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48-456: Based on its structure and language, the artifact is generally understood to have been an epitaph (a tombstone inscription) created by a man named Seikilos and possibly dedicated to a woman named Euterpe. An alternative view, put forward by Armand D'Angour , holds that the inscription does not mark a tomb, but was instead a monument erected by Seikilos himself to commemorate his musical and poetic skill. The elegiac distich (also called couplet)

96-537: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

144-440: A Hampshire Grenadier Who caught his early death by drinking cold small beer. Soldiers, be wise at his untimely fall, And when you're hot, drink strong or none at all. To save your world you asked this man to die: Would this man, could he see you now, ask why? When you go home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, we gave our today There is borne an empty hearse covered over for such as appear not. Heroes have

192-472: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and

240-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in

288-414: A long-lasting marker of undying memory". Alternatively, Pilch (2011) translates the opening sentence as "I am an image in stone [...]". In all cases, the language of the distich implies that the stone should be imagined as speaking to the reader in first person and in the present tense ; a familiar structure that is commonly found in ancient epitaphs, where the stone appears to 'speak' to the passer-by (see

336-523: A mural monument or plaque erected in a church, often close to, but not directly over, a person's place of burial. Examples include German Epitaph ; Dutch epitaaf ; Hungarian epitáfium ; Polish epitafium ; Danish epitafium ; Swedish epitafium ; and Estonian epitaaf . The history of epitaphs extends as far back as the ancient Egyptians and have differed in delivery. The ancient Greeks utilised emotive expression, written in elegiac verse , later in prose. Ancient Romans ' use of epitaphs

384-543: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

432-671: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek , and Koine may be classified as Ancient Greek in a wider sense. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek

480-609: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as

528-595: A tribute to the memory of his father William Waterhouse . The South African poet Gert Vlok Nel wrote an (originally) untitled song, which appeared on his first music album "Beaufort-Wes se Beautiful Woorde" as "Epitaph", because his producer Eckard Potgieter told him that the song sounded like an epitaph. David Bowie 's final album, Blackstar , released in 2016, is generally seen as his musical epitaph, with singles " Blackstar " and " Lazarus " often singled out. Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes

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576-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

624-556: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of

672-399: Is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves before their death, while others are chosen by those responsible for the burial. An epitaph may be written in prose or in poem verse . Most epitaphs are brief records of

720-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

768-644: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to

816-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

864-549: Is to request the reader to get off their resting place, inasmuch as the reader would have to be standing on the ground above the coffin to read the inscription. Some record achievements (e.g., past politicians note the years of their terms of office). Nearly all (excepting those where this is impossible by definition, such as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier ) note name, year or date of birth, and date of death. Many list family members and

912-745: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

960-535: The Laudatio Turiae , the longest known Ancient Roman epitaph, exceeds almost all of these at 180 lines; it celebrates the virtues of an honored wife (sometimes identified, but not generally accepted, as the Wife of consul Quintus Lucretius Vespillo ). Some are quotes from holy texts, or aphorisms . One approach of many epitaphs is to "speak" to the reader and warn them about their own mortality. A wry trick of others

1008-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

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1056-566: The 16th century, epitaphs had become more literary in nature and those written in verse were involved in trade. In America and Britain, comedic epitaphs are common in the form of acrostics, palindromes, riddles, and puns on names and professions – Robert Burns , the most prolific pre-Romantic epitaphist, wrote 35 pieces, them being largely satirical. The rate of literary epitaphs has been historically overshadowed by "popular sepulchral inscriptions which are produced in countless numbers at all time"; "strictly literary" epitaphs were most present during

1104-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

1152-490: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

1200-519: The Sun for narrator, chamber choir, piano, flute, clarinet and percussion. In 1969, King Crimson released the song Epitaph , giving a reference to epitaphs within the song. Bronius Kutavičius composed in 1998 Epitaphium temporum pereunti . Valentin Silvestrov composed in 1999 Epitaph L.B. (Епітафія Л.Б.) for viola (or cello) and piano. In 2007 Graham Waterhouse composed Epitaphium for string trio as

1248-452: The adventurer Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death! Oh God ( Devanagari : हे राम ) I've finally stopped getting dumber. ( Hungarian : Végre nem butulok tovább. ) We must know. We will know. ( German : Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen. ) Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by that here, obedient to their law, we lie. Here sleeps at peace

1296-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

1344-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

1392-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West

1440-611: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

1488-457: The distich translates in English as: "I, the stone, am an image and Seikilos places me here (to be) a long-lasting monument to immortal memory" D'Angour (2021) maintains that the translation of the letter "Η" ( Eta ) as "the" ( ἡ ) results in an awkward phrasing in Greek, and thus prefers the conjunctive "and" ( ἤ ), which translates as "I am an image and a stone; Seikilos sets me up here as

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1536-716: The dvst encloased heare. Bleste be yͤ man yͭ spares thes stones, And cvrst be he yͭ moves my bones. (In modern spelling): Good friend, for Jesus's sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones. Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by! Heroes and Kings your distance keep; In peace let one poor poet sleep, Who never flattered folks like you; Let Horace blush and Virgil too. Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please. Homo sum!

