Burial Rites Quotes

To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things.

At Camp Half-Blood. The Hades cabin needs a head counsellor. Have you seen the decor? It’s disgusting. I’ll have to renovate. And someone needs to do the burial rites properly, since demigods insist on dying heroically.’ ‘That’s – that’s fantastic! Dude!’ Jason opened his arms for a hug, then froze. ‘Right. No touching. Sorry.’ Nico grunted. ‘I suppose we can make an exception.’ Jason squeezed him so hard Nico thought his ribs would crack.

I can turn to that day as though it were a page in a book. It’s written so deeply upon my mind I can almost taste the ink.

It’s not fair. People claim to know you through the things you’ve done, and not by sitting down and listening to you speak for yourself.

I was worst to the one I loved best.

Any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel.

Blíndur er bóklaus ma∂ur. Blind is a man without a book.

I don't want to be remembered, I want to be here!

They see I’ve got a head on my shoulders, and believe a thinking woman cannot be trusted.

The treachery of a friend is worse than that of a foe.

I cannot think of what it was not to love him. To look at him and realise I had found what I had not known I was hungering for. A hunger so deep, so capable of driving me into the night, that it terrified me.

She invented her own language to say what everyone else could only feel.

They will see the whore, the madwoman, the murderess, the female dripping blood into the grass and laughing with her mouth choked with dirt. They will say “Agnes” and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. I will not be there.

Memories shift like loose snow in a wind, or are a chorale of ghosts all talking over one another. There is only ever a sense that what is real to me is not real to others, and to share a memory with someone is to risk sullying my belief in what has truly happened.

I preferred to read than talk with the others.

Of all the names, one is a mistake. One is a nightmare. The stair you miss in the darkness.

She made mistakes and others made up their minds about her. People around here don’t let you forget your misdeeds. They think them the only things worth writing down.

I remain quiet. I am determined to close myself to the world, to tighten my heart and hold what has not yet been stolen from me. I cannot let myself slip away. I will hold what I am inside, and keep my hands tight around all the things I have seen and heard, and felt.

Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn’t my own.

God has had His chance to free me, and for reasons known to Him alone, He has pinned me to ill fortune, and although I have struggled, I am run through and through with disaster; I am knifed to the hilt with fate.

They will say ‘Agnes’ and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. I will not be there.

I feel drunk with summer and sunlight. I want to seize fistfuls of sky and eat them.

It was not hard to believe a beautiful woman capable of murder, Margret thought.As it says in the sagas, Opt er flago i fogru skinni. A witch often has fair skin.

I prefer a story to a prayer.

Sleep came to me like a thin tide of water. It would lap against my body but never submerge me.

He knew me as one knows the seasons, knows the tide.

What else is God good for other than a distraction from the mire we’re all stranded in?

Now comes the darkening sky and a cold wind that passes right through you, as though you are not there, it passes through you as though it does not care whether you are alive or dead, for you will be gone and the wind will still be there...

It was only later that I suffocated under the weight of his arguments, and his darker thoughts articulated. It was only later that our tongues produced landslides, that we became caught in the cracks between what we said and what we meant, until we could not find each other, did not trust the words in our own mouths.

No matter if you tried to do what was best. No matter if your innermost self whispers, ‘I am not as you say!’—how other people think of you determines who you are.

No doves come from ravens’ eggs

Cruel birds, ravens, but wise. And creatures should be loved for their wisdom if they cannot be loved for kindness.

The weight of his fingers on mine, like a bird landing on a branch. It was the drop of a match. I did not see that we were surrounded by tinder until I felt it burst into flames.

Dating back to the Iliad, ancient Egypt and beyond, burial rites have formed a critical function in most human societies. Whether we cremate a loved one or inter her bones, humans possess a deep-set instinct to mark death in some deliberate, ceremonial fashion. Perhaps the cruelest feature of forced disappearance as an instrument of war is that it denies the bereaved any such closure, relegating them to a permanent limbo of uncertainty.

To plot is to live. […] We start out lives in chaos, in babble. As we surge up into the world, we try to devise a shape, a plan. There is dignity in this. Your whole life is a plot, a scheme, a diagram. It is a failed scheme but that's not the point. To plot is to affirm life, to seek shape and control. Even after death, most particularly after death, the search continues. Burial rites are an attempt to complete the scheme, in ritual. Picture a state funeral, Jack. It is all precision, detail, order, design. The nation holds its breath. - (WN 292)

Good Lord," he muttered "They pick a mouse to tame a cat.

I can picture the way he looked, and recall the weather, and the play of light across his stubbled face, but that virgin moment is impossible to recapture.

The only thing I could think of was, if you move, you will crumble. If you breathe, you will collapse.

Άνθρωπος χωρίς βιβλίο, τυφλός.

For the first time in my life, someone saw me, and I loved him because he made me feel I was enough.

He lay back down on the snow. “What’s the name for the space between stars?” “No such name.” “Make one up.” I thought about it. “The soul asylum.

Those who are not being dragged to their deaths cannot understand how the heart grows hard and sharp, until it is a nest of rocks with only an empty egg in it.

The last bed, the last roof, the last floor. The last of everything brings lugs of pain, as though there will be nothing left, but smoke from fires abandoned.

Θα χαθείς. Δεν υπάρχει τελευταία κατοικία, δεν υπάρχει κηδεία, δεν υπάρχει ταφή, μόνο ένα ασταμάτητο σκόρπισμα, ένα ταξίδι που σπάει σε χίλια άλλα άσκοπα, ένα ταξίδι που σε πάει παντού χωρίς να σου προσφέρει δρόμο για να γυρίσεις στο σπίτι, αφού δεν υπάρχει σπίτι, υπάρχει μόνο αυτό το κρύο νησί και ο σκοτεινός εαυτός σου ίσα που κρατιέται πάνω του, ώσπου ν' αρχίσεις κι εσύ να ουρλιάζεις σαν τον αέρα και να μιμείσαι τη μοναξιά του

we became caught in the cracks between what we said and what we meant,

She is not like me. She knows only the tree of life. She has not seen its twisted roots pawing stones and coffins.

