Requiem for a Queen
On February 8, 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was executed.
Jedburgh Death Mask
“En ma Fin gît mon Commencement…”
“In my End is my Beginning…”
“This is the saying which Mary embroidered on her cloth of estate whilst in prison in England and is the theme running through her life. It symbolises the eternity of life after death….”
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
— T. S. Eliot, conclusion of “East Coker” in Four Quartets
In keeping with Eliot’s words, tonight’s site music is