“... lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew’s head cut off at the nape,”
and where it can be found to place between his knees on the monument. And in this he shall have a great triumph over his enemy—
“For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!”
After this outbreak of selfishness and envy he resumes the conventional whine:
“Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years.”
Suddenly, with a totally different inflection, he returns to the thought of his tomb:
“Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
’Twas ever antique-black I meant!”
This is said suddenly, and with the most positive and abrupt inflections. Notice that amid the gloom he will even laugh over the bad Latin of old Gandolf the “elucescebat” of his inscription, and abruptly demands of his sons that his epitaph be
“Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully’s every word.”