by George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788 – 1824)

Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains
Of one
Who possessed Beauty
Without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man
Without his Vices.

The Price, which would be unmeaning flattery
If inscribed over Human Ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
“Boatswain,� a Dog
Who was born at Newfoundland,
May, 1803,
And died in Newstead Abbey,
Nov. 18, 1808.

When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown by glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And stories urns record that rests below.
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,
Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth –
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power –
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennoble but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on – it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one – and here he lies.

Byron was accused of all kinds of disloyalty and subversive acts (e.g. his adoption of a pet bear when he was told as a student at Trinity that pet dogs were not allowed), but he clearly found solace and perhaps even a more essential and honest companionship with his animals. Perhaps it was because they were less likely to counter his words with their own.

Nice that the Slovenian’s have decided to honor their most well known poet France PreÅ¡eren by putting his likeness on their new Euro coins. The bank has an amusing story (PDF) behind the reason for adding a signature below the likeness of someone so famous:

Unfortunately, PreÅ¡eren’s image remains largely unknown, despite the great number of “well known portraits”. For that reason we have decided to put his handwriting on the coin, as a sure confirmation that it is authentic PreÅ¡eren. We use the poet’s silhouette in releif (after Dremelj’s portrait) because it attests to the “poetic character” of this little-known representation in a contemporary manner.

And even if you look closely at the coin, I suspect his true image will continue to remain largely unknown. Funny and rather strange twist of identity logic. “Officer, please note that I consider myself a poetic character so my identity card has a rather ambiguous photo on it instead of the normal portrait.”

Should we recognize his signature any more than an image?Trubar apparently has a more well-known portrait, despite being alive hundreds of years earlier, and so they only put examples of his typography on the coin.

Speaking of identities, I also noticed that the Carinthian stone was given a place on the Slovenian currency, although Carinthia is actually an area that spans an informal Slovenian province and an Austrian federal state.