Origin of the work:
1632 Leszno
Editions:
1635 Kassel, in: Mausoleum Mauritianum II
1974 Prague, Vybrané spisy J. A. Komenského, vol. VII, (Czech only)
1983 Prague, J. A. Comenii Opera omnia, vol. 4
Contents:
A bilingual (Latin and Czech) elegy written on the occasion of the death of the Landgrave Moritz of Hessen.
Moritz (Mořic, Mauritius), Landgrave of Hessen, called the Learned, a man of great education and a deeply cultured disposition, died on March 15th 1632. He was a co-founder of the Protestant Union and it was in him that the hopes of the Czech emigrants linked to the restoration of the Czech state resided. In his memory, the Hessen Academy at Kassel published, in the years 1635 and 1640, a two-part work entitled Monumentum sepulcrale (Sepulchral Monument). The second volume of this work contains the funeral orations in verse and prose, written primarily in Latin and German; it was to this that Comenius contributed his Czech elegy and its Latin version, in hexameters. Comenius expresses his sadness at the death of the Landgrave Moritz, and of Gustavus II Adolphus, King of Sweden, as well as of the Winter King, Frederick V of the Palatinate, the pillars of the evangelical world, all of whom died in the same year. At the end, he calls upon God to be the shield of His people.
For further study, see also:
J. A. Comenii Opera omnia, vol. 4. Prague 1983, pp416-417
Vybrané spisy J. A. Komenského, vol. VII. Prague 1974, p637