If the evil that men do lives after them, how, in all honesty, should we mourn dictators?
If your life has been characterised by good, then we may have the obligation to treat you with reverence once you turn into a spirit. But if you have caused nothing but misery, people have a right to say you were a scoundrel. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
De mortuis nil nisi bonum is a useful little Latin phrase which sounds rather like it was pronounced by some African sage of antiquity. It means that nothing but good should be said of the dead. It is fair, and it sits well with the principle of what they call “natural justice,” which requires us to hear the accused person before judgement is passed on him or her.
This goes against the grain of what Shakespeare caused Marcus Antonius to say in Julius Caesar when he declared, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,” but we should know that Marcus was making an impassioned plea for his friend, the butchered Julius, with the intention of putting a “tongue in every wound of Caesar that should move the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.”
