Tarjomeh Free Radio Script Service

Script for January 3, 2002
Radio broadcast in RealAudioŽ

Today we celebrate Memento Mori Day. A memento mori is "a reminder of mortality, especially a death's-head, a human skull, or depiction of a human skull symbolizing death." Memento Mori translates from Latin as "Remember that you must die"; and it is also the title of a 1959 novel by Muriel Spark. The catalyst for the fictional Memento Mori is a series of anonymous phone calls made to several elderly London friends, all with the same message: "Remember you must die." In the novel, each recipient hears and responds to the words differently; the folks behind Memento Mori Day take a page from that book and remind us to cherish all that we have today, for tomorrow may never arrive.

Checking back in time, we discover William Shakespeare gave us one of the earliest (if not the earliest) known uses of memento mori in English. In Henry IV, Part I, the roguish Falstaff and his drinking buddy Bardolph are insulting each other in the Boar's Head Tavern, when Falstaff tells his companion: "I make as good use of [your red face] as many a man doth of a death's-head or a memento mori: I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire. . . ."

Provided by Tarjomeh.com from Merriam-Webster Website