Famous Last Words

临终名言

With few exceptions, the last words of history's great players have been about as interesting and uplifting as a phone book.1 We may expect pearls of profundity from our expiring artists, philosophers, and world leaders, but more often we are left with dry-as-dust clich's.2

Admittedly, it's not exactly fair to expect deep insights into life's mysteries when the dying clearly have other things on their minds --- hell, for instance, or unspeakable pain. Bullet-riddled Francisco "Pancho" Villa was probably preoccupied when he told a comrade,3 "Don't let it end this way. Tell them I said something." But don't we have the right to expect eloquence in the final stanzas of legendary wordsmiths like Lord Byron and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?4 Byron couldn't be bothered to work up a decent rhyme: "Now I shall go to sleep. Good night."5 Goet he's last words were so dull biographers have been obliged to edit creatively6; "
Open the second shutter so that more light may come in" became the more sublime "More light!" (There is, by the way, some debate whether Goethe's last words were not, in fact, "Come my little one, and give me your paw.")

And one is loath to mention Walt Whitman's last barbaric yawp7: "Hold me up; I want to shit." Legendary wag Oscar Wilde's8 last words were nothing more than shop talk. Commenting on a novel he had recently read, Wilde said, "This is a fine study of the American politician and possesses the quality of truth in characterization. What else has the lady written?"

Queens have left little more for the living to chew on. Elizabeth I was whiny ("All my possessions for a moment of time"), while Marie Antoinette was clumsy but polite: "Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur," she said, after treading upon her executioner'toe.9

Ironically, it may have been the relatively obscure who delivered history's best exit lines.10 Has anyone departed the scene better than minor English playwright Henry Arthur Jones, who, asked whom he would prefer to sit with him during the evening, his nurse or his niece, replied, "The prettier. Now fight for it." Actor
Edmund Gwenn was terse11: "Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult." And you have to admire the singleness of purpose in the last words of French grammarian Dominique Bouhours: "I am about to --- or I am going to --- die; either expression is used."For sheer entertainment value, you can't beat the last words of condemned prisoners, particularly if you have a fondness for graveyard humor.12 Asked by the firing squad commander if he had a last request, James Roges said, "Why yes. A bullet proof vest!"13 And you've got to love a condemned murderer who can continue to cut up from the electric chair. "How about this for a headline in tomorrow's paper," James French said. "French Fries!"14

Some last words will forever remain an enigma15, their meaning gone to the grave along with their speakers. Henry David Thoreau's "Moose, Indian," for instance, and the eerie last words of John Wilkes Booth as he emerged from a burning barn, fatally wounded, looked at his hands and muttered, "Useless, useless."16 In a similar vein, what to make of conductor Leonard Bernstein's last words ?nbsp;"What's this?" ?nbsp;or novelist Victor Hugo's "I see black light"?17

To me, the most genuine last words are those that arise naturally from the moment, such as Voltaire's response to a request that he forswear Satan18: "This is no time to make new enemies." Compare that to the stagy, obviously rehearsed "Now comes the mystery" (Henry Ward Beecher) or Ludwig van Beethoven's "Friends, applaud. The comedy is over."19

It may well be that planning your last words is no more profitable a pursuit than preparing your Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Who can say when the Grim Reaper20 will tap a bony finger on your shoulder? It is unlikely that poet Dylan Thomas thought "I've had 18 straight whiskeys. I think that's the record" was going to be his swan song.21

Could it be that "great last words" are a myth of the hale and hearty, and that the expiring understand that the deathbed is no place for 11th-hour philosophizing?22 Didn't Christ himself sign off with the unpretentious "It is finished"? Besides, why should the mundane23 act of dying bring one any closer to the truth? Karl Marx may have had it right, for once, when he answered his housekeeper's request for last words with: "Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!"

1. 几乎无一例外，历史舞台上那些伟大的表演者们临终时所说的话在趣味性和励志方面其实 与一本电话簿差不了多少。

2. 我们可能会期待着我们的艺术大师、哲人和世界领袖们在弥留之际说出一些深奥的珠玑之言，但是更多的时候我们听到的只是一些干巴巴的陈词滥调。

3. riddle: 把……打得满是窟窿； Francisco "Pancho" Villa: 维亚（1878-1923），墨西哥革命领袖，农民出身，率众起义，功成身退后遭暗杀；preoccupied: 全神贯注的，入神的。

4. 可是像拜伦勋爵和歌德这样非凡的语言艺术家们，指望他们能给我们留下最后的出语不凡的诗篇应该不算非分之想吧？stanza: 诗节；legendary: 传奇的，非凡的；wordsmith: 词语大师，语言艺术家；Lord Byron: 拜伦勋爵（1788-1824），英国诗人，出身破落贵族家庭，反抗专制压迫，追求民主自由，诗路宽广，擅长讽刺，在投身希腊民族独立战争中病逝，代表作有《唐璜》等；Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: 歌德（1749-1832），德国诗人、作家，集文学、艺术、自然科学、哲学、政治等成就于一身，写有不同体裁的大量文学著作，代表作有诗剧《浮士德》、小说《少年维特之烦恼》。

