What was written on shakespeares gravestone

The first sentence brings the reader close to the speaker; the second offers a prospective view of two potential agents, one good and one bad, a sort of Last Judgment, where a sheep is directed to one side and a goat to another. Isaac first proffers the curse and then moves to the serene outcome of the blessing. Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well, Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong! Goddess, allow this aged man his right To be your beadsman now, that was your knight. That is in itself a notional resurrection, competing with a more orthodox Christian view of life after death.

Granted, in this case and in the Last Judgment, resurrection is to have been accomplished by divine, not human, agency. On the other hand, when Mary Magdalene visits the tomb of Jesus on the Sunday after his crucifixion, she discovers an empty tomb. Her first thought is that the body has been stolen. He wants them to stay where they are. Because he finds the prospect of grave robbers frightening and repellent?

Because he does believe in an afterlife and is afraid of what it might hold in store? We can only raise these questions, not answer them. In the event, his bones did stay put until accidental and unknown circumstances removed them, with the result that the visitor is con- fronted with a tomb as empty as its gospel prototype. The epitaph rings changes on three substances, dust, stones, and bones. To be reminded that we are dust encourages us to amend our lives before it is too late, to do good while we can.

One good deed we might perform is to grant the wishes of a friend who asks to have his remains left undisturbed. Just as those who have gone ahead must expect a Last Judgment, so should we, and revise our conduct accordingly. If we are all clay born from the body of Mother Earth, our dust also returns to be buried in her; we begin in the womb and ultimately return to its rhyme.

Dissolution into dust is accomplished in a final embrace of the matrix that earth is and a recovery of complete unconsciousness, a state Shakespeare, like Hamlet, seems to prefer to life after death. That's why the curse on his grave at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-Upon-Avon should be taken seriously:. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones. It's thought that the warning was penned by Shakespeare himself. In his day, it was common for bodies to be exhumed for research purposes or even just to make room for more burials, and the Bard did not want that to happen to his remains.

Did you know Shakespeare's grave was. Even though he knew he would be buried under a stone slab inside a church, Shakespeare was worried about grave robbers and people disturbing his bones. He actually had a lot of reasons to worry see the articles below. In order to scare off any potential thieves, Shakespeare wrote the following epitaph as a deterrent:. Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare, To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones.

The curse is taken so seriously that as recently as construction workers were careful to work around the bones without disturbing them. Unfortunately, at some point someone less reputable, and less afraid of curses, seems to have stolen his skull.