9 ms·

Jewish : https://johnswinburn.com/you-die-twice/ https://johnswinburn.com/you-die-twice/

Fluorescence 3y ago
I spent some time trying to chase down an actual source. The most common source given is Irvin D. Yalom but he references the notion to "A Green Tree in Gedde" by Alan Sharpe. I don't see evidence for the various claims that it's a Jewish proverb, has an Egyptian source or a Marcus Aurelius quote. Overall I think the idea of "living on in the memories of others" is pretty persistent and cross-cultural with a number of related phrasings. Irvin D. Yalom - Staring at the Sun (2011) > I have let go of the wish, the hope, that I myself, my image, will persist in any tangible form. Certainly there will come a time when the last living person who has ever known me dies. Decades ago, I read in Alan Sharp’s novel A Green Tree in Gedde a description of a country cemetery with two sections: the “remembered dead” and the “truly dead.” The graves of the remembered dead are tended and adorned with flowers, whereas the graves of the truly dead were forgotten; they were flowerless, weed infested, with tombstones askew and eroded. Alan Sharpe - A Green Tree in Gedde (1965) But when at last the threads of memory rot and the rememberers themselves are tombed, then the liberated dead move in silent flit to the old open field of the truly buried, and there in sight of the living they relax and at last rest. Earliest related phrasing I can see is Shakespeare Sonnet 17, but it's more about living twice rather than dying twice: Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say “This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.” So should my papers, yellowed with their age, Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage And stretchèd meter of an antique song. But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice—in it and in my rhyme.
- the-dude 3y ago
  Thank you! I am pretty sure Yalom can be ruled out a source : I learned about the saying around that time, and sure his writing couldn't have reached me so quick. Furthermore, I find Dutch sources dating earlier ( online poems and obituaries ). The saying as I know it is more succint, it is either : You are not really dead when your name is still used/referenced ( Pardon my English ), or : You are only really dead when your name is not used/referenced anymore. I do agree with your assesment that it is probably cross-cultural ( and much older ), a bit of a canon.
  - Fluorescence 3y ago
    > I am pretty sure Yalom can be ruled out a source : I learned about the saying around that time, and sure his writing couldn't have reached me so quick. He will have said it multiple times in his career e.g. Love's Executioner (1989) - I (perhaps misleadingly) quoted a later book that let me chase the source. As an existential philosopher/psychologist writing self-help books about death I can imagine he might be the modern populariser because people struggling with death/mortality might reach for his books. They contain many ideas/aphorisms about death intended to help. Irvin D. Yalom - Love's Executioner (1989) > You know, there is no one alive now who was grown-up when I was a child. So I, as a child, am dead. Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That’s when I will be truly dead—when I exist in no one’s memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that old person dies, the whole cluster dies, too, vanishes from living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?
    - the-dude 3y ago
      That makes more sense, thanks again.
toyg 3y ago
The tone of this comment reminded me of an old sketch from the British sitcom "Goodness Gracious Me", with the Indian patriarch outrageously claiming everything was invented in India (”Superman? INDIAN!”): https://youtu.be/4GC_Q2YKNR0?si=vzA-zAGcde6HZyzv https://youtu.be/4GC_Q2YKNR0?si=vzA-zAGcde6HZyzv More seriously, it's a theme as old as mankind. For example, Ugo Foscolo in "Dei sepolcri" (1806): "Non vive ei forse anche sotterra, quando Gli sarà muta l’armonia del giorno, Se può destarla con soavi cure Nella mente de’ suoi [...] Sol chi non lascia eredità d'affetti Poca gioia ha dell’urna; e se pur mira Dopo l’esequie, errar vede il suo spirto Fra ’l compianto de’ templi Acherontei, O ricovrarsi sotto le grandi ale Del perdono d’lddio: ma la sua polve Lascia alle ortiche di deserta gleba Ove nè donna innamorata preghi, Nè passeggier solingo oda il sospiro Che dal tumulo a noi manda Natura"
- Loeffelmann 3y ago
  ChatGPT translation: Does he not perhaps also live underground when The day's harmony will be mute to him, If he can awaken it with gentle care In the minds of his [own] [...] Only he who leaves no legacy of affections Has little joy of the urn; and if he looks After the funeral, he sees his spirit Wander amidst Acheron's lamented temples, Or seeks shelter under the vast wings Of God's forgiveness: but his dust Leaves to the nettles of deserted soil Where neither the enamored woman prays, Nor the solitary passer-by hears the sigh That Nature sends to us from the tomb.
  - toyg 3y ago
    That's a pretty good translation.
- the-dude 3y ago
  I am not Jewish btw. Nor is Walter.

