Death of the Seven !Dwarfs

A Legend from Switzerland

On one of the high plains between Brugg and Waldshut, near the Black Forest, seven dwarfs lived together in a small house. Late one evening an attractive young peasant girl, who was lost and hungry, approached them and requested shelter for the night. The dwarfs had only seven beds, and they fell to arguing with one another, for each one wanted to give up his bed for the girl. Finally the oldest one took the girl into his bed.

Before they could fall asleep a peasant woman appeared before their house, knocked on the door, and asked to be let inside. The girl got up immediately and told the woman that the dwarfs had only seven beds, and that there was no room there for anyone else. With this the woman became very angry and accused the girl of being a slut, thinking that she was cohabiting with all seven men. Threatening to make a quick end to such evil business, she went away in a rage.

That same night she returned with two men, whom she had brought up from the bank of the Rhine. They immediately broke into the house and killed the seven dwarfs. They buried the bodies outside in the garden and burned the house to the ground. No one knows what became of the girl.

A Ph!losophy of Death

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: „Talent alone cannot make the writer. There must be a man behind the book.“

There was a man behind „The Cask of Amontillado,“ „The Fall of the House of Usher,“ „The Black Cat,“ and poems like „Annabel Lee“ and „The Raven.“ That man–Edgar Allan Poe–was talented, but he was also eccentric and prone to alcoholism–having experienced more than his share of tragedies. But, what stands out even more prominently than the tragedy of Edgar Allan Poe’s life is his philosophy of death.

Orphaned at the age of two, Edgar Allan Poe was taken in by John Allan. Although Poe’s foster father educated him and provided for him, Allan eventually disinherited him. Poe was left penniless, earning a meager living by writing reviews, stories, literary criticism, and poetry. All of his writing and his editorial work was not enough to bring him and his family above the level of mere subsistence; and his drinking made it difficult for him to hold a job.

Arising from such a stark background, Poe has become a classical phenomenon–known for the gothic horror he created in „The Fall of the House of Usher“ and other works. Who can forget „The Tell-Tale Heart“ and „The Cask of Amontillado“? Every Halloween those stories come to haunt us. On the darkest night, when we sit around the campfire and tell horrible tales, Poe’s stories of horror, grotesque death, and madness are told again.

Why did he write about such horrible events: about the calculated and murderous entombment of Fortunato, as he writes „A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment–I trembled.“ Was it disillusionment with life that drove him to these grotesque scenes? Or was it some acceptance that death was inevitable and horrible, that it sneaks up like a thief in the night–leaving madness and tragedy in its wake?

Or, is it something more to do with the last lines of „The Premature Burial“: „There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell… Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful… they must sleep, or they will devour us–they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish.“

Perhaps death offered some answer for Poe. Perhaps escape. Perhaps only more questions–about why he still lived, why his life was so hard, why his genius was so little recognized.

He died as he had lived: a tragic, pointless death. Found in the gutter, apparently the victim of an election gang who used alcoholics to vote for their candidate. Taken to a hospital, Poe died four days later and was buried in a Baltimore cemetery next to his wife.

If he was not well-loved in his time (or at least not as well-appreciated as he might have been), his tales at least have taken on a life of their own. He’s recognized as the founder of the detective story (for works like „The Purloined Letter,“ the best of his detective stories). He has influenced culture and literature; and his figure is place beside the literary greats in history for his poetry, literary criticism, stories, and other works.

His view of death may have been filled with darkness, foreboding, and disillusionment. But, his works have lasted beyond the horror to become classics.

Coff!n

Not a flower, not a flower sweet
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there.

Death !n Hamlet

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

Death !n Macbeth

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Famous !ast words

The inevitable end will come to us all, we will all fall victim to the looming claws of the grim reaper. But what will we leave behind us… how will we be remembered? Our last words are a keepsake, a memory of us and the lives we lived.

Dying is a very dull dreary affair. My advice to you is to have nothing to do with it. — W. Somerset Maugham

Go away…I’m all right — H.G Wells

Friends applaud; the comedy is over — Ludwig Von Beethoven

Now comes the mystery — Henry Ward Beecher

The executioner is, I believe, very expert; and my neck is very slender — Anne Boleyn

Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. — Nurse Cavell (before facing a German firing squad in 1915)

I suffer nothing, but I feel a sort of difficulty in living longer. — Fontenelle

It don’t signify, my dearest, dearest Liz. — CJ Fox (to his wife)

Let us now relieve the Romans of their fears by the death of a feeble old man. — Hannibal

I am taking a fearful leap in the dark. — Hobbes

Light, more light! — Goethe

If I had strength to hold a pen I would write down how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die. — Dr. William Hunter

Let us pass over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees. — Stonewall Jackson

Severn – I – lift me up – I am dying – I shall die easy; don’t be frightened – be firm, and thank God it has come. — Keats

So little done, so much to do. — CJ Rhodes

I don’t know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. — Newton

There are six guineas for you and do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell — Duke of Monmouth (to his executioner)

