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proximoception ([personal profile] proximoception) wrote2010-07-25 02:33 am
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Goethe in a letter, on his son's grave:

After a few days he was carried to his rest near the Pyramid of Cestius, in the place his father used to long for in poetic dreams before he was born.

He mentions these longings in Roman Elegy 7 (sometimes 9), where he's thankful to be in Rome and hopes to die there:

Here put up with me, Jove, and let Hermes escort me down later, / Past the Cestian tomb, softly to Orcus below. (Hamburger)

And in Italian Journey:

The poems on Hans Sachs and on Mieding's death conclude the eighth volume, and so, for the present, my writings. If in the meantime I am laid to rest next to the pyramid, these two poems can serve as my biographical data and funeral oration.

In a 1788 letter:

Some evenings ago when I was melancholic I drew [my grave] by Cestius' pyramid.

Drawing:

[identity profile] grashupfer.livejournal.com 2010-07-27 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Why doesn't the pyramid cast a shadow?

[identity profile] proximoception.livejournal.com 2010-07-28 05:26 am (UTC)(link)
I guess the trees and grave are on a high hill. I don't remember a high hill.