Everyone’s going to bed here at headquarters, but I think I have some time to type in one of my favorite translations from one of my favorite authors. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) was surely the most notorious rake and hell-raiser of the court of Charles II, but he was also one of the most naturally gifted poets of his time.

After death nothing is, and nothing, death:
The utmost limit of a gasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside
His hope of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;
Let slavish souls lay by their fear,
Nor be concerned which way nor where
After this life they shall be hurled.
Dead, we become lumber of the world,
And to that mass of matter shall be swept
Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.
Devouring time swallows us whole;
Impartial death confounds body and soul.
For Hell and the foul fiend that rules
God’s everlasting fiery jails
(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),
With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idle tales,
Dreams, whimseys, and no more.

Interestingly enough, Rochester made a last-minute death bed conversion that was just as sensational as the life that went before it. (A bit like Rimbaud’s, I guess.) And which was trotted out again and again through the 18th and 19th centuries as a warning against mockers and revilers. Seneca, on the other hand, killed himself when he was implicated in a plot against Nero’s life. Lucan, yet another of my favorite poets and a nephew of Seneca’s, was forced to kill himself because he was too was suspected to be in league with the conspirators.

Having gotten all of this grim business out of the way, time to get some rest.