If I believed everything everyone had ever told me about my family I’d be a sight more miserable than I am now

Up in the highlands blizzards howl like the widows of fishermen and the wind blisters the skin off your face. Winter comes like a punch in the dark. The uninhabited places are as cruel as any executioner.

Poverty scrapes these homes down until they all look the same, and they all have in common the absence of things that ought to be there. I might as well have been at one place all my life.

When did a smile ever get anyone into trouble?

...dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush.

The shore is of pebbles, and huge tangles of seaweed float in the bay and look like the hair of the drowned.

Ahem! Ahem!” As I recalled, Aunt Kathy loved Uncle Dan so much, she went grocery shopping during his funeral and failed to attend his burial as well. Apparently, Ham Hocks, Collard greens, Chitlin, Fatback, and Hog-Head cheesetook higher priority over his Last Rites. Then the reverend proceeded cautiously as he introduced my mom. “Let metell y’all about my Ms. Liza. Sister Kathy kept this one close.” “Ahem! Ahem! Ar-choo! Ahem!” Shockingly, there was a lightening blast that rocked the building once again while dimming the lights for more than 10seconds. The crowd turned restless, took a deep breath, and then allowed Pastor Keith to resume. “I’m gonna tell y’all, they were two kernels on a cob. When you saw Sister Kathy, you saw Sister Liza. “Ahem! Ahem! Ahem!” “The two of them raised those boys from seeds to bean stalks. We helped nourish them right here in Zion Gate Union. Now they’re just ripe for the harvest. I hope some of you ladies can take a hint!” For a brief moment, modest laughter filled the church. Yet, it was needed because Pastor Keith had gone into uncharted waters. No one dared to challenge my mom. Yet, Pastor Keith was speaking glowingly about her. Only a fewwanted to see where the Reverend was going. But most didn’t care to re-open that door. Church members were so afraid of Mom, no one dared to call her by name. All parishioners would go mute and head the other way, or simply hit the exits just to avoid all encounters.

Endless days of dark indoors and hateful glances are enough to set a rime on anyone’s bones.

It is the waiting that cripples.

And though the snow smothered the valley and the milk froze in the dairy, my soul thawed.

I've been half-frozen for so long, it is as though the winter has set up home in my marrow.

In those early visits it was as though we were building something sacred. We'd place words carefully together, piling them upon one another, leaving no spaces. We each created towers, two beacons, the like of which are built along roads to guide the way when the weather comes down. We saw one another through the fog, the suffocating repetition of life.

The priest ...told me that I would burn if I did not cast my mind back over the sin of my life and pray for forgiveness. As though prayer could simply pluck sin out. But any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel.

The gloom encroaches upon my mind, and my heart flutters like a bird held fast in a fist.

Never be caught staring at someone. They'll think you want something from them.

A bubble of fear passes up my spine. It's the feeling of standing on ice and suddenly hearing it crack under your weight - both thrilling and terrifying together.

I could flee to the heath. Show them that they cannot keep me locked up, that I am a thief of time and will steal the hours denied to me!

She doesn’t look like a criminal, he thought. Not since she’s had a bath.

He had a lot of enemies. But whether those folks were wronged or just jealous is hard to say. Stories have a way of boiling over

Agnes: "I have a question for you, speaking of truth. You say God speaks the truth." Tóti: "Yes." Agnes: "And God said: 'Thou shalt not kill.' Tóti: "Yes. Tóti said carefully." Agnes: "Then Blondal and the rest are going against God. They're hypocrites. They say they are carrying out God's law but they are only doing the will of men.

What’s the name for the space between stars?” “No such name.” “Make one up.” I thought about it. “The soul asylum.” “That's another way of saying heaven, Agnes.

I try to love God, Reverend. I do. But I cannot love these men. I... I hate them.

folks say, for every mountain there is a valley.

Heavenly Father, forgive me my sins. Forgive me my weakness and fear. Help me to fight my cowardice. Strengthen my ability to withstand the sight of suffering, so that I might do Your work in relieving those who endure it. -Toti

I imagine, then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a grey wreath of smoke. I will vanish into the air and the night. They will blow us all out, one by one, until it is only their own light by which they see themselves.

He knew me as one knows the seasons, knows the tide. Knew me like the smell of smoke, knew what I was, and what I wanted.

winter is coming.

It's a lie. Man has created God out of fear of dying.

There are times when I wonder whether I’m not already dead. This is no life; waiting in darkness, in silence, in a room so squalid I have forgotten the smell of fresh air. The

Natan Ketilsson fetched his wife from heaven’s gate.

I so often feel that I am barely here, that to feel weight is to be reminded of my own existence. Margrét and I work in

Είναι ένα ψέμα. Τον Θεό τον έχουν πλάσει οι άνθρωποι από τον φόβο του θανάτου.

A tight fear, like a fishing line, hooked upon something that must, inevitably, be dragged from the depths. (Margret)

The weight of his fingers on mine, like a bird landing on a branch.

Death happened, and in the usual way it happens, and yet, not like anything else at all.

I will hold what I am inside, and keep my hands tight around all the things I have seen and heard, and felt. The poems composed as I washed and scythed and cooked until my hands were raw. The sagas I know by heart. I am sinking all I have left and going underwater. If I speak, it will be in bubbles of air. They will not be able to keep my words for themselves. They will see the whore, the madwoman, the murderess, the female dripping blood into the grass and laughing with her mouth choked with dirt. They will say ‘Agnes’ and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. I will not be there.

I might have starved to death. I would be mud-slick, stuffed to the guts with cold and hopelessness, and my body might know it was doomed and give up on its own. That would be better than idly winding wool on a snowy day, waiting for someone to kill me.

Sometimes, people never stood a chance in the beginning. Or they might have made a mistake. When people start saying things like she must be a bad mother because of that mistake." .... "It's not fair. People claim to know you through the things you've done and not by sitting down and listening to you speak for yourself.

