Material I’m stashing here for future reference. It’s about death and grief, approached in an elegant way, so indirectly as to be soothing in terrible times.
First from Suetonius, then from Catullus.
Gladiator days. From Wikipedia:
Avē Imperātor, moritūrī tē salūtant (‘Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you’) is a well-known Latin phrase quoted in Suetonius, De vita Caesarum (“The Life of the Caesars”, or “The Twelve Caesars”). It was reportedly used during an event in AD 52 on Lake Fucinus by naumachiarii — captives and criminals fated to die fighting during mock naval encounters — in the presence of the emperor Claudius. Suetonius reports that Claudius replied Aut nōn (‘or not’).
Variant components in the exchange include Have as the first word instead of Avē, as well as the alternate wordings Avē Caesar and Moritūrī tē salūtāmus — the latter in the 1st person (‘We who are about to die salute you’) — and a response in 15th-century texts of Avete vos (‘Fare you well’). [AZ on 8/25: which I wrote to my dying friend yesterday — this stuff is vividly with me, right now, and doing it in Latin helps to keep me from unraveling]
Despite its popularization in later times, the phrase is not recorded elsewhere in Roman history.
Words of love and lamentation. From Wikipedia:
Catullus 101 is an elegiac poem written by the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus. It is addressed to Catullus’ dead brother or, strictly speaking, to the “mute ashes” which are the only remaining evidence of his brother’s body.
Context: The tone is grief-stricken and tender, with Catullus trying to give the best gift he had to bestow (a poem) on his brother, who was taken prematurely. The last words, hail and farewell (in Latin, ave atque vale), are among Catullus’ most famous; an alternative modern translation might be ‘I salute you…and goodbye’.
Now for something not completely different. But from a totally different cultural context, deeply Christian belief in the rural American South. I’m not a believer, but I participate in singing the hymns of the Sacred Harp in 4-part harmony, which I find so powerful that it sometimes takes me into an ecstatic state. It’s an alien culture to me, and I embrace it.
Welcoming death is part of the package.
In writing to a friend on 3/9/26:
Sacred Harp 122 All Is Well, a song explicitly about welcoming death as a release from the pain of this world — a song I have long had a complex relationship to, because the sentiment is so totally not mine.
The relevant bits of the song:
verse 1
If this be death, I soon shall be,
From ev’ry pain and sorrow free,
I shall the King of glory see,
All is well, all is well!verse 2
Weep not, my friends, my friends weep not for me
All is well, all is well!
For years, I couldn’t get through verse 2 without breaking down in tears, totally against the text. All is not fucking well! My man Jacques has died (back in 2003), gone forever, and my life has come apart.
I still mourn for him, but finally saw that he did in a way live on — in me, and through me, so it was now my duty to honor him by cleaving to the best in him. I’m working on it.
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