Okay. This is a rare, ancient piece from my Patreon while I recover from my birthday.
I couldn’t help but think of you when I came across this article I wrote for Listverse. They didn’t publish it…
…so it’s yours now, with my compliments.
___
10 Deeply Badass Last Words
Some people just go out with a bang. It’s easy in movies, of course; there’s always someone conveniently on hand to hear your final utterances (and probably remember them later, in a convenient dream sequence). It’s harder in real life; after all, if public speaking is difficult under normal circumstances, finding the right things to say as your epitaph must be downright terrifying. And surely countless people have gone to the grave with words of wit or defiance which never got heard or recorded. But some of the things people said before they shuffled off this mortal coil have survived them, and in some cases gone on to influence later culture.
What constitutes badass last words? We’d say that they have notes of bravery (or sometimes just bravado). They add punctuation to a life, standing as a final commentary on one’s achievements and circumstances. And they leave us with something penetrating, something which, when seen in the proper context, has as much force today as when first spoken.
The following are the endnotes of criminals, artists, soldier, and philosophers. Some of them are lionized today; some are barely known. But all of them had this in common: they died in a way which made their demises meaningful to us now.
1. “I’ll be in Hell before you’ve finished breakfast, boys! Let ‘er rip!”
“Black Jack” lived a life straight out of a Western movie. His father died when he was five, his mother went blind and then passed away when he was ten, and he found himself living the life of a cowboy for juts a few years when, at nineteen, he pulled off a daring train robbery which led to the beginnings of his band of crooks, “The Ketchum Gang”.
Daring thieves, robbers, murderers, and gunmen, the Ketchum Gang pulled off many a daring (and sometimes murderous) heist. They fought, stole, and generally acted pretty much like the bad guys in Westerns. They got away with it for a while, too. It wasn’t until 1899 – when Jack was 36 – that they ran into a better-armed, better-prepared posse. Jack was wounded, taken, tried, and sentenced to death. On the gallows, he was unrepentant, taunting the others that he’d be seeing them in hell.
2. “Merde! The Old Guard dies, but does not yield!”
–Marshal Cambronne, at Waterloo
We’re cheating a bit on this one (as we’ll explain in a moment) – but it’s for a good reason. We’ll get to that in a moment.
One of Napoleon’s most trusted military leaders, Pierre Cambronne was known as a steely, uncompromising soldier, respected by his men, politically acute, and brave. Shot at Waterloo, believing himself to be dying, he cried out, “Hell! The Old Guard dies, but does not yield.” Technically, these aren’t last words, because he didn’t actually die. In fact he lived on to refute having said this at all, even though there are now statues with that epitaph engraved on them
What he actually said was , “Get up and fight, damn you!” . That’s a hell of a thing for a mortally-wounded man, on the losing end of Napoleon’s last battle, to say to anyone.
He recovered from his wounds, married his nurse, and eventually became a viscount, living for several decades more. His actual “last words” are unknown.
3. “Good God, won’t somebody give me some more cartridges for a last shot?”
–Billy Clantan, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral has inspired artwork, murals, several movies (including the eponymous film of 1957 and numerous TV shows, comic books, and other pieces of pop culture have featured the protagonist, Wyatt Earp, a real-life lawman whose violent peacekeeping led to arguably the most famous six-shooter battle in Western history.
Billy Clanton’s side was defeated by Earp and his brothers; with his companions dead or crying for Mercy, Clanton found himself mortally wounded. He looked up to find Wyatt Earp standing over him. Without a word of remorse, he uttered his only regret – that he didn’t have any ammunition left to take Wyatt out with him – and died on the spot.
4. “I am your deathless God; a mortal nevermore.”
–Empedocles, philosopher and mystic
There was no shortage of hubris going around at about 500 B.C.E. Well before the birth of Jesus, it was considered fairly normal for a philosopher to declare himself to be divine. After all, emperors were divine, priests touched the divine, and even the pagan Egyptians declared their rules to be gods. Why not philosophers?
There’s some discussion that Empedocles might have said this within a poem before his death, and only recited it on his deathbed. But it’s hard to tell. His complex situation of natural philosophy blended keen and advanced mathematical insights, knowledge of human physiology and psychology, and a firm belief that he was a divine being reduced to mortal form for some unknown act which happened before his birth in mortal form. [LINK FIVE].