5. 拜伦不愿再费劲去想合适的韵脚了：“我得睡了。晚安。”can't be bothered: 不愿找麻烦，不想出力； work up: 精心作出。

6. 歌德的临终遗言实在太过乏味，传记作者们不得不作了创造性的改写。

7. loath: 不愿意的，厌恶的；Walt Whitman: 惠特曼（1819-1892），美国诗人，背离传统诗体，勇于创新，其诗作表达了强烈的民主精神，作品有《草叶集》、《桴鼓集》等。barbaric: 粗野的；yawp: 粗声叫喊。

8. wag: 能言善辩的人；

9. 女王和王后们也没有给世人留下更多的可玩味的东西。伊丽莎白一世显得有些烦躁（“身外物都是过眼烟云。”），而玛丽·安托瓦内特尽管笨手笨脚，倒是很有礼貌，她在踩了刽子手一脚后说： “对不起，先生。”Elizabeth I: 伊丽莎白一世（1533-1603），英国女王，恢复英国国教，击溃西班牙无敌舰队，确立海上霸权，奖励工商业，促进文化艺术的繁荣，终身未婚；whiny: 烦躁的，焦躁不安的。

10. 具有讽刺意味的是，历史上最杰出的告别辞往往出自那些相对说来不那么出名的人士之口。

11. terse: 简练的。

12. 如果仅仅出于娱乐的目的，那么，没有什么比得上被处死刑的囚犯们的临终遗言，特别是如果你对墓地幽默情有独钟的话。

13. firing squad: 行刑队；bulletproof vest: 防弹背心。

14. cut up: 胡闹；French Fries!在这里的意思是“French 被电刑处死！”，而这个词组通常的意思则是“法式油炸土豆条”。

15. enigma: 谜，费解的事物。

16. Henry David Thoreau: 梭罗（1817-1862），美国作家，超验主义运动的代表人物，主张回归自然，其《论公民的不服从》一文影响巨大；moose:驼鹿；eerie: 怪诞的，奇异的；John Wilkes Booth: 布思（1838-1865），美国演员，公开主张实行奴隶制，刺杀林肯总统的凶手，被追捕时毙命。

17. vein:倾向，特色；Leonard Bernstein: 伯恩斯坦（1918-1990），美国指挥家、作曲家、钢琴家，曾任纽约市交响乐团指导与指挥；Victor Hugo: 雨果（1802-1885），法国作家， 法国浪漫主义文学运动领袖，主要作品有小说《巴黎圣母院》、《悲惨世界》、诗歌《惩罚集》等。

18. Voltaire: 伏尔泰（1694-1778），法国启蒙思想家、作家、哲学家，著有《哲学书简》、哲理小说《老实人》等；forswear: 发誓否认，坚决否认；Satan:撒旦。

19. stagy: 做作的； Henry Ward Beecher: 比彻（1813-1887），美国基督教公理会自由派牧师、废奴运动领袖；Ludwig van Beethoven: 贝多芬（1770-1827），德国作曲家，其创作集西方古典乐派之大成，开浪漫乐派之先河，对后世西洋音乐的发展有深远影响。

20. the Grim Reaper: 狰狞的持镰收割者（指死神）。

21. 诗人迪廉·托马斯肯定想不到那句“我一气喝了18瓶威士忌，肯定创记录了”会成为他的绝唱。Dylan Thomas: 托马斯（1914-1953），英国诗人，作品多探索生与死、爱情与信仰的主题，著有诗集《死亡和出场》和《诗集》、散文《艺术家作为一条小狗的画像》及广播剧《奶树林下》等；swan song:西方古老传说中天鹅临死时会发出忧伤动听的歌声，现用以指代（诗人、音乐家等的）最后作品或言行等。

22. myth: 虚构信念、观点；hale and hearty: 健壮的，精神抖擞的；deathbed: 临终床；11th-hour: 最后时刻的。

23. mundane/;m7n#dein/: 尘世的，世俗的。

* Oscar Wilde: 王尔德（1854-1900），爱尔兰作家、诗人，19世纪末英国唯美主义的主要代表，作品有戏剧《认真的重要》、《少奶奶的扇子》和长篇小说《道林·格雷的肖像》。

Marie Antoinette: 玛丽·安托瓦内特（1755-1793），法王路易十六的王后，神圣罗马帝国皇帝弗兰西斯一世之女，勾结奥地利干涉法国革命，被抓获交付革命法庭审判，处死于断头台。Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur.: [法语]，相当于Pardon me, Sir.。