I spent some time trying to chase down an actual source. The most common source given is Irvin D. Yalom but he references the notion to "A Green Tree in Gedde" by Alan Sharpe. I don't see evidence for the various claims that it's a Jewish proverb, has an Egyptian source or a Marcus Aurelius quote. Overall I think the idea of "living on in the memories of others" is pretty persistent and cross-cultural with a number of related phrasings. Irvin D. Yalom - Staring at the Sun (2011) > I have let go of the wish, the hope, that I myself, my image, will persist in any tangible form. Certainly there will come a time when the last living person who has ever known me dies. Decades ago, I read in Alan Sharp’s novel A Green Tree in Gedde a description of a country cemetery with two sections: the “remembered dead” and the “truly dead.” The graves of the remembered dead are tended and adorned with flowers, whereas the graves of the truly dead were forgotten; they were flowerless, weed infested, with tombstones askew and eroded. Alan Sharpe - A Green Tree in Gedde (1965) But when at last the threads of memory rot and the rememberers themselves are tombed, then the liberated dead move in silent flit to the old open field of the truly buried, and there in sight of the living they relax and at last rest. Earliest related phrasing I can see is Shakespeare Sonnet 17, but it's more about living twice rather than dying twice: Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say “This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.” So should my papers, yellowed with their age, Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage And stretchèd meter of an antique song. But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice—in it and in my rhyme.

the-dude 3y ago
Thank you! I am pretty sure Yalom can be ruled out a source : I learned about the saying around that time, and sure his writing couldn't have reached me so quick. Furthermore, I find Dutch sources dating earlier ( online poems and obituaries ). The saying as I know it is more succint, it is either : You are not really dead when your name is still used/referenced ( Pardon my English ), or : You are only really dead when your name is not used/referenced anymore. I do agree with your assesment that it is probably cross-cultural ( and much older ), a bit of a canon.
- Fluorescence 3y ago
  > I am pretty sure Yalom can be ruled out a source : I learned about the saying around that time, and sure his writing couldn't have reached me so quick. He will have said it multiple times in his career e.g. Love's Executioner (1989) - I (perhaps misleadingly) quoted a later book that let me chase the source. As an existential philosopher/psychologist writing self-help books about death I can imagine he might be the modern populariser because people struggling with death/mortality might reach for his books. They contain many ideas/aphorisms about death intended to help. Irvin D. Yalom - Love's Executioner (1989) > You know, there is no one alive now who was grown-up when I was a child. So I, as a child, am dead. Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That’s when I will be truly dead—when I exist in no one’s memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that old person dies, the whole cluster dies, too, vanishes from living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?
  - the-dude 3y ago
    That makes more sense, thanks again.

toyg 3y ago

The tone of this comment reminded me of an old sketch from the British sitcom "Goodness Gracious Me", with the Indian patriarch outrageously claiming everything was invented in India (”Superman? INDIAN!”): https://youtu.be/4GC_Q2YKNR0?si=vzA-zAGcde6HZyzv https://youtu.be/4GC_Q2YKNR0?si=vzA-zAGcde6HZyzv More seriously, it's a theme as old as mankind. For example, Ugo Foscolo in "Dei sepolcri" (1806): "Non vive ei forse anche sotterra, quando Gli sarà muta l’armonia del giorno, Se può destarla con soavi cure Nella mente de’ suoi [...] Sol chi non lascia eredità d'affetti Poca gioia ha dell’urna; e se pur mira Dopo l’esequie, errar vede il suo spirto Fra ’l compianto de’ templi Acherontei, O ricovrarsi sotto le grandi ale Del perdono d’lddio: ma la sua polve Lascia alle ortiche di deserta gleba Ove nè donna innamorata preghi, Nè passeggier solingo oda il sospiro Che dal tumulo a noi manda Natura"

Loeffelmann 3y ago
ChatGPT translation: Does he not perhaps also live underground when The day's harmony will be mute to him, If he can awaken it with gentle care In the minds of his [own] [...] Only he who leaves no legacy of affections Has little joy of the urn; and if he looks After the funeral, he sees his spirit Wander amidst Acheron's lamented temples, Or seeks shelter under the vast wings Of God's forgiveness: but his dust Leaves to the nettles of deserted soil Where neither the enamored woman prays, Nor the solitary passer-by hears the sigh That Nature sends to us from the tomb.
- toyg 3y ago
  That's a pretty good translation.
the-dude 3y ago
I am not Jewish btw. Nor is Walter.