Ubi sunt

'where are they') is a rhetorical question taken from the Latin phrase Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?, meaning 'Where are those who were before us?'.

[2] These derive from the words of Baruch 3:16–19 in the Vulgate Bible: 16 ubi sunt principes gentium et qui dominantur super bestias quae sunt super terram17 qui in avibus caeli inludunt18 qui argentum thesaurizant et aurum in quo confidebant homines et non est finis adquisitionis eorum qui argentum fabricant et solliciti sunt nec est inventio operum illorum19 exterminati sunt et ad inferos descenderunt et alii loco eorum exsurrexerunt 16 'Where are the princes of the nations, and those who rule over the beasts on earth; 17 those who mock the birds of the air, 18 and who hoard up silver and gold, in which men trust, and there is no end to their getting; those who scheme to get silver, and are anxious, whose labours are beyond measure?

Revised Standard Version) This passage forms part of the mass for Holy Saturday, according to the traditional Roman Missal and Breviary.

The words ubi sunt begin several Latin medieval poems and occur, for example, in the second stanza of the 13th-century goliardic song "De Brevitate Vitae", known from its incipit as Gaudeamus Igitur: Ubi sunt qui ante nos / In mundo fuere?

The Anglo-Saxons, at the point in their cultural evolution in which Beowulf was written, expressed in their poetry an inescapable feeling of doom, symptomatic of ubi sunt yearning.

[4] The Wanderer most clearly exemplifies ubi sunt poetry in its use of the erotema (the rhetorical question): Hwær cwom mearg?

is a Middle English example following the medieval tradition:[7] Uuere beþ þey biforen vs weren, Houndes ladden and hauekes beren And hadden feld and wode?

The rich ladies in their chambers, Who wore gold in their hair, With their bright faces; ...' The 13th-century French poet Rutebeuf wrote a poem called Poèmes de l'infortune ('Poems of Misfortune') which contains those verses: Que sont mes amis devenus Que j'avais de si près tenus Et tant aimés?

In the second half of the 20th century, the singer Léo Ferré made this poem famous by adding music.

The medieval French poet François Villon (15th century) also famously echoes the sentiment in the Ballade des dames du temps jadis ('Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past') with his question: Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

In "Coplas por la muerte de su padre", the 15th-century Spanish poet Jorge Manrique wrote equally famous stanzas about contemporaries that death had taken away: ¿Qué se fizo el rey don Juan?

Simón Saad) The theme also occurs in the ninth-century Old High German poem Muspilli, which contains these lines (60–62): uuar ist denne diu marha, dar man dar eo mit sinen magon piehc?diu marha ist farprunnan, diu sela stet pidungan, ni uueiz mit uuiu puaze: so uerit si za uuize.

Edward Fitzgerald) Frequently in Khayyam there is a play on the sound of the word kū ('where [are they]'), as in the following quatrain:[10][11] dar kaargah-e kuzegar-i raftam dush didam do hazaar kuze guyaa vo khamush naagaah yek-i kuze baraavard khorush: ku kuzegar o kuzekhar o kuzeforush?

Michael Hillmann, Iranian Culture, 51) The Former Ode on the Red Cliffs of Su Shi, written in 1082, makes heavy use of the theme, including the line: "Cao was indeed a hero for his generation but where is he now?

"[15] The Lament for the Makaris ("Lament for the poets", c. 1505) of the Scottish makar or poet William Dunbar consists of a general introductory section (quoted from below) followed by a list of dead Scots poets with the Latin refrain Timor mortis conturbat me ("the fear of death disturbs me") at the end of each of the 25 four-line stanzas:[16] On to the ded gois all estatis, Princis, prelotis, and potestatis, Baith riche and pur of al degre; Timor mortis conturbat me.

He takis the knychtis in to feild, Anarmit under helme and scheild; Victour he is at all mellie; Timor mortis conturbat me.

[17] In an often-quoted speech in a law case of 1625 over the Earldom of Oxford, the Lord Chief Justice Ranulph Crewe listed great noble dynasties of the English Middle Ages, extinct from the Wars of the Roses and other turmoils, and told the court: "I have laboured to make a covenant with myself, that affection may not press upon judgment; for I suppose there is no man that hath any apprehension of gentry or nobleness, but his affection stands to the continuance of a house so illustrious, and would take hold of a twig or twine-thread to support it.

[19] Isaac Watts alluded to the ubi sunt theme in his popular hymn O God, Our Help in Ages Past (1708): Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.

Interest in the ubi sunt motif enjoyed a renaissance during the late 18th century following the publication of James Macpherson's "translation" of Ossian.

[20] This and Macpherson's subsequent Ossianic texts, Fingal (1761) and Temora (1763), fueled the romantics' interest in melancholy and primitivism.

In Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Long John Silver recalls his previous pirate crew, and the imprudence which undid them: "Why, how many tall ships, think ye, now, have I seen laid aboard?

Régis de Trobriand, colonel of the 55th New York Volunteer Infantry, wrote during the Fall of 1862: "What a contrast between the departure and the return!

Now the drummers carried their cracked drums on their backs, the buglers were bent over and silent; the flag, riddled by the balls, torn by shrapnel, discolored by the rain, hung sadly on the staff without cover.

In the opening poem, The Hill, he writes "Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?

[22] Other examples from the American Folk Era are Pete Seeger's Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, and Dick Holler's Abraham, Martin and John.

[citation needed] J. R. R. Tolkien begins Aragorn's poem Lament for the Rohirrim (in The Two Towers) with the phrase taken from the Anglo-Saxon Wanderer and continues with a series of Ubi sunt motifs.

Also, Martin Amis's The War Against Cliché mentions it in a contemplation of movie violence and Medved's polemic against Hollywood.

Scottish rock band Big Country released the song "Harvest Home" on their 1983 debut album The Crossing.

It contains several passages of Ubi sunt, with references to historical figure King Canute and life in 11th century England.

[24] Jazz composer/guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner included a new composition titled "Ubi Sunt" in his 2017 ECM solo guitar album "My Foolish Heart"; this version was short (80 seconds), the only composed piece with no improvisation.