The Latin epigraph at the beginning of Edgar Allan Poe's "Berenice" are as follows:
Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum forelevatas.
Its translation in English goes like this:
My companions told me I might find some little alleviation of my misery, in visiting the grave of my beloved.
Ebn Zaiat is the author of the quotation. He was a poet little known in Western literature.
First published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1835, Berenice is Edgar Allan Poe's short horror story.
Here's a short summary of 'Berenice' from WritersCafe.org:
The story stars the narrator, an eccentric man who is obsessed with the origins of the universe and the like, and Berenice, the narrator’s cousin.
Not long into the story, Berenice falls ill, struggling with epilepsy and different ‘maladies’. The narrator and Berenice discuss marriage, and they become engaged.
One day, while the narrator is sitting in his study, reflecting, Berenice enters, and smiles. Her illness has taken a toll on her face, but her teeth remain unaffected. When the narrator sees Berenice’s teeth, he is riveted " even obsessed.
All he can do is think about her teeth. He is so preoccupied with his thoughts that when the door shuts and Berenice leaves, he hardly notices.
At some point, Berenice dies, and is buried. The narrator awakes from sort of ‘phantasma’. He is unnerved by various items throughout the room " underlined words in a book, spades on the wall, and a box on the table next to him. He soon hears a scream. There is some amount of commotion, and soon a servant rushes into the study.
The servant informs the narrator that Berenice’s grave has been disturbed, that she is still alive, that her body has been mangled. The servant then points out the narrator’s mud-and-gore covered clothing, and the narrator becomes extremely unnerved.
Shrieking, he grabs at the box on the table, trying to open it. His fingers cannot undo it, and it falls out of his grasp and onto the floor. The box bounces open, revealing thirty-two pearly white teeth " the teeth of Berenice.