Hold your tongue! Your wretched chatter disgusts me. — Malesherbes (to the priest)

It has all been very interesting. — Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Make my skin into drumheads for the Bohemian cause. — John Ziska

Book of !hours

One of the greatest virtues of art is that it chronicles life. It may sound trite, but the saying, „Art is who we are,“ entails a history of man perhaps more accurate than that which has been written. Pictures are often less ambiguous than words, and words are much more easily changed than the great paintings that hang on museum walls. But if art is about life, then we must also admit that it is also about death as well. It’s one of the most consistent themes in painting especially. At least until this century when death has been relegated to hospitals and funeral parlours, it was an almost daily occurrence which people of all ages were intimately familiar. With today’s ever-increasing average life span, for the most part, only old people die and likewise, art today ignores death because it seems so rare. But in the mid-fourteenth century, art and life were preoccupied by two things, death and religion.

Imagine a period of time covering about five years (1347-51) when if you lived in Europe, you, or one out of every three people you knew would die. Entire villages died. It was widely believed to be a judgement from God. But it was plague! Bubonic or pneumonic plague, thought to be spread by cats, which were killed off by the thousands, thereby improving conditions for the primary culprits which were rats. It was a quick but painful death and it cut across all levels of Gothic society indiscriminately. Not surprisingly, as a refuge, people very quickly became very religious. This is evident in the explosion of religious art, and especially that branch of art dealing with religion and death.

Known only as the Master of the Rohan Hours, his work is graphic and horrifying. He depicts a pale, rotting, dying corpse breathing his last word amongst the skulls and bones of his dead friends and relatives, „Into Thy hands I commend my spirit; thou has redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.“ Above him, a white-haired God bearing a sword in his arms delivers his judgement, „For your sins you shall do penance. On Judgement day you shall be with Me.“ Nearby, the angel St. Michael battles a winged devil for the man’s soul. The entire book of hours is like that.

The Dance of !Death

The warder looks down at the mid hour of night,
On the tombs that lie scatter’d below:
The moon fills the place with her silvery light,
And the churchyard like day seems to glow.
When see! first one grave, then another opes wide,
And women and men stepping forth are descried,
In cerements snow-white and trailing.
In haste for the sport soon their ankles they twitch,
And whirl round in dances so gay;
The young and the old, and the poor, and the rich,
But the cerements stand in their way;
And as modesty cannot avail them aught here,
They shake themselves all, and the shrouds soon appear
Scatter’d over the tombs in confusion.
Now waggles the leg, and now wriggles the thigh,
As the troop with strange gestures advance,
And a rattle and clatter anon rises high,
As of one beating time to the dance.
The sight to the warder seems wondrously queer,
When the villainous Tempter speaks thus in his ear:
„Seize one of the shrouds that lie yonder!“
Quick as thought it was done! and for safety he fled
Behind the church-door with all speed;
The moon still continues her clear light to shed
On the dance that they fearfully lead.
But the dancers at length disappear one by one,
And their shrouds, ere they vanish, they carefully don,
And under the turf all is quiet.
But one of them stumbles and shuffles there still,
And gropes at the graves in despair;
Yet ’tis by no comrade he’s treated so ill
The shroud he soon scents in the air.
So he rattles the door–for the warder ’tis well
That ’tis bless’d, and so able the foe to repel,
All cover’d with crosses in metal.
The shroud he must have, and no rest will allow,
There remains for reflection no time;
On the ornaments Gothic the wight seizes now,
And from point on to point hastes to climb.
Alas for the warder! his doom is decreed!
Like a long-legged spider, with ne’er-changing speed,
Advances the dreaded pursuer.
The warder he quakes, and the warder turns pale,
The shroud to restore fain had sought;
When the end,–now can nothing to save him avail,–
In a tooth formed of iron is caught.
With vanishing lustre the moon’s race is run,
When the bell thunders loudly a powerful One,
And the skeleton fails, crush’d to atoms.

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Beg!n all over again

When the time is right: is that what the artist is waiting for – all time eternally
present – a time which takes us back to the beginning, to the point where there
is no more to be seen?
Is this what the artist has to do: to begin all over again; stake claim to a time which was then and yet still is now? Find the moment which threads us back all which was and to all which still can be, and know it again for the first time.

We cannot come to paintings other than as we are. This is our limitation. Paintings are not tools for learning, but redemptive moments in our lives.

!ntimation

Between the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary stands a vase of lilies with the words ‘Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee’, Gabriel’s message, arcing above. Gabriel is leaning in from the left and Ma ry away to the right. The centre of the painting (except for the vase and text) is empty, yet the space feels pregnant. It is as if all else in the painting were in attendance to this gap, to this moment which allows for the Annunciation. To paint a painting in which what is said is not overtly there, in this case cannot be there, but only intimated, is hard, very hard. When we trust the gap created by that absence to carry more weight than what is already there, we know that we are in the presence of great painting. It is possible to make saints out of wine bottles, as Rilke kindly never ceased to remind us; to make something miraculous from little more than intimation.