memento mori

读音

• /məˈmɛntoʊ ˈmɔːɹi/

释义

1. 死亡的象征物 （提醒人自己终有一死的物品，比如骷髅等）

   No, Ile be ſworne: I make as good vſe of it, as many a man doth of a Deaths-Head, or a Memento Mori.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 64:

   I have often heard you express your dislike of any impertinent memento moris—you have even thought it irreligious, and unthankful for present good; and tending to chill the life-blood, the little that is left in the old, and to throw a wet blanket over the cheerfulness of the young, out of which cheerfulness elastic manhood is to spring, and to take upon itself to do the manly responsible duties of life vigorously. I repeat that you have always maintained, that to thrust a memento mori in every man’s face, or to carve it upon his walking-stick, is irreligious, because it is essential unthankfulness.

   1854 October, “Civilisation.—The Census.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume LXXVI, number CCCCLXVIII, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood & Sons, […], page 447, column 2:

   On All Saints’ day, Toussaint, the festival of the dead, the fête des morts, the whole town, and especially the cemetery of Rheims, was a scene of lively, and I may say cheerful, excitement. Along the street leading to the latter were arranged on both sides stalls and tables, gayly festooned with crowns, crosses, and memento moris, and attended by female hucksters.

   1867, Robert Tomes, “A Cheerful Resort—Cemetery at Rheims—Death and Champagne— […]”, in The Champagne Country, New YorK, N.Y.: […] [Melancthon M.] Hurd and [Henry Oscar] Houghton, […], pages 193–194:

   The series of moments [which] the clock records is not only a succession of “nows” but a memento mori diminishing the number of seconds that remain before death.

   1995, Richard Klein, “Introduction”, in Cigarettes are sublime, Paperback edition, Durham: Duke University Press, published 1993, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 8:

   And there were even stranger sides to this kind of behaviour: when his mother died, Bruckner commissioned a photograph of her on her death bed and kept it in his teaching room. He had no image of his mother when she was alive, just this grotesque-seeming token of her death staring out at him as an unsettling memento mori.

   2014 April 1, Tom Service, “Sex, death and dissonance: the strange, obsessive world of Anton Bruckner”, in The Guardian:

   As a student of the fossil record, I can assure you that it’s not often that creatures are transformed, in flagrante delicto, into memento mori.

   2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 65:

   Bright enamel is a feature of posies around the late sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century, with darker enamels continuing into the eighteenth century on memento moris like this example.

   2021，Jo Ahmet，50 Finds 源自Kent: Objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme，Amberley Publishing，→ISBN：