Illugastadir, the farm by the sea, where the soft air rings with the clang of the smithy, and gulls caw, and seals roll over in their fat. Illugastadir, where the night is lit by fire, where smoke turns in the early morning to engulf the stars, and in ruins, always Illugastadir, cradling dead bodies in its cage of burnt beams.

I could have been a pauper; I could have been their servant, until those words! They anchor me to a memory that snatches the breath out of me. They are the magic words, the curse that turns me into a monster, and now I am Agnes of Illugastadir, Agnes of the fire, Agnes of the dead bodies with the blood, not burnt, still clinging to the clothes I made for him.

He turned his head, ice crystals caught in his hair. “Agnes. Don’t pretend you disagree. This is all there is and you know it. Life, here, in our veins. There is the snow, and the sky, and the stars and the things they tell us, and that’s all. Everyone else—they’re blind. They don’t know if they’re living or dead.

How can I say what it was like to breathe again? I felt newborn. I staggered in the light of the world and took deep gulps of fresh sea air. It was late in the day: the wet mouth of the afternoon was full on my face. My soul blossomed in that brief moment as they led me out of doors. I fell, my skirts in the mud, and I turned my face upwards as if in prayer. I could have wept from the relief of light.

Together they listed the people they had known who had died on the mountains. A bleak conversation to have, thought Margrét, but there was some comfort in talking about death aloud, as though in naming things, you could prevent them from happening.

Now comes the darkening sky and a cold wind that passes right through you, as though you are not there, it passes through you as though it does not care whether you are alive or dead, for you will be gone and the wind will still be there, licking the grass flat upon the ground, not caring whether the soil is at a freeze or thaw, for it will freeze and thaw again, and soon your bones, now hot with blood and thick-juicy with marrow, will be dry and brittle and flake and freeze and thaw with the weight of the dirt upon you, and the last moisture of your body will be drawn up to the surface by the grass, and the wind will come and knock it down and push you back against the rocks, or it will scrape you up under its nails and take you out to sea in a wild screaming of snow.

Dia telah menderaku dengan nasib sial, dan walaupun aku telah berjuang, aku dihantam dan terus dihantam dengan malapetaka; aku ditikam sampai ke hulu oleh nasib

His appearance excited in me strong suspicions of that order: he is freckle-faced and—I beg your pardon, Reverend—red-headed, a sign of a treacherous nature. When

There is nothing in the world I now own; even the heat my body gives out is taken away by the summer breeze.

Man has created God out of fear of dying.

But any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel.

Cruel birds, ravens, but wise. And creatures should be loved for their wisdom if they cannot be loved for kindness. As

There is only ever a sense that what is real to me is not real to others, and to share a memory with someone is to risk sullying my belief in what has truly happened.

But I needed to create a life of my own. And here I

The next morning I woke, and for a few moments I didn’t know where I was. Then my memory of the night came back to me, and anger tightened my stomach, invigorating me.

Rósa’s poetry kindled the shavings of my soul, and lit me up from within.

criminals of this stature are usually sent abroad for their punishment, where there are jailhouses

I so often feel that I am barely here, that to feel weight is to be reminded of my own existence.

Ahora no poseo nada en el mundo; incluso el calor de mi cuerpo se lo lleva la brisa de verano

chronicled their hatred towards me, a mark here, bruises, blossoming like star clusters under the skin, black and yellow smoke trapped under the membrane.

No point looking over one’s shoulder when the task at hand was before you.

Agnes. Don't pretend you disagree. This is all there is and you know it. Life, here, in our veins. There is the snow, and the sky, and the stars and the things they tell us, and that's all.

Agnes. Don't pretend you disagree. This is all there is and you know it. Life, here, in our veins. There is the snow, and the sky, and the stars and they things they tell us, and that's all.

If I had known that the dress I laboured over would be my only warmth in a room that reeked of sour skin. If I had known that the dress would one day be put on in the night, in a hurry, to be soaked with sweat as I ran through the witching hours to Stapar, screaming fit to raise the dead.

Lauga had asked Margret whether she thought there would be an outward hint of the evil that drives a person to murder. Evidence oft he Devil: a herelip, a snaggletooth, a birthmark; some small outer defect. There must be a warning, some way of knowing, so that honest people could keep their guard.

I did not dream in the storeroom at Stóra-Borg. While I curled up on the wooden slats with a moldy horse-skin for warmth, sleep came to me like a thin tide of water. It would lap against my body but never submerge me.

This is my only wish to you, bound in anger and grief: Do not scratch my bleeding wounds, I’m full of disbelief. My soul is filled with sorrow! I seek grace from the Lord. Remember, Jesus bought us both and for the same accord.

I have come upon the conviction that it is not the stern voice of a priest delivering the threat of brimstone, but the gentle and inquiring tones of a friend that will best draw back the curtain to her soul, District Commissioner.

I have made a mistake. They condemn me to death and I ask for a boy to coach me for it. A red-headed boy, who gobbles his buttered bread and toddles to his horse with the seat of his pants wet, this is the young man they hope will get me on my knees, full of prayer. This is the young man I hope will be able to help me, although with what and how I cannot think.

My sisters, you, his daughters! Now that you’ve heard our father’s iron curses, I implore you in the name of the gods, if father’s curses all come true at last, and if some way back to Thebes is found for you, don’t neglect me, please, give me burial, the honored rites of death.

All my life people have thought I was too clever. Too clever by half, they’d say. That’s exactly why they don’t pity me. Because they think I am too smart, too knowing to get caught up in this by accident. But Sigga is dumb, and pre-y, and young, and that is why they dont want to see her die.

People speak of the fear of the blank canvas as though it is a temporary hesitation, a trembling moment of self-doubt. For me it was more like being abducted from my bed by a clown, thrust into a circus arena with a wicker chair, and told to tame a pissed-off lion in front of an expectant crowd.

