Lament

Lament (pronounced luh-ment)

(1) To feel or express sorrow or regret for.

(2) To mourn for or over.

(3) An expression of grief or sorrow.

(4) A formal expression of sorrow or mourning, especially in verse or song; an elegy or dirge.

1520-1530: Ultimately, the noun was from the Latin lāmentum (plaint) and the verb from the Latin lāmentārī (to wail, moan, weep, lament), a derivative of lāmentum (a wailing, moaning, weeping).  In English, lament was a backformation from lamentation or else from the fourteenth century Middle French lamenter (to moan, to bewail" or directly from the Latin lāmentārī (from lāmentum).  The other formation in Latin was lāmentor (I wail, I weep”), from lāmenta (wailings, laments, moanings), the construct being la- (thought likely imitative) + the formative –mentum in the sense of “to project”.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, 2011.

The adjective lamented in the sense of "mourned for" is from 1610 and the use as a form of mourning or lyric poetry dates from the 1690s.  Given the nature of man, the adjective unlamented, attested since the 1590s, is often used.  Lament & lamenting are nouns & verbs, lamentations & lamenter are nouns, lamentable and (the unpleasingly rare) lamentful are adjectives, lamentingly is an adverb and lamented is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is laments but lamentations has appeared often in print because of the Book of Lamentations in the Christian Bible's Old Testament.

Destruction of Temple of Jerusalem (1867), oil on canvas by Francesco Hayez (1791-1882), Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.

The Old Testament’s Book of Lamentations (from אֵיכָה‎, (‘Êykhôh) (how) in the Hebrew), written probably during the sixth century BC, commemorates in five poems the destruction in 586-587 BC of Jerusalem by the neo-Babylonians.  Lamentations is a bleak work which documents undeserved suffering and focuses on the dead and those who mourn their loss.  It seems clear that for those forsaken by God, hopes of redemption are scant although, despite it all, it’s clear that even if God has tired of Israel, the Israelites must keep the faith and hope one day for His grace.  There’s an exploration too of guilt, the Book of Lamentations drawing from ancient texts the teaching that the destruction of the holy city was God’s retribution for the sin and wickedness of the inhabitants.  Scholars note that it would not have been challenging to compose the text because "...the stock of lament language was, by this time, already richly developed in Israelite religion" and the "... genre of lament owes much to ancient Mesopotamian tradition and practice that continue unabated until late biblical times."

Google ngram

Google ngram (a quantitative and not qualitative measure): Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.  The ngram's graph of the notional use of "Laments" and "Lamentations" is a good example of the way certain words can be "over-represented" in the historic record because of specific influences or circumstances.  In the case of "Lamentations" there's the existence of the Christian Bible which reliably is reported as the world's best-selling and most printed book (there may have been over six billion over the last 1,500-odd years and an estimated 90 million annually leave the presses), added to which are the many commentaries on the text.

The theme of the Book of Lamentations is an exploration of a single theological problem: "How are we to understand an live with a merited punishment that has produced such shocking and excessive results, one that creates new injustices?"  Pondering that in the 2020s, it seems a remarkably topical question.  Clearly where there is sin without repentance there will be punishment and that can be severe because God's wrath can be great but although biblical scholars don't devote much attention to the book's most quoted passages (3:22-23), in the modern era they're the most re-produced as fragments and the ones most likely to be interpolated into sermons.  King James Version (KJV, 1611) 3:22-23:

22 It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.   

The biblical message thus is: (1) There are consequences for sin and if repentance is refused even if offered time and again, God will deliver the appropriate judgment.  (2) Lamentation is the way to express grief and one good for the soul for in life there must be sadness. (3) Beyond despair there is always hope.  Although the people of Judah had defied God, committed idolatry, been adulterous and performed abominations and thereby deserved their just punishment, even in his judgment, God offers hope with the dawning of each new day.

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855).

Some anthologies include Charlotte Brontë’s poem Life (1846) among the laments but that may be the lingering effect of Elizabeth Gaskell's (1810–1865) 1857 biography, a very Victorian work which managed to portray the author of the deliciously depraved Jane Eyre (1847) as the doomed, saint-like victim of the circumstances which crushed her and the consumption which stalked her.  The old curmudgeon G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936) reckoned that while a good biography told one much about the subject, a bad one revealed all one needed to know about the author.  Gaskell’s crafted miserabilia of course created a legend of its own, a kind of death cult for those for whom victimhood isn’t quite enough so Charlotte Brontë has long been on the emo reading list (a very specific sub-set of the canon).  However, whatever might have been the tone of reviews penned by critics who found little to admire in works by women, even jaded types like the editors employed by publishing houses were captivated by her words, one employee of the her publisher (Smith Elder) noting in his diary: “After breakfast on Sunday morning I took the manuscript of Jane Eyre to my little study, and began to read it.  The story took me captive.  When the servant came to tell me that luncheon was ready I asked him to brim me a sandwich and a glass of wine, and still went on with Jane Eyre.  Dinner came; for me the meal was a very hasty one; and before I went to bed that night I had finished reading the manuscript.”

She deserved better than the gloomy impression left by Elizabeth Gaskell and history has been kind.  Life is a poem which notes why one might lament the vicissitudes of existence but doesn’t long dwell on it and one suspects Charlotte Brontë found life on Earth enchanting.  As one might gather from Jane Eyre, she thought it better to better to lust for life than long lament losses.

Life (1846) by Charlotte Brontë

Life, believe, is not a dream

So dark as sages say;

Oft a little morning rain

Foretells a pleasant day.

 

Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,

But these are transient all;

If the shower will make the roses bloom,

O why lament its fall?

 

Rapidly, merrily,

Life's sunny hours flit by,

Gratefully, cheerily,

Enjoy them as they fly!

 

What though Death at times steps in

And calls our Best away?

What though sorrow seems to win,

O'er hope, a heavy sway?

 

Yet hope again elastic springs,

Unconquered, though she fell;

Still buoyant are her golden wings,

Still strong to bear us well.

 

Manfully, fearlessly,

The day of trial bear,

For gloriously, victoriously,

Can courage quell despair!