Anonymous, 1623
Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet.
Stay, passenger, who goest thou by so fast?
Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath placed
Within this monument; Shakespeare with whom
Quick nature died; whose name doth deck this tomb
Far more than cost; sith all that he hath writ
Leaves living art but page to serve his wit.
Inscription on the Monument erected to Shakespeare’s Memory in the Parish Church at Stratford-on-Avon. 1623.