Perhaps more importantly, the ants used all the sugar lumps they could steal to build a small sugar pyramid in one of the hollow halls, in which, with great ceremony, they entombed the mummified body of a dead queen. On the wall of one tiny hidden chamber they inscribed, in insect hyeroglyps, the true secret of longevity. They got it absolutely right and it would probably have important implications for the universe if it hadn't, next time the University flooded, been completely washed away.

the wet mouth of the afternoon was full on my face.

is as though the winter has set up home in my marrow.

She’s a landless workmaid raised on a porridge of moss and poverty.

Up in the highlands blizzards howl like the widows of fishermen

cradling dead bodies in its cage of burnt beams.

Hallgrímur Pétursson: “The pathway of Thy Passion to follow I desire, Out of my weakness fashion a character of fire.

They pick a mouse to tame a cat.

if no one will say your name you are forgotten

Icelanders have had almost universal literacy rates since the end of the eighteenth century

Blind is a man without a book

creatures should be loved for their wisdom if they cannot be loved for kindness.

No doves come from ravens’ eggs,

This empty space can be filled with bad luck if we’re not careful.

we were building something sacred. We’d place words carefully together, piling them upon one another, leaving no spaces.

Born blessed under a marriage. Born into a family that would not be ripped apart by poverty.

for every mountain there is a valley.

the light flees this country like a whipped dog.

Natan non credeva al peccato. Diceva che sono i difetti del carattere a definire ciascun uomo

Ogni natura si ribella alle proprie regole per il fine ultimo della bellezza.

Memories shift like loose snow in a wind

Perhaps it is a shame that I have vowed to keep my past locked up within me. At Hvammur, during the trial, they plucked at my words like birds. Dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush. They did not let me say what happened in my own way, but took my memories of Illugastadir, of Natan, and wrought them into something sinister; they wrested my statement of that night and made me seem malevolent. Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn’t my own

Hvammur, during the trial, they plucked at my words like birds. Dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush.

We start our lives in chaos, in babble. As we surge up into the world, we try to devise a shape, a plan. There is dignity in this. Your whole life is a plot, a scheme, a diagram. It is a failed scheme but that’s not the point. To plot is to affirm life, to seek shape and control. Even after death, most particularly after death, the search continues. Burial rites are an attempt to complete the scheme, in ritual.

I dreamt of the execution block last night. I dreamt I was alone and crawling through the snow towards the dark stump. My hands and knees were numb from the ice, but I had no choice. When I came upon the block, its surface was vast and smooth. I could smell the wood. It had none of the saltiness of driftwood, but was like bleeding sap, like blood. Sweeter, heavier. In my dream I dragged myself up and held my head above it. It began to snow, and I thought to myself: "This is the silence before the drop." And then I wondered at the stump being there, the tree it might have been, when trees do not grow here. There is too much silence, I thought in my dream. Too many stones. So I addressed the wood out loud. I said: "I will water you as though you still lived." And at this last word I woke.

El cielo se acerca y por un momento estoy a punto de estrellarme contra las nubes, pero entonces me doy cuenta, me han subido a un caballo y me conducen a mi tumba como si fuera un cadáver, me enterrarán como a una mujer muerta, me meterán en un bolsillo como si fuera una piedra.

Los recuerdos van y vienen como nieve suelta en el viento, o son un coro de fantasmas hablando unos por encima de los otros. De lo único que estoy segura es de que lo que es real para mí no lo es para los demás y de que compartir un recuerdo con alguien es arriesgarme a arruinar mi convicción sobre la verdad de lo ocurrido.

This is what democratic societies understand; they strive to confirm citizens in the feeling of their individual value; the whole ceremonious apparatus of baptism, marriage, and burial is the collectivity's homage to the individual; and the rites of justice seek to manifest society's respect for each of its members considered in his particularity.

—Tóti —dijo con voz llena de pánico—. Tóti, me parece que no estoy preparada. No creo que puedan hacerlo ahora. ¿Puedes decirles que esperen? Tienen que esperar. Tóti acercó a Agnes hacia sí y le apretó la mano. —No te voy a soltar, Agnes. Dios está en todas partes. No te voy a soltar nunca. Agnes miró el cielo mudo. El ruido repentino del primer hachazo resonó en todo el valle.

—Tóti —dijo con voz llena de pánico—. Tóti, me parece que no estoy preparada. No creo que puedan hacerlo ahora. ¿Puedes decirles que esperen? Tienen que esperar. Tóti acercó a Agnes hacia sí y le apretó la mano. —No te voy a soltar, Agnes. Dios está en todas partes. No te voy a soltar nunca. Agnes miró el cielo mudo. El ruido repentino del primer hachazo resonó en todo el valle.

It’s not fair. People claim to know you through the things you’ve done, and not by sitting down and listening to you speak for yourself. No matter how much you try to live a godly life, if you make a mistake in this valley, it’s never forgotten. No matter if you tried to do what was best. No matter if your innermost self whispers, ‘I am not as you say!’—how other people think of you determines who you are.

Margrét me busca, me coge de la mano, me aprieta los dedos tan fuerte que me duele, me duele. —No eres un monstruo —dice. Tiene la cara roja y se muerde el labio, se lo muerde con fuerza. Sus dedos, entrelazados con los míos, son calientes y grasientos. —Me van a matar. ¿Quién ha dicho eso? ¿He sido yo? —Nosotros te recordaremos, Agnes. Me aprieta los dedos con más fuerza hasta que casi lloro de dolor y empiezo a llorar. No quiero ser recordada, ¡quiero seguir aquí!

Excavators uncovered one of Malta's most famous Neolithic sculptures, the "Sleeping Lady" of the Hypogeum, off the main hall. She reclines peacefully on her side, head in hand...This sculpture and another one shown lying on her stomach on a couch reminds us of initiation and healing rites known in later classical times. During these various classical ceremonies, the initiate spent a night in the temple (or cave or other remote place). The initiate experienced a night of visions and dreams, with spiritual or physical healing taking place...This rite probably derived from Neolithic practices that likened sleeping in a cave, temple, or underground chamber to slumbering in the goddess' uterus before spiritual reawakening. For the living, such a ritual brought physical healing and spiritual rebirth. For the dead, burial within underground chambers, shaped and colored like the uterus, represented the possibility of regeneration through the goddess' symbolic womb.

