Et in Arcadia Ego: History, Myth & Remembrance

The shepherds of Arcadia ponder the meaning of the tomb inscription, ET IN ARCADIA EGO. Painting by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)
entitled "The Shepherds of Arcadia" or "Et in Arcadia Ego" (1637-1638) 

Many years ago as a college student working in the archaeological curation lab at Mississippi State University, I couldn't have been more fortunate, or blessed to have met Jack D. Elliott. At that time Jack was working for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) as a state archaeologist, and historian.

I was raised as a Southern Baptist, and Jack a devout Roman Catholic, and our conversation would always gravitate towards spiritual things. We became fast friends, and have been now for around 25 years.

Just hanging around Jack I have become more enlightened and intelligent on a broad array of subjects, but especially history and it's place in our spiritual lives (the transcendent elements of history). The science of archaeology is definitely interesting and fascinating in it's own right, but divorced from transcendent questions, it becomes a fact gathering enterprise which doesn't consider the big picture of humanity or of human nature. It can become myopic, consisting of mere data collection. But history is also participatory - even when visiting an historical site.

Several years ago, when I was visiting Jack, we drove to an old cemetery located down a gravel road which meandered through the rolling hills above the Black Prairie in northern Mississippi. It was there that some of the truths I had been learning from Jack came together in my mind and in my understanding. Jack is a scholar and a student of the German political philosopher, and philosopher of history, Eric Voegelin.

One of the several core truths of Voegelin's thought is that human nature is deeply spiritual, not merely physical, and that the meaning of human existence has been common to all people since the beginning. Despite what modernity indicates - the spiritual dimensions of human nature are deeply embedded in all humans, past and present. As Voegelin scholar Glenn Hughes wrote:

"...despite the pressures of both popular and intellectual culture, despite contemporary feelings of isolation and fragmentation, we continue to surmise that we are actors in a common drama of existence, and so we continue to try to orient ourselves by some vision or another of the whole. Awareness of the unity of human history remains alive" [1]

The cemetery that Jack and I visited is located in an area called the Kilgore Hills. We visited the cemetery because of a fascinating story that Jack had told me a couple of years previously. Below is the story (as told by Jack) in it's entirety which was published in the TomBigbee Country Magazine.

G.K. Chesterton once said, that "Truth is stranger than fiction, because we have made fiction to suit ourselves."This is one of those strange but true stories. It is fortuitous for us that Jack met Mr. Whit, in the 1960's who then relayed the history behind a fascinating man, his tomb and the reminder to all of us, of the fragility and shortness of life, as well as hope beyond the grave.

ET IN ARCADIA EGO: A TALE OF THE KILGORE HILLS

by Jack D. Elliott 

One of the most unforgettable images from the Kilgore Hills is the Watkins mausoleum at Big Springs. To reach it you turn off the county road at Big Springs and drive beneath overhanging trees and alongside awesome gorges. Upon turning a bend in the road the vault comes into view. Most people buried in the cemetery have relatively modest headstones, if they have any at all. Looming over them all is the mausoleum, an elegant reminder of death set amidst the natural beauty of the place. 

Entombed inside are Dr. William Andrew Watkins and his wife “Miss Fannie”. The story of Dr. Watkins’s death, carried down in legendry, only accentuated the eeriness of the place. Scion of one of the major families of the Kilgore Hills, educated, intelligent, and young, his death was a tragedy that shook the community. He had been killed -- decapitated they say -- during a car wreck in 1916. The tragedy was made all the worse when Miss Fannie began making hysterical accusations against the other occupants of the car at the time of the wreck, including his own cousins.

Perhaps the most enigmatic aspect of the mausoleum is its inscription. Carved in large capital letters is the name WATKINS and below it the phrase ET IN ARCADIA EGO. I have heard many puzzling over its meaning, even debating what language it is in.  Many think it’s in Spanish, and I’ve heard one person state emphatically and with great authority that it is obviously Greek. However, it is Latin.

As a teenager in the 1960s I regularly helped our neighbor, Mr. Lucius Cincinnatus Whitfield Waide, or Mr. Whit as he was usually called. He was in his 90s at the time, but intellectually and physically active. However, he was no longer able to split and haul firewood, so he hired me to help. He was educated -- a lawyer -- and was also well read in many other fields, besides being a treasure trove of local lore. He was well versed in Latin, regularly reading Cicero, one of his favorite authors.

Figuring that he would know something about the tomb, I once asked him about it and the meaning of the enigmatic inscription. A look of fond remembrance came over him. “Yes, I can tell you about that. I knew Will quite well. We grew up together. We were the same age and the best of friends. The inscription -- Et in Arcadia Ego -- it means ‘Even I am in Arcadia’ with the ‘I’ meaning ‘I, Death.’ It’s the title of a painting by a Frenchman Nicholas Poussin. It’s also known as ‘The Shepherds of Arcadia.’ Arcadia is a part of Greece that is secluded, rustic, and hilly. Its inhabitants were pastoralists who led unsophisticated yet happy lives. Arcadia came to mean a pastoral paradise. The painting shows a scene in Arcadia with a background of hills and glens. In the foreground three shepherds and one shepherdess -- all young -- puzzle over a vaulted tomb with the inscription: Et in Arcadia Ego. Even in Arcadia, I – Death – am here. 

“The painting is a ‘memento mori,’ -- a reminder of death – ‘In the midst of life, we are in death.’ In many ways it summarized Will’s personality which ranged from an almost ecstatic sense of wonder at God’s creation to a deep, dark melancholia. Will acquired the painting, a copy of the original, when we were on the grand tour of Europe in 1895 while we were both in the university. 

“Having attended the university many like Will would have moved to a city after graduation. Not Will though. He loved the hills which he called his own little Arcadia.

