On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire by Charles Hardwick

Author:Charles Hardwick [Hardwick, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780469158672
Google: znnFwwEACAAJ
Publisher: Creative Media Partners, LLC
Published: 2019-02-21T16:04:27+00:00

To which boast Clifford replies:—

And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear,

And tread it underfoot with all contempt,

Despite the bearward that protects the bear.

Warwick, in the following scene, amidst the carnage of battle, shouts:—

Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls!

And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,

Now—when the angry trumpet sounds alarm,

And dead men's cries do fill the empty air—

Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me!

The expression "dead men's cries do fill the empty air," I have hitherto regarded, as doubtless most other readers of Shakspere have done, as either a misprint or an obsolete form of expression, meaning, in the more modern English, "dying men's cries do fill the empty air." Taken in connection, however, with the continual reference of Warwick to the "rampant bear" as his ancestral "totem" or beast symbol, I am inclined to think it is not improbable that Shakspere, who has made use of such an enormous number of other superstitious fancies as poetic images, as well as illustrations of character, may have had in his mind the old belief that the souls of ancestors, "Pitris," or "Fathers," careered and howled amongst the storm-winds in the form indicated by their beast symbol or tribal "totem." Poetically, the thought is singularly appropriate to the storm and strife of the battlefield, and especially to the frenzied agony engendered by the horrors too often attendant upon "domestic fury and fierce civil strife." Referring to, and quoting from, the "Exodus," a poem of the Cœdman school, Mr. Green ("The Making of England") says—"The wolves sang their dread evensong; the fowls of war, greedy of battle, dewy feathered, screamed around the host of Pharaoh, as wolf howled and eagle screamed round the host of Penda." Shakspere places in the mouth of Calphurnia, when recounting the prodigies which preceded Cæsar's assassination, the following remarkable words:—

The graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead:

Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds

In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,

Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;

The noise of battle hurtled in the air,

Horses did neigh and dying men did groan,

And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.