The Four Stages of Cruelty

January 3, 2016January 3, 2016 ~ ratandraven ~ Leave a comment

Hogarth, 1751

~The First Stage of Cruelty ~

William_Hogarth_-_The_First_Stage_of_Cruelty-_Children_Torturing_Animals_-_Google_Art_Project

“While various Scenes of sportive Woe,
The Infant Race employ,
And tortur’d Victims bleeding shew,
The Tyrant in the Boy.

Behold! a Youth of gentler Heart,
To spare the Creature’s pain,
O take, he cries—take all my Tart,
But Tears and Tart are vain.

Learn from this fair Example—You
Whom savage Sports delight,
How Cruelty disgusts the view,
While Pity charms the sight.

~The Second Stage of Cruelty ~

Stages of Cruelty

“The generous Steed in hoary Age,
Subdu’d by Labour lies;
And mourns a cruel Master’s rage,
While Nature Strength denies.

The tender Lamb o’er drove and faint,
Amidst expiring Throws;
Bleats forth it’s innocent complaint
And dies beneath the Blows.

Inhuman Wretch! say whence proceeds
This coward Cruelty?
What Int’rest springs from barb’rous deeds?
What Joy from Misery?”

Dear Tommy
My mistress has been the best of women to me, and my conscience flies in my face as often as I think of wronging her; yet I am resolved to venture body and soul to do as you would have me, so do not fail to meet me as you said you would, for I will bring along with me all the things I can lay my hands on. So no more at present; but I remain yours till death.
Ann Gill.”

~ The Third Stage of Cruelty ~
Cruelty in perfection

Cruelty3

“To lawless Love when once betray’d.
Soon Crime to Crime succeeds:
At length beguil’d to Theft, the Maid
By her Beguiler bleeds.

Yet learn, seducing Man! nor Night,
With all its sable Cloud,
can screen the guilty Deed from sight;
Foul Murder cries aloud.

The gaping Wounds and bloodstain’d steel,
Now shock his trembling Soul:
But Oh! what Pangs his Breast must feel,
When Death his Knell shall toll.”

~ The Fourth Stage of Cruelty ~
The Reward of Cruelty

Cruelty4

“Behold the Villain’s dire disgrace!
Not Death itself can end.
He finds no peaceful Burial-Place,
His breathless Corse, no friend.

Torn from the Root, that wicked Tongue,
Which daily swore and curst!
Those Eyeballs from their Sockets wrung,
That glow’d with lawless Lust!

His Heart expos’d to prying Eyes,
To Pity has no claim;
But, dreadful! from his Bones shall rise,
His Monument of Shame.”

I wish it had never been painted. There is indeed great skill in the grouping, and profound knowledge of character; but the whole effect is gross, brutal and revolting. A savage boy grows into a savage man, and concludes a career of cruelty and outrage by an atrocious murder, for which he is hanged and dissected.” ~ Allan Cunningham on The Four Stages of Cruelty.

Featured Book: A History of Mourning

December 28, 2015January 4, 2016 ~ ratandraven ~ Leave a comment

~Excerpts from A History of Mourning~
by Richard Davey, ca. 1850

1History_of_Mourning_1800_Title — *A History of Mourning by Richard Davey, ca. 1850*

“Important personages in olden times in this country were usually embalmed. The poor, on the contrary, were rarely furnished even with a decent coffin, but were carried to the grave in a hired one, which, in villages, often did duty for many successive years. Once the brief service was said, the pauper’s body, in its winding-sheet, was placed reverently enough in the earth, and covered up- fact which doubtless accounts for the numerous village legends of ghosts wandering about in winding-sheets.”

2History_of_Mourning_1800_Angels — *Angels praying over a skull. 16th Century bas-relief.*

Another curious custom, which is now obsolete, was to put cloves, spikenard, fine herbs, and twigs of various aromatic shrubs into the coffin, in memory of the embalming of our Lord.”

3History_of_Mourning_1800_Pope_Lucifer — *Seal of an imaginary Bull of Pope Lucifer. From the Roi Modus, a manuscript of the 15th Century, Royal Library, Brussels. The inscription is evidently cabalistic and unintelligible.*

The funeral of a Pope is attended by many curious ceremonies, not the least remarkable of which is, that so soon as His Holiness’ death is thoroughly assured, the eldest Cardinal goes up to the body, and strikes it three times gently on the breast, saying in Latin, as he does so, ‘The Holy Father has passed away.'”

4History_of_Mourning_1800_Beast — Death devouring Man and Beast. A singular, illuminated document on parchment, of the 12th Century, measuring over fifty feet by one yard wide. The figure above is intended to represent the letter T. – From the Mortuary Roll of the Abbey of Savingy, Avranches, France. The original is preserved among the French National Archives.

Perhaps the strangest funeral recorded in modern history was that of the translation of the remains of Voltaire, popularly known as his ‘apotheosis…’

In Voltaire’s lifetime it was boasted that he had buried the priests and the Christian religion, but now the priests were going to bury him, having very little of Christian religion left amongst them.”

5History_of_Mourning_1800_Knight — The Knight of Death on a White Horse. – After Albert Durer. From a fac-simile of the original engraving, dated 1523, by one of the Wiericx (1564). This famous engraving, which so perfectly characterises the weird genius of the Middle Ages, passing into the Renaissance, represents a knight armed, going to the wars, accompanied by terrible thoughts of Death and Sin, whose incarnations follow him on his dismal journey.

The following are the accepted reasons for the selection of various colours for mourning in different parts of the world: –

Black expresses the privation of light and joy, the midnight gloom of sorrow for the loss sustained. It is the prevailing colour of mourning in Europe, and it was also the colour selected in ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire.

Black and white striped expresses sorrow and hope, and is the mourning of the South Sea Islanders.

Greyish brown – the colour of the earth, to which the dead return. It is the colour of mourning in Ethiopia and Abyssinia.

Pale brown – the colour of withered leaves – is the mourning of Persia.

Sky-blue expresses the assured hope thta the deceased is gone to heaven, and is the colour of mourning in Syria, Cappadocia, and Armenia.

Deep-blue in Bokhara is the colour of mourning; whilst the Romans in the days of the Republic also wore very dark blue for mourning.

Purple and violet – to express royalty, ‘Kings and priests of God.’ It is the colour of mourning of Cardinals and of the Kings of France. The colour of mourning in Turkey is violet.

White – emblem of ‘white-handed hope.’ The colour of mourning in China. The ladies of ancient Rome and Sparta sometimes wore white mourning, which was also the colour for mourning in Spain until 1498. In England it is still customary, in several of the provinces, to wear white silk hat-bands for the unmarried.

Yellow – the scar and yellow leaf. The colour of mourning in Egypt and Burmah. In Brittany widos’ caps among the peasants are yellow. Anne Bolyn wore yellow mourning for Catherine of Arragon, but as a sign of joy.

Scarlet is also a mourning colour, and was occasionally worn by the French Kings, notably so by Louis XI.”