The Icelandic Burial Hymn” I think upon my Savior, I trust His power to keep, His mighty arm enfolds me Awaking and in sleep. Christ is my rock, my courage; Christ is my soul’s true life; And Christ (my still heart knows it) Will bear me through the strife. Thus in Christ’s name I’m living; Thus in Christ’s name I’ll die; I’ll fear not though life’s vigor, From Death’s cold shadow fly. O Grave, where is thy triumph? O Death, where is thy sting? “Come when thou wilt, and welcome!” Secure in Christ I sing.

Los que no están siendo arrastrados a la muerte no pueden comprender que el corazón se te endurece y afila hasta convertirse en un nido de rocas con un huevo huero y solitario en el interior. Estoy yerma; nada crecerá ya nunca de mí. Soy el pez muerto puesto a secar en el aire frío. Soy el pájaro muerto en la orilla. Estoy seca, no sé si sangraré cuando me arrastren al encuentro del hacha. No, sigo caliente, la sangre aún aúlla en mis venas igual que el viento, y sacude el nido vacío y pregunta dónde han ido todas las aves, ¿dónde han ido?

I scrubbed the filth from my keyboard, and placed a coffee coaster strategically on the desk. My schedule was relatively clear, and I was free to write each day. But for how long? And what about? Should I start from the beginning of the story and write in a linear fashion, or write the scenes that jumped to mind first? What do writers actually do when they say they write full-time? Is it nine to five? How many words constitute a productive day? Should I start smoking? Will that help? Do they sit there and look out the window, and does that count?

How shall the burial rite be read? The solemn song be sung? The requiem for the loveliest dead, That ever died so young?   Her friends are gazing on her, And on her gaudy bier, And weep! — oh! to dishonor Dead beauty with a tear!   They loved her for her wealth — And they hated her for her pride — But she grew in feeble health, And they love her — that she died.   They tell me (while they speak Of her “costly broider’d pall”) That my voice is growing weak — That I should not sing at all —   Or that my tone should be Tun’d to such solemn song So mournfully — so mournfully, That the dead may feel no wrong.   But she is gone above, With young Hope at her side, And I am drunk with love Of the dead, who is my bride. —   Of the dead — dead who lies All perfum’d there, With the death upon her eyes, And the life upon her hair.   Thus on the coffin loud and long I strike — the murmur sent Through the grey chambers to my song, Shall be the accompaniment.   Thou died’st in thy life’s June — But thou did’st not die too fair: Thou did’st not die too soon, Nor with too calm an air.   From more than fiends on earth, Thy life and love are riven, To join the untainted mirth Of more than thrones in heaven —   Therefore, to thee this night I will no requiem raise, But waft thee on thy flight, With a Pæan of old days.  

The tribal ceremonies of birth, initiation, marriage, burial, installation, and so forth, serve to translate the individual's life-crises and life-deeds into classic, impersonal forms. They disclose him to himself, not as this personality or that, but as the warrior, the bride, the widow, the priest, the chieftain; at the same time rehearsing for the rest of the community the old lesson of the archetypal stages. All participate in the ceremonial according to rank and function. The whole society becomes visible to itself as an imperishable living unit. Generations of individuals pass, like anonymous cells from a living body; but the sustaining, timeless form remains. By an enlargement of vision to embrace this superindividual, each discovers himself enhanced, enriched, supported, and magnified. His role, however unimpressive, is seen to be intrinsic to the beautiful festival-image of man—the image, potential yet necessarily inhibited, within himself. Social duties continue the lesson of the festival into normal, everyday existence, and the individual is validated still. Conversely, indifference, revolt—or exile—break the vitalizing connectives. From the standpoint of the social unit, the broken-off individual is simply nothing—waste. Whereas the man or woman who can honestly say that he or she has lived the role—whether that of priest, harlot, queen, or slave—is something in the full sense of the verb to be. Rites of initiation and installation, then, teach the lesson of the essential oneness of the individual and the group; seasonal festivals open a larger horizon. As the individual is an organ of society, so is the tribe or city—so is humanity entire—only a phase of the mighty organism of the cosmos.

Using Holmes’s instructions, workmen in the employ of undertaker John J. O’Rourke filled a coffin with cement, then placed Holmes’s body inside and covered it with more cement. They hauled him south through the countryside to Holy Cross Cemetery, a Catholic burial ground in Delaware County, just south of Philadelphia. With great effort they transferred the heavy coffin to the cemetery’s central vault, where two Pinkerton detectives guarded the body overnight. They took turns sleeping in a white pine coffin. The next day workers opened a double grave and filled this too with cement, then inserted Holmes’s coffin. They placed more cement on top and closed the grave. “Holmes’ idea was evidently to guard his remains in every way from scientific enterprise, from the pickling vat and the knife,” the Public Ledger reported. Strange things began to happen that made Holmes’s claims about being the devil seem almost plausible. Detective Geyer became seriously ill. The warden of Moyamensing prison committed suicide. The jury foreman was electrocuted in a freak accident. The priest who delivered Holmes’s last rites was found dead on the grounds of his church of mysterious causes. The father of Emeline Cigrand was grotesquely burned in a boiler explosion. And a fire destroyed the office of District Attorney George Graham, leaving only a photograph of Holmes unscathed.

More exotic still was Wulfstan's account of travels in the eastern Baltic and along the River Vistula; of a land of honey and plentiful fishing, of the habits of foreign kings and their burial rites and inheritance practices. In a time of war the Angelcynn were, at heart, still curious about the world beyond their shores.

cough. He felt flecks of spittle land on his neck. “The trial

THEY SAID I MUST DIE. They said that I stole the breath from men, and now they must steal mine. I imagine, then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a gray wreath of smoke. I will vanish into the air and the night. They will blow us all out, one by one, until it is only their own light by which they see themselves. Where will I be then?

