Every Third Thought by Robert McCrum

Author:Robert McCrum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

13

THE GOOD DEATH

‘The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.’

George Eliot, Middlemarch

Later, I discovered that I had wrongly assumed ars moriendi to have a classical, Graeco-Roman origin. On closer examination, it turns out to have been a phenomenon from the Middle Ages that may have evolved in response to the horrors of medieval medicine. The original, so-called ‘long version’, entitled Tractatus artis bene moriendi, composed in 1415 by an anonymous Dominican friar, was widely translated, and became much read in England, where the idea of ‘the good death’ filtered into literature.

As a popular title, Tractatus artis bene moriendi was also among the first books printed with movable type, and became circulated in nearly one hundred editions before 1500. This ‘long version’ survives in about three hundred manuscript versions.

Ars moriendi divides into six parts: the first chapter explains that dying has a good side, and serves to console the terminally ill that death is not something to fear. The second chapter outlines the five temptations – lack of faith, despair, impatience, spiritual pride and avarice – that beset the dying, and how to avoid them.

The next chapter identifies the seven questions to ask a dying man, along with the consolation available to him through the redemptive powers of the Saviour’s love. This is followed by a chapter expressing the need to imitate Christ’s life. The fifth chapter addresses the friends and family, and outlines the general rules of behaviour at the deathbed. Finally, the sixth includes appropriate prayers to be said for the dying.

Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare both expressed clear views about good ways of going. In the prologue to his final novel, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, Cervantes likens the impending end of his life to reaching the end of the road after travelling with friends old and new, whom he wishes he could go on conversing with. Shakespeare’s understanding of death is polyvalent and all-encompassing. In Measure for Measure, the Duke of Vienna, disguised as a friar, instructs:

Be absolute for death. Either death or life

Shall thereby be the sweeter . . . .

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.