ANYWAYS, this being his 400th year anniversary regardless, HUZZAH!
Unless, of course, it was a room full of monkeys with quills that actually wrote for him, still, HUZZAH! :)
'Shakespeare's funerary monument is the earliest memorial to the playwright, located inside Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, UK, the same church in which he was baptised. The exact date of its construction is not known, but must have been between Shakespeare's death in 1616 and 1623, when it is mentioned in the First Folio of the playwright's works.
Beneath the figure is engraved an epitaph in Latin and a poem in English. The epitaph reads:
IVDICIO PYLIVM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM,
TERRA TEGIT, POPVLVS MÆRET, OLYMPVS HABET
The first line translates as "A Pylian in judgement, a Socrates in genius, a Maro in art," comparing Shakespeare to Nestor the wise King of Pylus, to the Greek philosopher Socrates, and to the Roman poet Virgil (whose last name, or cognomen was Maro). The second reads "The earth buries him, the people mourn him, Olympus possesses him," referring to Mount Olympus, the home of the Greek gods.
The English poem reads:
STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST,
READ IF THOV CANST, WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST
WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE: WITH WHOME,
QVICK NATVRE DIDE: WHOSE NAME, DOTH DECK YS TOMBE,
FAR MORE, THEN COST: SIEH ALL, YT HE HATH WRITT,
LEAVES LIVING ART, BVT PAGE, TO SERVE HIS WITT.
As modernized by Katherine Duncan-Jones:
Stay Passenger, why goest thou by so fast?
Read if thou canst, whom envious Death hath plast
Within this monument Shakspeare: with whom
Quick nature died: whose name doth deck this tomb
Far more than cost: sith [since] all that he hath writ
Leaves living art, but page to serve his wit.
Stanley Wells is one of the few biographers to comment on the poem, saying that it "somewhat cryptically calls on the passer-by to pay tribute to his greatness as a writer", and admitting "the only sense I can make out of the last bit is that his compositions relegate the sculptor's art to the rank of a mere page – with perhaps a forced pun on the writer's 'pages' – offering service to his genius; or perhaps that all art subsequent to Shakespeare's is a page – servant – to his." Wells also points out that "his name does not deck the tomb, and it's not a tomb anyway", suggesting that it may have been originally designed to be part of a free-standing tomb.
Squeezed into the small space beneath the poem, a few abbreviated words in Latin tell us that he died in the year of the Lord 1616, in his 53rd year, on 23 April.
OBIIT ANO DOI 1616
ÆTATIS?53 DIE 23 APR.
To digg the dust enclosed heare;
Bleste be the man that spares thes stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones'
But fear thee not! I cometh bearing virtual baubles and gauds!