In Memoriam

The photo is taken from Dr. Albert Lin's Facebook page

I picked up Lord Alfred Tennyson’s In Memoriam many times, but never did I finish it.  It always came to mind with the passing of any worthy man, such as that of Dr. Luke Lin today.  It is a great loss to his family and the Taiwanese community in the greater Pittsburgh area.  Everyone knows how good he was as a physician, friend, father and husband by all measures; such a gentle, loving and noble man.

Strictly speaking, In Memoriam is not an elegy, but Tennyson began the poem right after his good buddy (at Trinity College), Arthur Hallam, passed away not quite two years after graduating from Trinity College.  It took him 17-18 years (1833-1849) to complete it.

Queen Victoria found great solace reading In Memoriam after the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861, “Next to the Bible, In Memoriam is my comfort.”

With 133 cantos (including the prologue and epilogue), In Memoriam is a very lengthy poem and difficult one. T.S. Eliot called it “the most unapproachable of all his [Tennyson’s] poems.”  I found the book by Alfred Gatty, “A Key to Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam” helpful (one can get this free eBook on Kindle).

I just read the first 20 cantos again today in memory of Dr. Lin.  In Canto IX one reads,

My Arthur, whom I shall not see

Till all my widow'd race be run;

Dear as the mother to the son,

More than my brothers are to me.

Tennyson views himself as a wife who has lost her husband.  Gatty commented that “Till all my widow’d race be run” is similar to what Apostle Paul declared (in II Timothy 4:7), “I have fought the good fight.  I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”  Gatty stated that the words ‘race’ and ‘course’ are synonymous.

The line of “Till all my widowed race be run” is seen again in Canto XVII, which indicates that they'll meet again once the widow's race (course) is over.

We also read this in Canto XXVII,

I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

’Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all

I always admire Steve Jobs and began to revere him and felt  斯人也 而有斯疾也 (Such a wonderful person, such a dreaded disease!) after reading Isaacson’s Steve Jobs.  The same is also true for Dr. Lin.  This is fate, which is beyond the reach of our knowledge or medical advance.  “We have but faith: we cannot know;” our knowledge is limited by a reverence for that which we cannot know.

I'll borrow a few lines from Macbeth (Act 5 Scene 8) to ask the family to lessen the sorrow (節哀!),

Your cause of sorrow

Must not be measured by his worth, for then

It hath no end.

節哀!