ALCUIN

Scholar and poet of the 8th century AD

        
        QUOD nunc es fueram, famosus in orbe, viator,
           et quod nunc ego sum, tuque futurus eris.
        Delicias mundi casso sectabar amore,
           nunc cinis et pulvis, vermibus atque cibus.
        Quapropter potius animam curare memento,
           quam carnem, quoniam haec manet, illa perit.
        Cur tibi rura paras? Quam parvo cernis in antro 
           me tenet hic requies: sic tua parva fiet.
 

You are now, traveller, what I once was, talked of throughout the world; and what I am now you will one day become. I pursued worldly pleasures with a futile passion, and here I am now dust and ashes, food for worms. For this reason remember to look after the soul and not your body, for one lasts, the other perishes. Why build up your estates? You see in what a cramped tomb I am here held at rest: thus small will be your own.

From his epitaph

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