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Grinch
Member Elite

since 2005-12-31

Posts 2929
Whoville

0 posted 2007-07-22 05:21 PM

Man in his ignorance beats on man
With a baton of religion and of faith.
The prophet’s word sets within their eyes a beam
And they reason in the mote a thing to hate.

“Bury all the sinners in a wasters grave;
Cover them with lime and shallow clay;
Plant them at a crossroad let no marker stand
To send them sharp and godless on their way.”

Man in his fury brings cold steel to bone
Builds racks to stretch the heathen wretch
For happenstance and nothing more
Than being there – for difference

Bury all the sinless in a wasters grave
Cover them with lime and shallow clay
Plant them at a crossroads let no marker stand
To send them quick and godly on their way.

Bronzeage
Member

since 2007-07-20

Posts 197

1 posted 2007-07-22 05:31 PM

This is an interesting read. I like the cadence.

The last lines in S2 and S4 lose me.

To send them sharp and godless on their way.”>

"sharp" sounds good in the line, but what is the metaphor?

To send the quick and godly on their way.>

This seems to be ambiguous.
Whose way and which way. If it is the Godly's way, how does "no marker" direct them?
Does this mean, the Godly, with "no marker" of the former sinners path will stay on the proper one?

Grinch
Member Elite

since 2005-12-31

Posts 2929
Whoville

2 posted 2007-07-22 05:50 PM

Bronzeage,

During the witch-hunts in the UK they buried witches in unconsecrated ground, normally at a crossroads, seemingly so that the soul of the witch didn’t know which way to go of it ever rose from the grave. Lime was used in shallow burials to dampen the stench and promote the decomposition of the corpse and no gravestone or marker was allowed

The same treatment was afforded to anyone deemed ‘ungodly’.
http://www.answers.com/topic/crossroad

quote:
Until 1823, English law required that suicides be buried in the highway; crossroads were generally chosen, and the corpse was often staked—a ritual of public disgrace, to deter others. According to local stories, some witches were similarly treated, while crossroads burials of executed criminals are known from Anglo-Saxon times. Those chosen were usually outside the town boundaries, probably symbolizing expulsion of the wrongdoer. Some have speculated that they might also confuse the ghost of the deceased, who could not then return home to haunt.

Sharp = Quick but sounded more painful

'The' should have been 'them' - I fixed the typo

"There's a blaze of light in every word
it doesn't matter which you heard
the holy or the broken Hallelujah"
Leonard Cohen

Midnitesun

Member Empyrean

since 2001-05-18

Posts 28647
Gaia

3 posted 2007-07-22 06:17 PM

Thank you for sharing this historical anecdote, and for elaborating on the specifics of such cruel inhumane treatment given humans. Judging by the general state of the world today though, we don't seem to have crawled far from the gutter yet.

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