Like many older servant women she is practiced in deception, and I do not doubt that she has manufactured a life story in such a way so as to prick your sympathy. I would not believe a word she says.

Homosexuals are thus drawn to certain grimy urban neighborhoods,

For Vico civilisation starts when three basic conditions are met: the establishment of a religion, marriage rites, and burial rites.

Perhaps more potent than hunting, fertility, or the earth’s mysteries was the fear of death. Formal burials have been found, dating from as early as 60,000 BCE, containing bones scattered with red ocher (suggestive of blood). Some burials also included flowers or necklaces to accompany the deceased into the next life. At Kebara Cave in Israel, Neanderthals buried several skeletons and skull bones, probably as a post-mortem rite. Early peoples, too, seem to have had a fear of dead spirits. At Gough’s Cave in Somerset, incisions on bones that are around 15,000 years old indicate that they engaged in ritual cannibalism. The aim of this may have been to acquire the powers of the dead or to prevent their spirits from inflicting damage on the living.

Do you know the right name for a flock of ravens?” Tóti shook his head. “A conspiracy, Reverend. A conspiracy.” Margrét raised an eyebrow, challenging him to disagree. Tóti watched the ravens settle on the eaves of the cattle barn. “Is that so, Mistress Margrét? I thought they were called an unkindness.

I will bite the hand that feeds me, that refuses to love me, that leaves me.

the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel.

a thinking woman cannot be trusted.

Blind is a man without a book.

I was worst to him I loved best’.

He loved the way she knew how to build things with words. She invented her own language to say what everyone else could only feel.

We stand in black to watch this rite performed, the body in the box, the box in the hole, the dirt on the box.

Their conversations turned to religion, and Pigafetta persuaded the prisoner to convert to Christianity. He was baptized, and the giant, whose original name Pigafetta never mentioned, became known as Paul. He died shortly thereafter, a Patagonian Christian who met a unique and tragic fate. Pigafetta did not record what kind of funeral rites Father Valderrama accorded Paul, but presumably he was given a proper burial at sea.

Как будто молитва могла выполоскать из меня грех. Однако же всякая женщина знает: ткань, единожды сотканную, уже не переделаешь, и единственный способ исправить ошибку – распустить её на отдельные нитки. Господь свидетель, я знавала достаточно мужчин, чтобы с уверенностью сказать: все они, едва оторвавшись от материнской груди, начинают бесстыдно лгать. Знать, какие поступки человек совершил, – одно, знать, каков он был на самом деле, – совершенно другое. Люди, которые нас окружают, не дают нам забыть, где и как мы оступились. Они считают, что именно наши ошибки достойны того, чтобы записать их для потомков. Люди считают, будто женщине, которая способна думать, нельзя доверять. Будто там, где есть мысли, нет места невинности. Та зима открыла мне новую разновидность одиночества В те первые встречи мы словно возводили вдвоем некую святыню. Мы с превеликой бережностью складывали слова, составляли их вместе так, чтобы не оставалось зазоров. Каждый из нас строил свою башню, свою веху наподобие тех, которые ставят вдоль дорог, чтобы путники не заблудились в непогоду. Мы видели друг друга сквозь туман, сквозь душную обыденность жизни. В ясный день там необычайно красиво, но в другое время тоскливей, чем похороны под дождём. Кто слишком радуется ясному дню, тому и ненастье снести стократ тяжелее. Для чего еще Бог, как не для того, чтобы отвлечься от той трясины, в которой мы погрязли? Все мы – жертвы кораблекрушения, выброшенные на зыбучие пески нищеты. В темное время особенно остро чувствуешь одиночество, — задумчиво проговорила Маргрьет. — Нехорошо, когда человек вынужден слишком долго оставаться наедине с самим собой.

Baptism is, by the apostle Paul, repeatedly compared to burial. In one passage, believers are said to be buried with Christ by baptism,51 and in another, to be buried with him in baptism, and to be therein risen with him.52 Whether baptism, in these passages, denotes external or spiritual baptism, it is evident, that the figure derives all its propriety and beauty from some implied resemblance between the external rite and a burial; nor can it be imagined, that the apostle would have ever compared baptism of any kind to burial, had there been no such resemblance.

You will be lost. There is no final home, there is no burial, there is only a constant scattering, a thwarted journey that takes you everywhere without offering you a way home, for there is no home, there is only cold island and your dark self spread thinly upon it until you take up the wind’s howl and mimic its loneliness you are not going home you are gone silence will claim you, suck your life down into its black waters and churn out stars that might remember you, but if they do they will not say, they will not say, and if no one will say your name you are forgotten I am forgotten.

Ξέρεις τι σημαίνει η λακκουβίτσα στη χούφτα; Όποιος την έχει, έχει κάτι μυστήριο. Αυτό το κενό μπορεί να γεμίσει κακοτυχία, αν δεν προσέξουμε. Αν αφήσουμε τον κόσμο και το σκοτάδι του και τη δυστυχία του να γεμίσουν τη λακκουβίτσα". "Μα πώς μπορεί κανείς να αλλάξει το σχήμα του χεριού του;" γέλασα εγώ. "Άμα το ακουμπήσει σ' ένα άλλο χέρι, Άγκνες".

Ce n'était pas moi qu'ils regardaient. Pas moi qu'ils voyaient. J'étais deux hommes morts. J'étais une ferme en feu. J'étais le couteau. J'étais le sang.

Noah was a funeral pyre. He was burning. The flames rose to staggering heights and blazed in white, hot tongues. Jeremie had once told him a story of the burial rites of the Norse. They’d burn their dead, believing the high smoke carried their loved ones’ souls to Valhalla. Noah was beyond Valhalla. Beyond the creamy spaciousness above the clouds, beyond the limits of the very earth. He floated among the stars, joined them in holy communion, knew each one by name. Then they were within him, scores of them, bright and hot, turning his ribs into a furnace as they shifted and created constellations in his soul. And all the while, the summer sang in his lungs. There was no space between him and Jeremie. Where one ended, the other began, and still Jeremie pulled him closer like the moon pulls the tide, gripping him tightly in the same way he’d gripped Noah’s heart, had gripped his entire being.

