncertain and beyond our control.
There are a number of classic verse formulations of these contemplations meant for daily reflection to overcome our strong habitual tendency to live as though we will certainly not die today.
Lalitavistara Sutra
The following is from the Lalitavistara Sūtra, a major work in the classical Sanskrit canon:
ज्वलितं त्रिभवं जरव्याधिदुखैः मरणाग्निप्रदीप्तमनाथमिदम्। |
Beings are ablaze with the sufferings of sickness and old age, |
A very well known verse in the Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan canons states [this is from the Sanskrit version, the Udānavarga:
सर्वे क्षयान्ता निचयाः पतनान्ताः समुच्छ्रयाः | |
All that is acquired will be lost |
Shantideva, Bodhicaryavatara
Shantideva, in the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra 'Bodhisattva's Way of Life' reflects at length:
कृताकृतापरीक्षोऽयं मृत्युर्विश्रम्भघातकः। |
Death does not differentiate between tasks done and undone. |
In more modern Tibetan Buddhist works
In a practice text written by the 19th century Tibetan master Dudjom Lingpa for serious meditators, he formulates the second contemplation in this way:[29][30]
On this occasion when you have such a bounty of opportunities in terms of your body, environment, friends, spiritual mentors, time, and practical instructions, without procrastinating until tomorrow and the next day, arouse a sense of urgency, as if a spark landed on your body or a grain of sand fell in your eye. If you have not swiftly applied yourself to practice, examine the births and deaths of other beings and reflect again and again on the unpredictability of your lifespan and the time of your death, and on the uncertainty of your own situation. Meditate on this until you have definitively integrated it with your mind... The appearances of this life, including your surroundings and friends, are like last night's dream, and this life passes more swiftly than a flash of lightning in the sky. There is no end to this meaningless work. What a joke to prepare to live forever! Wherever you are born in the heights or depths of saṃsāra, the great noose of suffering will hold you tight. Acquiring freedom for yourself is as rare as a star in the daytime, so how is it possible to practice and achieve liberation? The root of all mind training and practical instructions is planted by knowing the nature of existence. There is no other way. I, an old vagabond, have shaken my beggar's satchel, and this is what came out.
The contemporary Tibetan master, Yangthang Rinpoche, in his short text 'Summary of the View, Meditation, and Conduct':[31]
།ཁྱེད་རྙེད་དཀའ་བ་མི་ཡི་ལུས་རྟེན་རྙེད། །སྐྱེ་དཀའ་བའི་ངེས་འབྱུང་གི་བསམ་པ་སྐྱེས། །མཇལ་དཀའ་བའི་མཚན་ལྡན་གྱི་བླ་མ་མཇལ། །འཕྲད་དཀའ་བ་དམ་པའི་ཆོས་དང་འཕྲད། |
You have obtained a human life, which is difficult to find, |
The Tibetan Canon also includes copious materials on the meditative preparation for the death process and intermediate period bardo between death and rebirth. Amongst them are the famous "Tibetan Book of the Dead", in Tibetan Bardo Thodol, the "Natural Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo".
In Islam
The "remembrance of death" (
Iceland
The Hávamál ("Sayings of the High One"), a 13th-century Icelandic compilation poetically attributed to the god Odin, includes two sections – the Gestaþáttr and the Loddfáfnismál – offering many gnomic proverbs expressing the memento mori philosophy, most famously Gestaþáttr number 77:
Deyr fé, |
Animals die, |
See also
- aging)
- elderly people)
- Carpe diem
- Et in Arcadia ego
- Mono no aware
- Mortality salience
- Sic transit gloria mundi
- Tempus fugit
- Terror management theory
- Ubi sunt
- Vanitas
- YOLO (aphorism)
References
- ISBN 1904449247
- ^ a b Literally 'remember (that you have) to die', Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, June 2001.
- ^ Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, ss.vv.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, s.v.
- ^ Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book IX, Chapter 7, Section 38 Archived 5 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Phaedo, 64a4.
- Moral Letters to Lucilius.
- ^ Discourses of Epictetus, 3.24.
- ^ Henry Albert Fischel, Rabbinic Literature and Greco-Roman Philosophy: A Study of Epicurea and Rhetorica in Early Midrashic Writings, E. J. Brill, 1973, p. 95.
- ^ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations IV. 48.2.
- ^ Beard, Mary: The Roman Triumph, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, England, 2007. (hardcover), pp. 85–92.
- ^ "Final Farewell: The Culture of Death and the Afterlife". Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri. Archived from the original on 6 June 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
- ISBN 0674032187, pp. 85–92
- ^ Christian Dogmatics, Volume 2 (Carl E. Braaten, Robert W. Jenson), page 583
- ^ See Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Holy Dying.
- ISBN 0900090545.
- ^ a b "Memento Mori". Antique Jewelry University. Lang Antiques. n.d. Archived from the original on 24 September 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
- ^ Bond, Charlotte (5 December 2018). "Somber "Memento Mori" Jewelry Commissioned to Help People Mourn". The Vintage News. Archived from the original on 18 August 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
- ^ "Banksy Grin Reaper | Meaning & History". Andipa Editions. Archived from the original on 1 September 2023. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
- ISBN 1440803447, s.v. "Memento Mori", p. 307f and s.v. "Ars Moriendi", p. 44
- s.v.Paulists
- ^ E. Obrecht, "Trappists", The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912, s.v. Trappists
- ^ Stanley Brandes. "Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead: The Day of the Dead in Mexico and Beyond". Chapter 5: The Poetics of Death. John Wiley & Sons, 2009
- ^ Macdonald, Fiona. "What it really means to 'Seize the day'". BBC. Archived from the original on 17 June 2019. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
- ^ "Hagakure: Book of the Samurai". www.themathesontrust.org. Archived from the original on 28 February 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
- ^ "A Buddhist Guide to Death, Dying and Suffering". www.urbandharma.org. Archived from the original on 4 August 2018. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
- ^ "84000 Reading Room | The Play in Full". 84000 Translating The Words of The Buddha. Archived from the original on 1 March 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
- ^ Udānavarga, 1:22.
- ^ "Foolish Dharma of an Idiot Clothed in Mud and Feathers, in 'Dujdom Lingpa's Visions of the Great Perfection, Volume 1', B. Alan Wallace (translator), Wisdom Publications".
An oral commentary by the translator is available on YouTube Archived 23 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine - ^ "Natural Liberation | Wisdom Publications". Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
- ^ The English text is available here. Archived 2018-05-14 at the Wayback Machine The Tibetan text is available here. Archived 30 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine Oral Commentary by a student of Rinpoche, B. Alan Wallace, is available here. Archived 2 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ For instance, sura "Yasin", 36:31, "Have they not seen how many generations We destroyed before them, which indeed returned not unto them?".
- ^ "Riyad as-Salihin 579 – The Book of Miscellany – Sunnah.com – Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم)". sunnah.com. Archived from the original on 28 February 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
- ^ "Sunan Abi Dawud 3235 – Funerals (Kitab Al-Jana'iz) – Sunnah.com – Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم)". sunnah.com. Archived from the original on 28 February 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
- ^ Al-Ghazali on Death and the Afterlife, tr. by T.J. Winter. Cambridge, Islamic Texts Society, 1989.
External links
- Media related to Memento mori at Wikimedia Commons