More on the Long Line of Dead People

Flipping through the March/April issue of FP magazine last night, I found myself recalling the passage at the beginning of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, where Leonatus asks the messenger:

How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

And the messenger replies:

But few of any sort, and none of name.

—William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing I,1

"None of name," humph. So some dead are deader than others?

Uncharacteristically, Shakespeare foregoes the opportunity to deploy the anonymous dead as an occasion for pathos. He could have echoed Horace:

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles
Urguentur ignotique sacro

—Horace, Odes IV, IX, 25

That is:

Brave men there were before Agamemnon,
Not a few; but, all unwept and unknown, are lost in the distant night,
since they are without a divine poet to chronicle their deeds.

—Trans. ?? Not me?

Which gets an homage from Byron;

Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:

—George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan, I, v

Anyway, FP Magazine: this stuff all came back to mind last night when I read the answers (at page 94) to the monthly FP quiz. We are told that “it’s believed that two thirds of the world’s deaths…go undocumented.” And I remembered Jill Leovy’s remarkable piece about murders in Los Angeles County (link):

Detectives routinely admitted that the names and ages they had recorded for victims were, at best, conjecture: Many victims, including illegal immigrants or career criminals, had lived entirely underground.

For contrast, I remembered how I went trekking through the old Austria-Hungarian Empire with Mrs. B, in search of her ancestors: how many records we found, how detailed and how carefully preserved, even to the listing of children who died in infancy.

But among memories, perhaps most famous of all:

1 Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.
2 The Lord hath wrought great glory by them
through his great power from the beginning.
3 Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms,
men renowned for their power,
giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies:
4 Leaders of the people by their counsels,
and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people,
wise and eloquent are their instructions:
5 Such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing:
6 Rich men furnished with ability,
living peaceably in their habitations:
7 All these were honoured in their generations,
and were the glory of their times.
8 There be of them, that have left a name behind them,
that their praises might be reported.
9 And some there be, which have no memorial;
who are perished, as though they had never been;
and are become as though they had never been born;
and their children after them.
10 But these were merciful men,
whose righteousness hath not been forgotten.
11 With their seed shall continually remain a good inheritance, and
their children are within the covenant.
12 Their seed standeth fast, and their children for their sakes.
13 Their seed shall remain for ever,
and their glory shall not be blotted out.
14 Their bodies are buried in peace;
but their name liveth for evermore.
15 The people will tell of their wisdom,
and the congregation will shew forth their praise.

--Ecclesiasticus 44:1

I can remember hearing this read by a 13-14 year old girl at a school commencement, going on 32 years ago. Obviously made an impression.