Today marks the eightieth anniversary of Victory over Japan Day (VJ-Day). On this day, it seems appropriate to remember the epitaph that is carved on the memorial of the 2nd British Division in the cemetery at Kohima:
When you go home, tell them of us and say,
For your tomorrow, we gave our today.
John Maxwell Edmonds (21st January 1875 – 18th March 1958) was an English classicist, poet and dramatist and is credited with writing this epitaph in 1918. It was inspired by an epigram written by the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos to the fallen at the Battle of Thermopylae:
Tell them in Lacedaemon, passer-by
That here, obedient to their word, we lie.
Lest we forget.
ReplyDeleteConrad Kinch,
DeleteAmen to that.
All the best,
Bob
May I suggest a couple of memorable epitaphs, the first in respect of Alexander the Great: “A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough”
ReplyDeleteAnd then some words from the very first service of Nine Lessons and Carols (Eric Milner-White, 1918; who had been an Army Chaplain in the Great War): “…let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom we for evermore are one.” (The whole prayer of which this is the most moving part, has been described as the most powerful to have been written since the Prayer Book.)
Toby E,
DeleteThanks for the excellent suggestions for suitable epitaphs. I have a vague memory of both; the first from my (albeit brief) foray into learning Greek at school and the second from a service I must have attended in my youth ... just before I was asked to stop attending church when I expressed doubts about the Trinity, much preferring the Unitarian point of view. (The vicar was the father of one of my school friends and was rather strict with regard to anyone who expressed doubt about the church's teachings.)
All the best,
Bob
PS. I was interested to note that Eric Milner-White served as a curate at St Mary Magdalene Church in Woolwich before the Great War. It is the church I got married in back in 1982.