Epitaph

Epitaph (pronounced ep-i-taf or ep-i-tahf)

(1) A commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary monument about the person buried at that site.

(2) A brief poem or written passage composed in commemoration of a dead person.

(3) A final judgment on a person or thing.

(4) To commemorate in or with an epitaph.

(5) To write or speak after the manner of an epitaph. 

1350–1400: From the Middle English epitaphe (inscription on a tomb or monument), from the Old French epitafe, from the twelfth century Old French epitaphe, from the Latin epitaphium (funeral oration, eulogy), from the Ancient Greek epitáphion (over or at a tomb; a funeral oration), (noun use of neuter of ἐπιτάφιος (epitáphios) ((words) spoken on the occasion of a funeral), the construct being epi- (From the Ancient Greek ἐπί (epí) (at, over; on top of; in addition to (in a special use in chemistry, it denotes an epimeric form))) + τάφος (táph(os)) (tomb) + -ion (the noun-adjectival suffix).  Táphos (tomb, burial, funeral) was related to taphē (interment) & thaptō (to bury) of uncertain origin.  It has long been thought derived (like the Armenian damban (tomb)) from the primitive Indo-European root dhembh- (to dig, bury) but recent scholarship has cast doubts and some etymologists suggest both the Armenian and Greek could be borrowings.  There were equivalent words in the Old English and regional variations were many; the one which survived longest was byrgelsleoð.

The companion words, which differ not only in nuance but in convention of use, include eulogy (an oration about the dead, delivered usually at a funeral or memorial service), obituary (something in written form published soon after death which provides a potted biography and epigraph (a quote engraved on a tombstone, variously plaintive, humorous or barbed).  Not quite the same but very to the point is the Latin hic jacet (literally “here lies”).  Epitaph is a noun or verb (used with object), epitaphic, epitaphial, epitaphed & epitaphless are adjectives, epitaphically is an adverb and epitaphist is a noun.  The noun plural is epitaphs.

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Jonathan Swift's marble memorial, St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

One of the most celebrated epitaphs in English was saeva indignatio (literally “savage indignation”) which appeared on the tomb of the delightfully wicked Anglo-Irish satirist & poet Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), expressing a resigned contempt at human folly.  Swift is probably best remembered for Gulliver's Travels (1726) but it was A Modest Proposal (1729) which defined the genre of satire and work in this vein is often still labeled "Swiftian".  Swift started his political life as a Whig but ended it a Tory, becoming an Anglican cleric who was appointed Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Swift not only wrote his own epitaph but left instructions also for the stonemason and the authorities of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, the memorial to be rendered in black marble, mounted seven feet from the ground, the large letters to be deeply cut and strongly gilded.  His specifications were followed but the stridency of Swift's Latin displeased a few who, finding it harsh or inelegant, didn't always reproduce it with complete fidelity.  The translation into modern English is Here is laid the body of Jonathan Swift.....where savage indignation can no longer tear his heart. Depart, wayfarer, and imitate if you can a man who to his utmost strenuously championed liberty.  Fellow Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) rendered it as the punchier Swift has sailed into his rest; savage indignation there cannot lacerate his breast.  Imitate him if you dare, world-besotted traveller; he served human liberty.

Epitaph (1990) by Charles Mingus (CBS–466631 2).

Charles Mingus (1922–1979) was an American double bassist, pianist, composer and bandleader and one of the seminal figures in jazz.  Although lauded for the way his bands would interpolate passages of collective improvisation into performance pieces, he was influential also in his structured compositions, some of which were, by the standards of the genre, unusually long.  None however matched his Epitaph, comprising over four-thousand measures (a grouping of beats, which indicates the meter of a particular piece of music) and demanding more than two hours to perform, ranking with epic-length pieces such as Wynton Marsalis’s (b 1961) Blood On The Fields (1997) and Carla Bley’s (b 1936) Escalator Over The Hill (1968-1971); only Wadada Leo Smith’s (b 1941) sprawling Ten Freedom Summers (2012), unfolding over five hours, runs longer.

It’s not clear how long Mingus worked on Epitaph and its gestation may have absorbed as long as Ten Freedom Summers (thirty-four years in the making) because fragments of Epitaph were performed as early as 1962 although whether it was then envisaged as what it became is unknown.  It was only after his death, while Mingus’s work was being catalogued, that the whole of Epitaph was assembled and the score compiled.  This enabled the piece to be performed in 1989 by a thirty-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller (1925-2015) and produced by Mingus's widow, Sue Graham Mingus (b circa 1933).  It has since had a number of performances, several in 2007, and the complete score has been published.

Lindsay Lohan reading the epitaphs, graveyard scene in I know who killed me (2007).

Epitaph, full of melodies, is rewarding and not entirely unfamiliar because Mingus over the years included several snatches in live recordings and concerts preformed with smaller bands, playfully sampling the music of a few others in sections although that’s not typical of Epitaph, a work all have noted for its originality.  A two-hour suite for thirty-one musicians is not necessarily unwieldy but Epitaph is complicated and really demands a band both familiar with each-other and well-rehearsed.  It’s not the sort of piece suited to an ensemble, however virtuosic, assembled for a one-off performance and the definitive performance which one day will be released will likely have been carefully edited and polished from any number of studio sessions.  Technically, it’s challenging for a conductor, there are shifts between melodic strains which sometimes are sudden and sometimes overlap, parts apparently unresolved skid to a stop, tempos pick-up at various paces and there’s an underlying cross-talking between extreme-register instruments; doubtlessly it's no less difficult for the musicians, two pianists, two bassists, a drummer and two percussionists needing peacefully to co-exist although, this is Mingus and that means creative tension is lives between the notes.  Even once détente was established however, there's still the piece itself to conquer, not all of it in the familiar language of jazz for there are vertiginous jumps in register, fast phrases slurring effortlessly to the languid and the jar sometimes of the polytonality of which American composers of the twentieth century were so fond.  Critics and other aficionados of the art were enchanted but it’s suspected there were those who dipped in and out of their CD and listened just to the bits they liked.