Shakespeare's funerary monument

William Shakespeare's funerary monument is located inside Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, UK, the same church in which he was baptised.

The monument, by Gerard Johnson, is mounted on a wall above Shakespeare's grave. It features a bust of the poet, who holds a quill pen in one hand and a piece of paper in another. His arms are resting on a cushion. Above him is the Shakespeare family's coat of arms, on either side of which stands two allegorical figures: one, representing Labour, holds a spade, the other, representing Rest, holds a torch and a skull.

It is not known exactly when the monument was erected, but it must have been before 1623; in that year, the First Folio of Shakespeare's works was published, prefaced by a poem by Leonard Digges that mentions "thy Stratford moniment" ["sic"] .

Inscriptions

Beneath the bust is engraved a Latin epitaph and a poem in English. The Latin reads:

quotation|"IVDICIO PYLIUM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM,"
"TERRA TEGIT, POPULUS MAERET, OLYMPUS HABET"

The first line translates as "A Pylus in judgement, a Socrates in genius, a Maro in art," comparing Shakespeare to Nestor the wise King of Pylus, to the Greek philosopher Socrates, and to the Roman poet Virgil (whose last name, or "cognomen" was Maro). The second reads "The earth buries him, the people mourn him, Olympus possesses him," referring to Mount Olympus, the home of the Greek gods.

The English poem reads:

quotation|"STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST?"
"READ IF THOV CANST, WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST"
"WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE: WITH WHOME,"
"QVICK NATVRE DIDE: WHOSE NAME, DOTH DECK YS TOMBE,"
"FAR MORE, THEN COST: SIEH ALL, YT HE HATH WRITT,"
"LEAVES LIVING ART, BVT PAGE, TO SERVE HIS WITT."

In modern spelling and punctuation:

quotation|"Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast?"
"Read, if thou canst, whom envious Death hath placed"
"Within this monument: Shakespeare, with whom"
"Quick nature died, whose name doth deck this tomb"
"Far more than cost, sith ["i.e." since] all that he hath writ"
"Leaves living art, but page, to serve his wit."

Interpretations

satirised the illustration, in which Shakespeare seems to be pressing the cushion to his groin, "which, for no reason, except perhaps abdominal pains, is hugged against what dancing-masters euphemistically term the 'lower chest'". [ [http://shakespeareauthorship.com/monspiel.html M. H. Spielmann, "Shakespeare's Portraiture," in Studies in the First Folio, Oxford University Press, 1924] ] .

In the 1850s it was argued that Johnson probably used a death mask of Shakespeare, a position represented by the painter Henry Wallis in his imaginary scene portraying Ben Jonson showing the death mask to the sculptor. [Jane Martineau, "Shakespeare in Art", Merrell, 2003, p. 214]

J. Dover Wilson, a critic and biographer of Shakespeare, once remarked that the Bard's effigy makes him look like a "self-satisfied pork butcher." ["Cultural Shakespeare: Essays in the Shakespeare Myth" by Graham Holderness, Univ of Hertfordshire Press, 2001, page 152.] Sir Nikolaus Pevsner pointed out that the iconographical type represented by the bust is that of a scholar or divine; his description of the effigy is "a self-satisfied schoolmaster". [cite book | last = Pevsner | first = Nikolaus | authorlink = Nikolaus Pevsner | coauthors = and Alexandra Wedgwood | title = Warwickshire | year = 1966 | publisher = Penguin Books | location = London | id = ISBN 0-300-09679-8 | pages = page 413 ]

References and Notes