He does live on in having been the first Greek to hypothesize a formless deity, as opposed to one which could be embodied in an idol. So in some ways, he has the immortality of having founded a tenet which would take on key importance in later Judeo-Christian belief. He himself, however, never made it into the canon of those religions.
5. “Adieu, my friends, I go to glory!”
Isadora Duncan embodied grace and energy. She was a darling of the stage, and the author of several seminal books on dance. She’s considered by many to be the mother of modern dance, and, indeed, of modern artistic expression; she wrote “Man has not invented the harmony of music. It is one of the underlying principles of life”, a statement which brought together classical ideas and current scientific understanding.
She was outspoken, bold, and provocative. She faced a number of personal tragedies, and persevered as both a performer and a teacher.
Her last words are some of the simplest and most optimistic. At the end of an extraordinary life and career, she voiced an elegant and inspirational optimism.
6. “I am just going outside and may be some time.”
–Captain Lawrence Grace Edward “Titus” Oates
In modern times, we sometimes forget the challenges and the battles of earlier explorers. Less than a century ago, it took the bravest of the brave to attempt to find places on earth which we now pinpoint with mathematical certitude. Such a man was Captain Lawrence Oates. He set out on an ill-fated expedition to find the North Pole.
There are many accounts detailing what happened and how they failed. But perhaps the most heart-wrenching part of the story is Oates’ own part. Trapped in the tent, in a terrible winter storm, frostbitten, feeling he was holding the expedition back, worried that he was sapping them of valuable food and resources, he gave one of the most understated suicide notes ever spoken: “I am just going outside and may be some time”. He stepped into the storm – to vanish, and die, of course, in the hope that his companions would live.
While a rival expedition would make the Pole, he never would. The majority of his companions would perish, leaving just the remnants of the expedition to convey his final words to the world.
7. “I am dying, as I have lived – beyond my means.”
Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, and general wit, is perhaps one of the most widely quoted people of the 19th century. He was persecuted for his homosexuality, even as his actions, art, and life would provide modern gay archetypes which endure to this day. He met imprisonment with bravery and literary achievement.
And he met death with his customary offbeat humor.
Some biographers suggest that he was referring to the costs of his medical care, but we tend to believe that he simply refused to give up an inch of the flamboyance of his lifestyle, even at the moment of death.
8. “Bring me a bullet-proof vest.”
-James Rodgers, convicted murderer
James Rodgers might have been arguing his innocence, or he might have been spitting out defiance. He maintained, up to his death, that the man he killed had been attacking him or about to attack him with a wrench (over, of all things, an argument about a scoop shovel.)
Still, if you have to go up before a firing squad, that’s a way more practical request than a blindfold and a last cigarette.
“Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office.”
Sir Thomas More died as an honored and knighted statesman, and was later canonized by the Catholic church. He was known as a philosopher, a statesman, and a counselor to kings. He considered himself to be both a servant of his faith and his King. He was executed for treason after essentially supporting the Pope over King Henry in the matter of the King’s annulment of his first marriage and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn.
He seemed utterly at peace with himself in death; not only did he give motivational coaching to his own executioner, he’s said to have taken time to place his beard out of the way of damage from the axe—saying that it was not, after all, his beard which had offended.
10. “Drink to me.”
There’s no end to what could be said about Pablo Picasso, and how his work changed the artistic world forever. He wasn’t shy about it himself; as he put it, “I don’t seek. I find.” He influenced pretty much every major artist of the 20th century.
Many people are familiar with his last words, not because of Picasso’s fame, but because they were made into a hit song by Paul McCartney. But his words are particularly inspiring when we recognize that a man who said and did so much with the artistic world asked, not to be remembered, not to be followed or honored, but to simply inspire a toast. One of the most unique figures of his day, Picasso asked to be remembered, not in a way which highlighted his own greatness, but in one which asked us to think about him in times of happiness and gathering together. That’s no small feat of modesty for a creator whose work influenced millions.
_________
You might like my really infrequent literary email list?
Try my mostly-free Patreon.
Comments are closed.