“So he returned home and established his practice. After he married his cousin Fannie from Kemper County, he built a two-story house, and in the main room hung his copy of the Shepherds of Arcadia. He had his office in one room. He also owned one of the first cars in the area. For the benefit of his more remote patients, he would travel around with a portable dental chair in the back.

“Despite his love for the area, the beauty of the hills, he often descended into melancholia. I remember one time finding him sitting on his front porch. When he saw me he said: “’Cincinnatus,’ -- he always called me Cincinnatus. He loved Roman history – ‘I am honored by your presence on this somber occasion’ and began reciting lines from Shakespeare: 

“‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.’

“Then he paused for a minute, and said, ‘Cincinnatus, I am so damned depressed.’

“I tried to cheer him up, but without success. Over the years his moods would change. On some days he would be filled with the greatest sense of wonder and delight, so happy to be alive, then he would descend into the depths of despair. 

“However, if there was ever a cure for his melancholia, it was riding through the hills drinking whiskey. This was a surefire solvent to dissolve his dark moods, which often inspired long rambling philosophical reflections.  He would have the black man, Sterl Gosa, drive, and he would bring along some of his friends, such as myself and his cousins Ed and Steve Watkins who were also about his age. Ed and Steve were notorious bon vivants who came along not for the ride or the philosophy, but for the drink. 

“One night there were five of us: Will, Ed, Steve, Sterl, and myself. We went to Una to buy some whiskey.  On the return trip – whiskey in hand – Will wanted to drive as he often did when he was drinking. So he changed places with Sterl. Crossing Houlka Creek bottom (locally known as Mooder Bottom), we could see the hills in the distance and behind them the aura of the setting sun. It was beautiful – and it moved Will. He pointed, and with a whoop exclaimed: “I look to the hills from whence comes my redemption.” I don’t think that anybody in the car other than myself had the slightest idea of what he was talking about, but I knew the ecstasy which would sweep away his darkness.

“Then he started reciting Shelley’s “Mont Blanc.” 

“‘The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom
Now lending splendor, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings….’

“Ed and Steve, who were never poetically inclined, cackled at Will’s recitation:

“‘Mont Blanc it gleams on high. . .
The still and solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life and death.’

“Will and I had seen that awesome peak during our grand tour. Its jagged crown sticking out of a layer of clouds – the sunlight playing on the snow like sparks of electricity. You can see why the ancients saw the divine in mountains. There’s not much comparison between Mont Blanc and the Kilgore Hills, but Will always had the ability to see the universe in a grain of sand.

“By that time we were in the Hills. After continuing for a few more stanzas Will turned to me in the back seat -- taking his eyes off the road. In the dark I could barely make out the expression of ecstasy on his face. He said, ‘Cincinnatus, I feel like I touched the face of God!’ When he turned around there was a white mule in front of the car.

“Will jerked the car wheel to the right. We missed the mule but ran off the road and clattered down a steep slope into a ravine amidst a mixture of curses and prayers. I thought that I was going to be killed, but when we came to a stop I didn’t have a scratch on me. Ed who had been cussing started to laugh, and Sterl shouted “Praise the Lord, I’m alive.” I looked over at Will. He was slumped over the wheel -- dead. Despite all the tales going around these days that he was decapitated, there actually was not a scratch on him. No sign of why he had died. And the mule in the road -- no one ever found or claimed it. It was as if it never existed, as if it popped out of no where then returned to no where. 

“Will was buried two days later in his family lot at Big Springs. It was terrible. His family was devastated, and so was the community. And it got worse. Fannie began to spread the word that we had poisoned Will. The accusations were irrational and hysterical. Why would we -- his friends and relatives – want to murder him? There was no motive. 

“Fannie badgered the law to have his body exhumed and autopsied, and she finally wore them down. They dug Will up on a hot summer day and had him autopsied right in the cemetery by Dr. Sam Deanes of West Point, and I had to go through the horror of witnessing it. And what did we find out? Nothing! Except that there was no known cause for his death, not human or natural. It was as if God had called him home.

“Fannie calmed down after that and conceived the notion of building a mausoleum to memorialize Will. She was never tight with her money. She used to buy cakes at your family’s store to feed her dogs on special occasions, and she didn’t spare any money when it came to building a monument to Will. She asked me about a design, and I suggested that it be designed after the Poussin painting, including the inscription, which he loved.

“She immediately launched into the project, ordering it from Italy. After the stone arrived by rail in West Point it was hauled over the muddy roads in enormous wagons pulled by eight mule teams to Big Springs. For grandiosity the mausoleum was quite an accomplishment anywhere, let alone the Kilgore Hills. Many observed that it ranked alongside the construction of Waide’s Lake -- the standard for engineering marvels in the Hills. Some even compared it to the building of the Parthenon or to the Panama Canal, although none had actually seen the Parthenon or the Panama Canal.”

Today teenagers driving through the Kilgore Hills stumble upon the Watkins mausoleum. There, like the young shepherds and shepherdesses, they puzzle over the inscription -- Et in Arcadia Ego. One is reminded that in the midst of life we are in death. But we are also reminded that in the midst of death there is the hope of life.

The old Watkins home as it appears today. The spring daffodils in the foreground of the picture are a poignant reminder that "even in the midst of death, there is hope."  

FOOTNOTES

[1]. Glenn Hughes, Transcendence and History: The Search for Ultimacy from Ancient Societies to Postmodernity (Columbia and London: The University of Missouri Press, 2003), pg. 11. For more on Eric Voegelin on history, see, Eugene Webb's, Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History (Seattle: The University of Washington Press, 1981). 

[2]. Jack D. Elliott, Et In Arcadia Ego: A Tale of the Kilgore Hills (TomBigbee Country Magazine) - republished here by permission from the author.