More Ossian
Mar. 11th, 2006 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akashiverAccording to james Macpherson, the ancient scots were not happy people. Even a great victory would be celebrated with a speech like this:
"Raise, ye bards of other times," continued the great Fingal, "raise high the praise of heroes: that my soul may settle on their fame; that the mind of Swaran may cease to be sad."
They lay in the heath of Mora. The dark winds rustled over the chiefs. A hundred voices, at once, arose; a hundred harps were strung. They sung of other times; the mighty chiefs of former years!
When now shall I hear the bard? When rejoice at the fame of my fathers? The harp is not strung on Morven. The voice of music ascends not on Cona. Dead, with the mighty, is the bard. Fame is in the desert no more."
This is from the Ossian poems btw. The Ossian trope is to sit around on some blasted heath, mouring the dead and those who aren't dead yet, but soon will be. Usually it takes the form of a string of questions: where now is the horn and the hunter? Where are the children of steel? Even our fame shall die. Only the wind shall move over the hills."
Tolkien uses Ossianic lyrics in LOTR (think of Theoden's speech in the 2nd movie). And the Ossian trope of the "disappearing people" was also applied in North America to Native Americans.
"Blessed be that hand of snow; and blessed thy bow of yew! I fall resolved on death: and who but the daughter of Dargo was worthy to slay me? Lay me in the earth, my fair one; lay me by the side of Dermid.
Oscur! I have the blood, the soul of the mighty Dargo. Well pleased I can meet death. My sorrow I can end thus.— She pierced her white bosom with steel. She fell; she trembled; and died.
By the brook of the hill their graves are laid; a birch’s unequal shade covers their tomb. Often on their green earthen tombs the branchy sons of the mountain feed, when midday is all in flames, and silence is over all the hills. "
"Raise, ye bards of other times," continued the great Fingal, "raise high the praise of heroes: that my soul may settle on their fame; that the mind of Swaran may cease to be sad."
They lay in the heath of Mora. The dark winds rustled over the chiefs. A hundred voices, at once, arose; a hundred harps were strung. They sung of other times; the mighty chiefs of former years!
When now shall I hear the bard? When rejoice at the fame of my fathers? The harp is not strung on Morven. The voice of music ascends not on Cona. Dead, with the mighty, is the bard. Fame is in the desert no more."
This is from the Ossian poems btw. The Ossian trope is to sit around on some blasted heath, mouring the dead and those who aren't dead yet, but soon will be. Usually it takes the form of a string of questions: where now is the horn and the hunter? Where are the children of steel? Even our fame shall die. Only the wind shall move over the hills."
Tolkien uses Ossianic lyrics in LOTR (think of Theoden's speech in the 2nd movie). And the Ossian trope of the "disappearing people" was also applied in North America to Native Americans.
"Blessed be that hand of snow; and blessed thy bow of yew! I fall resolved on death: and who but the daughter of Dargo was worthy to slay me? Lay me in the earth, my fair one; lay me by the side of Dermid.
Oscur! I have the blood, the soul of the mighty Dargo. Well pleased I can meet death. My sorrow I can end thus.— She pierced her white bosom with steel. She fell; she trembled; and died.
By the brook of the hill their graves are laid; a birch’s unequal shade covers their tomb. Often on their green earthen tombs the branchy sons of the mountain feed, when midday is all in flames, and silence is over all the hills. "