Do you know what it means, to have a hollow palm? It means there is something secretive about us. This empty space can be filled with bad luck if we're not careful. If we expose the hollow to the world and all its darkness, all its misfortune." "But how can one help the shape of one's hand?" I was laughing. By covering it with another's, Agnes.

Dicono ch’io debba morire. Dicono che ho sottratto il respiro agli uomini, e che adesso devo subire la stessa sorte. E allora immagino che siamo tutti come fiammelle di candele accese, scintillanti, tremule nell’oscurità, e poi immagino l’ululato del vento, e nel silenzio della stanza sento dei passi, passi che si avvicinano minacciosi, che vengono a soffiare su di me e a ridurre la mia vita in un refolo di fumo grigio.

Non è giusto. La gente sostiene di conoscerti per le cose che hai fatto, e non perché si è seduta ad ascoltare la tua versione dei fatti. Per quanto tu provi a vivere una vita retta, se in questa valle compi un passo falso, non sarà mai dimenticato. Non importa se hai agito per il bene. Non importa se una voce dentro di te sussurra: "Non sono come dite!". E' l'opinione degli altri che determina chi sei

Hai il palmo cavo. Come il mio, senti, è vuoto. Sai cosa significa, avere il palmo cavo? Significa che siamo creature misteriose, noi due. Lo spazio vuoto può riempirsi di cattiva sorte, se non stiamo attenti, se esponiamo lo spazio vuoto al mondo e a tutta la sua oscurità, a tutte le sue disgrazie." "Ma come si rimedia alla forma della propria mano?" "Coprendola con la mano di un altro, Agnes." Il peso delle sue dita sulle mie, come un uccello posato su un ramo. E' stato il fiammifero caduto. Non ho capito di essere circondata da sterpi finché non li ho sentiti divampare in un incendio.

Nessuno capirebbe cosa significasse conoscere Natan. Inanellavamo con cura le parole, impilandole l'una sull'altra, senza lasciare spazi vuoti. Ognuno di noi innalzava una torre: due torri di segnalazione, come quelle che vengono poste lungo le strade per guidare i viandanti quando fa brutto tempo. Ci siamo visti attraverso la nebbia, attraverso la soffocante ripetitività della vita.

Capisce cosa sto dicendo, reverendo? Ha mai amato una donna? Ha mai amato qualcuno e ugualmente odiato l'influenza che quella persona esercitava su di lei?

«Sai cosa significa, avere il palmo cavo? Significa che siamo creature misteriose, noi due. Lo spazio vuoto può riempirsi di cattiva sorte, se non stiamo attenti, se esponiamo lo spazio vuoto al mondo e a tutta la sua oscurità, a tutte le sue disgrazie.»

«Come si chiama lo spazio tra una stella e l’altra?» «Non ha nome.» «Inventatene uno.» Ci ho riflettuto. «Il rifugio delle anime.» «Quello è un sinonimo di paradiso, Agnes.»

Dicono ch’io debbo morire. Dicono che ho sottratto il respiro agli uomini, e che adesso debbo subire la stessa sorte. E allora immagino che siamo tutti come fiammelle di candele accese, scintillanti, tremule nell’oscurità, e poi immagino l’ululato del vento, e nel silenzio della stanza sento dei passi, passi che si avvicinano minacciosi, che vengono a soffiare su di me e a ridurre la mia vita a un refolo di fumo grigio. Mi dissolverò nell’aria e nella notte. Ci spegneranno tutti, uno a uno, finché non rimarrà altro che la loro luce, e solo quella vedranno

Tu, Agnes Magnusdottir, sei stata giudicata complice di omicidio. Tu, Agnes Magnusdottir, sei stata giudicata colpevole di incendio e di omicidio premeditato. Tu, Agnes Magnusdottir, sei stata condannata a morte. Tu, Agnes. Agnes. Ma non sanno chi sono. Io resto muta. Determinata a chiudermi al mondo, a serrare il mio cuore e a tenere stretto quel poco di me che non hanno ancora rubato. Non posso perdere tutta me stessa. Mi aggrapperò a chi sono dentro e stringerò le mani attorno a tutto ciò che ho visto e udito, e provato. Le poesie composte mentre lavavo, falciavo e cucinavo fino a scorticarmi le mani. Le saghe che conosco a memoria. Seppellirò tutto quel che mi rimane per immergermi negli abissi. Se parlerò, saranno solo bolle d'aria. Non riusciranno a carpire le mie parole. Vedranno la sgualdrina, la pazza, l'assassina, la femmina che gronda sangue sull'erba e ride con la bocca piena di terra. Diranno , e vedranno il ragno, la strega rimasta impigliata nella sua stessa ragnatela. Potrebbero vedere l'agnello circondato dai corvi, che bela per invocare la madre perduta. Ma non vedranno me. Perché io non ci sarò.

BELIEVE IN RETURNING dead bodies. It seems like a simple courtesy, doesn’t it? A warrior dies, you should do what you can to get their body back to their people for funerary rites. Maybe I’m old-fashioned. (I am over four thousand years old.) But I find it rude not to properly dispose of corpses. Achilles during the Trojan War, for instance. Total pig. He chariot-dragged the body of the Trojan champion Hector around the walls of the city for days. Finally I convinced Zeus to pressure the big bully into returning Hector’s body to his parents so he could have a decent burial. I mean, come on. Have a little respect for the people you slaughter. Then there was Oliver Cromwell’s corpse. I wasn’t a fan of the man, but please. First, the English bury him with honors. Then they decide they hate him, so they dig him up and “execute” his body. Then his head falls off the pike where it’s been impaled for decades and gets passed around from collector to collector for almost three centuries like a disgusting souvenir snow globe. Finally, in 1960, I whispered in the ears of some influential people, Enough, already. I am the god Apollo, and I order you to bury that thing. You’re grossing me out. When it came to Jason Grace, my fallen friend and half brother, I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. I would personally escort his coffin to Camp Jupiter and see him off with full honors.