1584-942: The epitaph of Simonides ). Below the distich follows a brief poem, also in all-capitals, with vocal notation signs above the words. The text, here excluding the musical notations (followed below by the polytonic script and Latin transliteration), reads: ΟΣΟΝ ΖΗΣ ΦΑΙΝΟΥ / ΜΗΔΕΝ ΟΛΩΣ ΣΥ / ΛΥΠΟΥ ΠΡΟΣ ΟΛΙ / ΓΟΝ ΕΣΤΙ ΤΟ ΖΗΝ / ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ Ο ΧΡΟ / ΝΟΣ ΑΠΑΙΤΕΙ ὅσον [ˈoson] hóson ζῇς , [ze̝s], zêis, φαίνου [ˈpʰɛnu] phaínou | | | μηδὲν [me̝ˈden] mēdèn ὅλως [ˈolos] hólōs σὺ [sy] sỳ λυποῦ [ˈlypu] lypoû | | | πρὸς [pros] pròs ὀλίγον [oˈliɡon] olígon ἔστι [ˈesti] ésti τὸ [to] tò ζῆν Epitaph An epitaph (from Ancient Greek ἐπιτάφιος (epitáphios)  'a funeral oration'; from ἐπι- (epi-)  'at, over' and τάφος (táphos)  'tomb')

1632-500: The family, and perhaps the career, of the deceased, often with a common expression of love or respect—for example, "beloved father of ..."—but others are more ambitious. From the Renaissance to the 19th century in Western culture, epitaphs for notable people became increasingly lengthy and pompous descriptions of their family origins, career, virtues and immediate family, often in Latin. Notably,

1680-663: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been

1728-556: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from

1776-472: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to

1824-496: The matter, possibly contributing towards its flourishing in the latter half of the 18th century. Epitaphs never became a major poetic form and, according to Romantic scholar Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch, they had "virtually disappeared" by 1810. "The art of the epitaph was largely lost in the 20th century", wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica . Sarcophagi and coffins were the choice of ancient Egyptians for epitaphs; brasses

1872-499: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

1920-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

1968-414: The relationship of the deceased to them (for example, "Father / Mother / Son / Daughter of"). In English, and in accordance with the word's etymology, the word "epitaph" refers to a textual commemoration of a person, which may or may not be inscribed on a monument. In many European languages, however, the meaning of the word (or its close equivalent) has broadened to mean the monument itself, specifically

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2016-493: The start of the Romantic period . The Lake Poets have been credited with providing success to epitaph-writing adjacent to that of poetry significance – Robert Southey, in focusing simultaneously upon transience and eternity, contributed substantially. General interest for epitaphs was waning at the cusp of the 19th century, in contrast to a considerable burgeoning intellectual interest. Critical essays had been published before on

2064-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

2112-619: The whole earth for their tomb. And the beat goes on. That's all folks! I told you I was ill. ( Irish : Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite. ) Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty I'm Free at last. He never killed a man that did not need killing. In a more figurative sense, the term may be used for music composed in memory of the deceased. Igor Stravinsky composed in 1958 Epitaphium for flute, clarinet and harp. In 1967 Krzysztof Meyer called his Symphony No. 2 for choir and orchestra Epitaphium Stanisław Wiechowicz in memoriam . Jeffrey Lewis composed Epitaphium – Children of

2160-475: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

2208-477: Was more blunt and uniform, typically detailing facts of the deceased – as did the earliest epitaphs in English churches. "May the earth lie light upon thee" was a common inscription for them. Due to the influence of Roman occupiers, the dominant language of epitaphs was Latin, evidenced by the oldest existing epitaphs in Britain. French and English came into fashion around the 13th and 14th centuries, respectively. By

2256-609: Was the prominent format for a significant period of time. Epitaphs upon stone monuments became a common feature by the Elizabethan era . Stock phrases or standard elements present in epitaphs on mediaeval church monuments and ledger stones in England include: While you live, shine have no grief at all life exists only for a short while and Time demands his due. This is my father's crime against me, which I myself committed against none. Good frend for İesvs sake forebeare, To digg

2304-478: Was written on top of the tombstone and precedes the song. Originally in all-capitals (followed below by the polytonic lowercase and Latin transliteration ), it reads: ΕΙΚΩΝ Η ΛΙΘΟΣ / ΕΙΜΙ ∙ ΤΙΘΗΣΙ ΜΕ / ΣΕΙΚΙΛΟΣ ΕΝΘΑ / ΜΝΗΜΗΣ ΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΥ / ΣΗΜΑ ΠΟΛΥΧΡΟΝΙΟΝ Εἰκὼν ἡ λίθος εἰμί . τίθησί με Σεικίλος ἔνθα μνήμης ἀθανάτου σῆμα πολυχρόνιον . eikṑn ḗ líthos eimí. títhēsí me Seikílos éntha mnḗmēs athanátou sêma polykhrónion . Per Landels (2002),

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