LAST WORDS

I can prove Gaius Caligula was, if not the most depraved then certainly the stupidest Roman Emperor of them all.  According to Tacitus, who was never wrong, in 41 A.D., after having been stabbed by his own bodyguards, the lunatic’s last words were, “I am still alive!” Playing opossum never seems to have occurred to him. 

 Listen, if you are already falling to your death, what could be the harm in trying to fly? Or in keeping your big mouth shut, instead of alerting your killers they had not yet finished the job.  Last words such as those are self defining; you are dead because you are, or were, really, really stupid.

Consider Billy the Kid’s last words, as he walked into a darkened room, in which Sheriff Pat Garritt, was waiting with his finger on the trigger of a loaded shotgun. Said Billy, “Who’s there?” He should have asked that before he entered the room.

There is a school of thought that last words reveal some insight into character. I’m referring to the   utterances of those who know they are facing an imminent death; as in 1790 when French Reign of Terror victim Thomas de Mahay, the Marquis de Favras, actually spent his last moments on earth reading his own death warrant as he climbed the steps of to the guillotine. 

He might have been searching for a legal loophole. Instead his last words were addressed to the clerk, there to confirm his execution, Thomas handed the clerk his death warrant while pointing out, "I see that you have made three spelling mistakes.” That was not a helpful remark if he was hoping for a delay the proceedings, but it did tell us a great deal about Thomas.  What an arrogant putz.

Or consider the final words of the clever, acid tongued Lady Nancy Whitcher Langhorne Astor (above, center), the first female member the English Parliament (above), who awoke from a coma to discover her family had gathered around her. 

From her own deathbed she asked, “Am I dying or is this my birthday?” She then promptly died. Unfortunately, the family’s response was not recorded, and I am the kind of person who wonders what they might have replied to a question like that.  Happy birthday, Grandma?

I have also wondered about the last words of Margaretha Geertfuida Zella, the little Dutch girl better known by her stage name, Mata Hari. She was a dancer who became a stripper because, as she admitted, “I could never dance very well.” During the First World War she became a famous spy because she was so bad at it.  It is not clear even today who she was spying for, if anybody.

But at 5:00 A.M. on 15 October, 1917, as she stood in front of the French firing squad, Margaretha was asked if she had any last words. Her reply was, “It is unbelievable.” And then the idiots shot her without asking what she meant by that.  What was unbelievable, unbelievable to whom? I would like to know.

There is a similar story told about the last words of painter and poet Pietro Arentino, (above) the father of modern pornography, and thus one of my heroes. Pietro was known as the "Scourge of Princes", but also a good friend of the painter Titian. And it was helping out his friend that got Pietro killed. 

See, in 1556 Guidobaldo Il della Rovere (above), the Duke of Urbino, hired Titian to paint a portrait of his wife, Giulia da Varno. Titian needed the money, as usual, but the problem was that Giulia was not only rich, she was also “vain and ugly”, making her a dangerous combination for an artist trying to paint her.  If the portrait didn’t look like her she would be offended. If it looked too much like her, she would be offended. Luckily for Titian, Pietro came up with the solution.

At Pietro’s suggestion, Titian (above) hired his favorite prostitute from a local brothel, and had her pose for the painting of the body. But in place of the prostitute’s head he painted a glamorized portrait of Giulia, based on flattering paintings done of her as a young woman. 

It sounds like a bad joke but in the hands of a genius like Titian such absurdity can become great art. , i.e. the Venus Urbino (above). The Duke was thrilled with the finished product. When he  saw the painting he confided, wistfully, to both Titian and Pietro, “If I could have had that girl’s body, even with my wife’s head, I would have been a happier man.” 

Pietro laughed so hard he had a stroke. They carried him to a room out of the way and when it became clear that he was not likely to recover the Duke called for a priest to administer extreme unction. 

First the priest prayed for Pietro, and then offered to hear his last confession. But since Pietro was still unconscious, the priest continued, anointing Pietro with holy oil on his eyelids, ears, nostrils, lips, hands and feet, each time repeating the chant, “By this holy unction and his own most gracious mercy, may the Lord pardon you whatever sin you have committed.” 

As the priest finished the last prayer, Pietro’s eyes opened and he said clearly and distinctly, “Now that I’m oiled. Keep me from the rats.” And then he died. There was no doubt about what he meant, and that in effect he had died laughing.

And then there are last words for which no explanation is required because the act of dying is the explanation; such as when the great amateur botanist Luther Burbank delivered his last words on earth; “I don’t feel so good”. 

For some last words, location is everything - as when the poet Hart Crane (above) delivered his last words, “Good-bye, everybody". He was standing on the railing of the Steamship Orizaba,  heading back to New York City. Immediately after those words he jumped into the Gulf of Mexico. What more explanation could you require from such people?

But I retain my deepest affection for the actor, comic, poet, playwright and historian, Ergon Friedell. In 1933 he described the newly triumphant Nazi Party as "...a bunch of debased menials".  One of his last public performances in 1939 was a parody of a speech by Adolph Hitler. 

On the night of 16 March, 1939 two Nazi thugs arrived to arrest Egron. While his housekeeper delayed them at the front door, Ergon climbed onto his bedroom window ledge and before he jumped to his death spoke his last words that revealed a sweet and gentle heart, to go with the quick, funny and facile mind he had exhibited his entire life.  Teetering on the ledge he warned those who might be on the sidewalk beneath him in the dark, “Watch out, please,” he said. Only then did he jump. God bless, him.

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