In Greece, says Suidas, "the greatest and most expensive sacrifice was the mysterious sacrifice called the Telete," a sacrifice which, according to Plato, "was offered for the living and the dead, and was supposed to free them from all the evils to which the wicked are liable when they have left this world." In Egypt the exactions of the priests for funeral dues and masses for the dead were far from being trifling. "The priests," says Wilkinson, "induced the people to expend large sums on the celebration of funeral rites; and many who had barely sufficient to obtain the necessaries of life were anxious to save something for the expenses of their death. For, beside the embalming process, which sometimes cost a talent of silver, or about 250 [pounds] English money, the tomb itself was purchased at an immense expense; and numerous demands were made upon the estate of the deceased, for the celebration of prayer and other services for the soul." "The ceremonies," we find him elsewhere saying, "consisted of a sacrifice similar to those offered in the temples, vowed for the deceased to one or more gods (as Osiris, Anubis, and others connected with Amenti); incense and libation were also presented; and a prayer was sometimes read, the relations and friends being present as mourners. They even joined their prayers to those of the priest. The priest who officiated at the burial service was selected from the grade of Pontiffs, who wore the leopard skin; but various other rites were performed by one of the minor priests to the mummies, previous to their being lowered into the pit of the tomb after that ceremony. Indeed, they continued to be administered at intervals, as long as the family paid for their performance." Such was the operation of the doctrine of purgatory and prayers for the dead among avowed and acknowledged Pagans; and in what essential respect does it differ from the operation of the same doctrine in Papal Rome?

The temple column grew wider, taller, blocking out the sky. “If we don’t perform the sacred rites with the Priest of Anubis,” I said, “Father’s and Mother’s kas will not travel to the Realm of Osiris. Their spirits will haunt you until even Fortuna turns from you in disgust. You do not know the power of the dead in Egypt.” Rage and fear fought for dominance on Octavianus’s face. I pressed my advantage. “Without the rites, their restless spirits will call on all of the angry and evil spirits of the dead, deep within the secret burial places of this ancient land, and … and …” “Stop!” Agrippa ordered. “Let them have their ceremonies,” he whispered to Octavianus. “You cannot start your reign here by angering their gods.” “The ship leaves in three days,” Octavianus said through clenched teeth. “And these bastards will be on it.

See, the second reason we have burial rites is that they give people a change to say goodbye. Watching a body get put in the ground or go up in flames or be consigned to the deep, you get the sense there's no coming back. You feel that door slam closed. And you cry or laugh or whatever's your deal, but in some place deep inside, you know things will never be the same. They call that closure. That's the theory, anyways

The usual Form of baptism was immersion. This is inferred from the original meaning of the Greek baptivzein and baptismov";678 from the analogy of John’s baptism in the Jordan; from the apostles’ comparison of the sacred rite with the miraculous passage of the Red Sea, with the escape of the ark from the flood, with a cleansing and refreshing bath, and with burial and resurrection; finally, from the general custom of the ancient church which prevails in the East to this day.679  But sprinkling, also, or copious pouring rather, was practised at an early day with sick and dying persons, and in all such cases where total or partial immersion was impracticable. Some writers suppose that this was the case even in the first baptism of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost; for Jerusalem was poorly supplied with water and private baths; the Kedron is a small creek and dry in summer; but there are a number of pools and cisterns there. Hellenistic usage allows to the relevant expressions sometimes the wider sense of washing, bathing, sprinkling, and ceremonial cleansing.680  Unquestionably, immersion expresses the idea of baptism, as a purification and renovation of the whole man, more completely than pouring or sprinkling; but it is not in keeping with the genius of the gospel to limit the operation of the Holy Spirit by the quantity or the quality of the water or the mode of its application. Water is absolutely necessary to baptism, as an appropriate symbol of the purifying and regenerating energy of the Holy Spirit; but whether the water be in large quantity or small, cold or warm, fresh or salt, from river, cistern, or spring, is relatively immaterial, and cannot affect the validity of the ordinance.

Any church that operates in prayerless and powerless Christianity spend their days and years conducting dust to dust rites in the burial grounds.

The Egyptians have always been deeply impressed by the fact of human mortality, and much of their religious belief and religious ritual is taken up with the rites of burial, and detailed doctrines as to the experience of the soul after parting from the body.

Sarnia, completed after Ireland had spent a year living on Guernsey,14 is closely connected to the pagan origins of Guernsey’s store of prehistoric burial chambers and rock monuments, imagining the kind of rites and jamborees that might have occurred round the tumbled stones such as Le Trépied. The score for the first part, ‘Le Catioroc’, contains a passage from De Situ Orbis, a text by Roman writer Pomponius Mela dating from 50 BCE: ‘All day long, heavy silence broods, and a certain hidden terror lurks there. But at nightfall gleams the light of fires; the chorus of Ægipans [fauns] resounds on every side: the shrilling of flutes and the clash of cymbals re-echo the waste shores of the sea.’ That mini-narrative encapsulates the motion of many of Ireland’s pieces, as a calm surface is overrun by more mysterious elemental forces, beings or visions.

The language of ‘survival’ is therefore problematic as applied to godlings within a Christian society, because it carries with it the assumption that Christianity replaces, as a matter of course, every aspect of pre-Christian belief and practice. Yet just as Christianity did not immediately replace pre-Christian rites of betrothal, marriage, burial or commemoration of the dead in most European societies,58 so it did not entirely replace godlings.

When they beat the drum in that tinyroom and Blöndal announced ‘Guilty’, the only thing I could think of was, ifyou move, you will crumble. If you breathe, you will collapse. They want todisappear you.

In all things, Reverend, if you cannot construct your own counsel, seek mine.

I don’t believe in heaven,” Natan said. I was shocked. “How can you not believe in heaven?” “It’s a lie. Man has created God out of fear of dying.

Tóti,” she said in a panicked voice. “Tóti, I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t think they can do it. Can you make them wait? They have to wait.