Quote Unquote, or: What Catherine Knew in “A Farewell to Arms”
There is an oft-quoted line from Ernest Hemingway’s novel, A Farewell to Arms:
The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one.
The problem with this quote is that it’s not entirely accurate. The real quote is:
“The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one?”
It’s a question, asked as part of a larger conversation between the book’s narrator, Frederic Henry, and his lover, Catherine Barkley. They are quarreling, as lovers do, and she says, “If anything comes between us, we’re gone and then they have us.”
This exchange follows. Frederic first:
“They won’t get us,” I said. “Because you’re too brave. Nothing ever happens to the brave.”
“They die of course.”
“But only once.”
“I don’t know. Who said that?”
“The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one?”
“Of course. Who said it?”
“I don’t know”
“He was probably a coward,” she said. “He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he’s intelligent. He simply doesn’t mention them.”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to see inside the head of the brave.”
“Yes. That’s how they keep that way.”
I was familiar with the quote before I read the book, and when I read it and came across those words, I was amazed by how much more revolved around them. It reminded me of seeing Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper at The Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan and being overwhelmed by how much more there was to take in on the top and bottom of the fresco that often doesn’t make it in photographs and reproductions.
The answer to Frederic’s question of who said it is, of course, William Shakespeare, who is a good bet to have said most things in the English language. More specifically, it’s Julius Caesar, the titular character in Shakespeare’s play. He’s talking to his wife, Calpurnia, who is worried for his life. The actual quote is:
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
There’s much more surrounding that quote as well, as you can imagine. Without going into too much depth, what’s interesting, when you compare the two, is that Caesar’s servant interrupts his conversation before Calpurnia can even respond to the statement. Catherine, on the other hand, will have none of it and immediately challenges its veracity.
The Hemingway quote, taken out of context, often comes off as a bit of masculine bravado. Here’s the archetypal male novelist, paying homage to the greatest male writer in the English language. But within the narrative, by having two of his characters spar with one of the Bard’s many famous lines, it’s something else.
It’s the woman who calls bullshit on it, after all. This turns out to be prescient. We know by the book’s tragic ending, Frederic is right. Catherine is brave. But he’s wrong that nothing ever happens to the brave. Maybe that’s why she argues it.
