In Memoriam - Quote Graveyard

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Edit: I have amalgamated all of my discarded signatures into one post for neatness' sake. Enjoy perusing, and feel free to lift them for your own use. I never use the same sig twice.

In Memoriam

In order to conform with the welcome new forum regulations I've selected a shorter signature quotation. I hereby commit the body of the old one to this thread. Rest in peace, old friend.

If no other knowledge deserves to be called useful but that which helps to enlarge our possessions or to raise our station in society, then Mythology has no claim to the appellation. But if that which tends to make us happier and better can be called useful, then we claim that epithet for our subject. For Mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.

Thomas Bulfinch, from the author’s preface to The Age of Fable

--

It's been a while since I changed my signature, so it's time to bid farewell to Herbert Asquith on the futility of war:

Is this a kingdom? Then give Death the crown,
For here no emperor hath won, save He.

Sanctuary Wood, 1917

--

It's time to lay this one to rest with its fellows.

So men flicker and in the mirk go out.
The world withers and the wind rises;
the candles are quenched. Cold falls the night.

I presume the author needs no introduction.

--

Although I used it for such a short time this quotation is by no means lower in my esteem than the others.

As certain as the sun behind the Downs
And quite as plain to see, the Devil walks.

Sir John Betjeman - Original Sin on the Sussex Coast

The twentieth century makes way for the third as Owen makes way for Terentianus Maurus.

I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world

And in the natural course of things, Terentianus Maurus makes way for a rather more famous writer. Therefore his words of wisdom are set here for posterity:

Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli

In other words, "The fate of books depends on the capacity of the reader" - very apt, I thought, for a Tolkien forum.

--

This one was struck down by a sudden change of mood before its time:

The world wept then, as it weeps today:
you can hear the tears through the harp's twanging.
JRRT

--
This little gem has only been supplanted by Juvenal's definition that just about sums up the world as we know it.

"Through clouds, over chimneys and corn-fields yellow,
We'll dance and laugh at the red-nosed grave-digger,
Who dreams not that Death is so merry a fellow." - Thomas Lovell Beddoes

--

A new forum merits a new signature. I lay the old one in the family vault.

Difficile est saturam non scribere - Juvenal

("It is difficult not to write satire")

--

Time, like an ever-flowing stream, bears all my sigs away. This nationalistic gem sums up an unsavoury national opinion in a nutshell.

To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life - Cecil Rhodes

--

Dante has made way for a local boy. The quotation's brilliant, though, and I'm sure that Tolkien must have liked it too.

E quindi uscimmo a rivider le stelle

("Thence we came forth to see the stars again")

--

I like Edgar's 'Poor Tom' act as much as the next heartless sadist, but when I found W.P. Ker's translation from a line in Hamthesmol, it just had to go.

"The prince of darkness is a gentleman." King Lear III, iv

--

Hamthesmol in translation makes way for an unfamiliar version of a familiar story. Blame my new linguistic studies for this change.

We have won good fame, though we die to-day or to-morrow: no man lives out the eventide when the word of the Norns is spoken

Old Lay of Hamther, tr. W.P. Ker

--

Once again we Britons are set to choose which gang of criminal incompetents will lead us for the next few years, so some very new Old English makes way for some rather more apposite old English Latin.

"MMD Hér þurh searucræftas aþóhton and beworhton þá Nold-ielfe gimmas missenlice, 7 Féanor Noldena hláford worhte þá Silmarillas, þæt wæron Eorclanstánas." Godéðles géargetæl

--

And continuing the trend of signatures in other languages, one English scholar makes way for a later one.

"Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit" Alcuin

In other words: "Nor should they be listened to who only say "The voice of the people, the voice of God," for the turbulence of the rabble is always close to insanity."

--
It's a good proverb, but it had to go in the end. I'm restoring my old habit of turning Wilfred Owen quotes into links.

”Man dēþ swā hē byþ þonne hē mōt swā hē wile”
"A person does as he is when he may do as he will" - Durham Proverb XIV

--

Well, nobody can stand war poetry for too long, so I've replaced Wilfred with a spot of aimless humour. Here's the defunct quote again

Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
'I see your lights!' But ours had long died out.

--

This wasn't the best of my signatures, but it's the only one that I invented. I've replaced it with something rather more polished.

In 2005 alone, more than three-million people worldwide developed a taste for semolina. Despite continued medical research, a cure has yet to be found.

--

The time has come to replace Oscar Wilde with something else, so this quotation is going to its long home.

"And the young man looked up and recognised Him and made answer, 'But I was dead once and you raised me from the dead. What else should I do but weep?'" - Oscar Wilde

--
I think it's time to abandon my Latin silliness. Here let it remain for posterity.

Caesar aderat forte/ Pompey adsum jam
Caesar sic in omnibus/ Pompey sic intram

--

Tolkien rolls in his grave as I replace an Old English elegy with something French. C'est la vie.

Hwilum ylfete song
dyde ic me to gomene, ganetes hleoþor
ond huilpan sweg fore hleahtor wera,
mæw singende fore medodrince.
The Seafarer ll. 19-21

"At times I took the swan's song for my entertainment; the gannet's racket and the curlew's sound in place of the laughter of men; the gulls' singing in place of mead-drinking."