Marmion by Sir Walter Scott

Inspired by my recent read about how the Scots invented the modern world, the next book I selected was the famous poem 'Marmion', by Sir Walter Scott.  My initial interest in the poem was inspired by one of my favourite Scottish fiction authors, D.E. Stevenson.  In some of her novels, one of the main characters will tell an old Scottish story, but will do it with such interest and feeling that instead of sounding like a history lesson, it resounds with romance and beauty.  Marmion is a poem, and not a historical lesson, of course, but it's based in historical truth, and if Sir Walter Scott is said to have invented the modern historical novel, then this is the place to begin.

Marmion is a delight from beginning to end.  It's a classic ballad, a love story, a stirring tale that takes you back to valiant knights and glory lost and battles fought.  Pale maidens, eager but untested youths, ghostlike figures, nuns, abbeys, castles, ships on seas and blood-stained battlegrounds, waving banners and secret letters, fear and joy and pain and love and hope revived and honour regained.

The language, like Shakespeare's, takes effort at first to wrap your head around. It's hard trying to read Marmion on a train, with a group of loud drunken boys singing at the top of their lungs; or when text messages are appearing on my phone, or after I've finished a day at my computer working with email and websites and online marketing.  But once you settle in, and turn off (or tune out) all the distractions, it captivates your mind and your heart, and you find yourself wishing you and those around you spoke so graciously or fiercely as you read. And much of it, if you interpret it aright, applies well today.  "Arise, Sir Ralph, de Wilton's heir! For King, for Church, for Lady fair, see that thou fight." - "Grieve not for they woes, disgrace, and trouble; for He, who honour best bestows, may give thee double."  Some quotes we know so well I expected to see them in quotation marks, then realised with a start that this was the statement in its infancy, before it was known.  "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!"- "And come he slow, or come he fast, it is but Death who comes at last."  

Some of it must be read aloud - I found myself muttering away to myself as I read, or sighing, or laughing aloud.  Marmion is told by one of his young charge that the Palmer had left quickly in strange array.  "In what array?' said Marmion, quick."  Young Blount begins, but takes so long over his speech that Marmion cuts in,  "Nay, Henry, cease! Thou sworn horse-courser, hold thy peace. Eustace, thou bear'st a brain - I pray, what did Blount see at break of day?'"   But some of the phrases inspire, or make me sigh to think I could ever write.  "But, when I think on all my wrongs, my blood is liquid flame!" - "Then happy those, beloved of Heaven, to whom the mingled cup is given; whose lenient sorrows find relief, whose joys are chasten'd by their grief."  "O, life and death were in the shout, recoil and rally, charge and rout, and triumph and despair." 

Clare, the sighing beautiful maiden, does not move me.  I find her insipid and pale, drifting along battlements and moaning in her spirit for the hard lot that is her life.  I feel a little like Gilbert Blythe, telling Anne Shirley, "Anne, nobody speaks that way. Look at that sap Percival who sits around mooning the entire time. He never lets a girl get a word in edgewise."  Anne insists that his poetry would win any girl's heart, but Gilbert retorts that "In real life she'd have pitched him."  I did feel a little like 'pitching' Clare for all her mooning...and to further confuse things, I was a full two-thirds of the way through the poem when I realised that Marmion (who is strong and valiant and fierce) is supposed to be the enemy, and I am supposed to be championing the also colourless Sir Ralph de Winton.  (With a name like that, I'm surprised he achieves anything battle-worthy.)  And I find myself agreeing with the editor's commentary at the end of the poem, that "it is in his incidental characters that Scott's gift of happy characterisation gets freest scope."  I've already mentioned the two young lads who make me laugh aloud, and the story of the ghostly warrior gives me a delicious shiver.  The most moving moment for me is when the Earl of Douglas, fierce, proud, refuses to shake Marmion's hand as he prepares to leave Tantallon Castle.  "Douglas round him drew his cloak, folded his arms, and thus he spoke: 'My manors, halls, and bowers, shall still be open, at my Sovereign's will, to each one whom he lists, howe'er unmeet to be the owner's peer. My castles are my King's alone, from turret to foundation-stone - the hand of Douglas is his own; and never shall in friendly grasp the hand of such as Marmion clasp."  And Marmion's "swarthy cheek burn'd like fire", and he roars, and wheels, and dashes out of the castle, and the Douglas orders the gate to crash, but the portcullis clangs shut having only managed to slice of the plume of Marmion's glorious helmet.  The descriptions of Tantallon Castle are all that I imagined them to be, and I move it higher on my list of places in Scotland to visit, so that I can stand there at the edge of the sea, with the wind whipping my hair, and see the whole story laid before me, perhaps quoting in my mind some of the verses:

 "Far less can my weak line declare
Each changing passion's shade;
Brightening to rapture from despair,
Sorrow, surprise, and pity there,
And joy, with her angelic air,
And hope, that paints the future fair,
Their varying hues display'd;
Each o'er it's rival's ground extending,
Alternate conquering, shifting, blending,
Till all, fatigued, the conflict yield,
And mighty Love retains the field."

Of course this is what made - and makes - Sir Walter Scott's works classic.  Strength, and fight, and love, and beauty.  What more do we each look for?  What do we feel unworthy of, yet still seek on?  And Scott knows this propensity of his readers, knows that the best he can wish is this, and with this he finishes his great poem:

"To every lovely lady bright,
What can I wish but faithful knight?
To every faithful lover too,
What can I wish but lady true?
And knowledge to the studious sage;
And pillow to the head of age.
To thee, dear school-boy, whom my lay
Has cheated of thy hour of play,
Light task, and merry holiday!
To all, to each, a fair good-night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light!"