A virelai is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three formes fixes (the others were the ballade and the rondeau), and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the late 13th to the 15th centuries.

A virelai is similar to a rondeau. Each stanza has two rhymes, the end rhyme recurring as the first rhyme of the following stanza. The overall musical structure is almost invariably ABbaA, with the first and last sections having the same lyrics; this is the same form as the Italian ballata. The first stanza is known as the estribillo, the next two as mudanzas, and the fourth as the vuelta.

One of the most famous composers of virelai is Guillaume de Machaut (1300–1377), who also wrote his own verse; 33 separate compositions in the form survive by him. Other composers of virelai include Jehannot de l’Escurel, one of the earliest (d. 1304), and Guillaume Dufay (c.1400–1474), one of the last.

By the mid-15th century, the form had become largely divorced from music, and numerous examples of this form (as well as the ballade and the rondeau) were written, which were either not intended to be set to music, or for which the music has not survived.

Memento mori is a Latin phrase that may be translated as “Remember that you are mortal,” “Remember you will die,” “Remember that you must die,” or “Remember your death”. It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose, which is to remind people of their own mortality.

The most obvious places to look for memento mori meditations are in funereal art and architecture. Perhaps the most striking to contemporary minds is the transi, or cadaver tomb, a tomb which depicts the decayed corpse of the deceased. This became a fashion in the tombs of the wealthy in the fifteenth century, and surviving examples still create a stark reminder of the vanity of earthly riches. The famous danse macabre, with its dancing depiction of the Grim Reaper carrying off rich and poor alike, is another well known example of the memento mori theme. This and similar depictions of Death decorated many European churches. Later, Puritan tombstones in the colonial United States frequently depicted winged skulls, skeletons, or angels snuffing out candles. See the themes associated with skull imagery.

Much memento mori art is associated with the Mexican festival, Day of the Dead, including even skull-shaped candies, and bread loaves adorned with bread “bones”. It was also famously expressed in the works of the Mexican engraver José Guadalupe Posada, in which various walks of life are depicted as skeletons.

Carpe diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace (See “Source” section below). It is popularly translated as “seize the day”. The general definition of carpe is “pick, pluck, pluck off, gather” as in plucking or picking a rose or apple, although Horace uses the word in the sense of “enjoy, make use of, seize.

One interpretation of the phrase might be as an existential cautionary term, much like “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” with emphasis on making the most of current opportunities because life is short and time is fleeting. It has some connections with another Latin phrase, Memento mori