Marmion

“ Fitz-Eustace called to Blount, and both to Marmion,
"'Lord Surrey's o'er the Till!'"
The spirit of war flowed in every vein. Marmion flung himself into the saddle, scarce bade adieu to the good Abbot, commanded the young knight to escort the Lady Clare, and dashed on to the Tweed. The river must be crossed. Down to the deep and dangerous ford, he ventured desperately. Foremost of all, he gallantly entered and stemmed the tide. Eustace held Clare upon her saddle, and old Hubert reined her horse. ”

“ Thus it was not only his love of a picturesque theme that inspired him with his Tale of Flodden Field, but likewise his patriotic ardour and his desire to touch the national heart. ‘Marmion’ is epical in character and movement; and it is at the same time a brilliant and suggestive delineation of a national effort, illustrating keen sense of honour, resolute purpose, and pathetic manly devotion. ”

“ Still was false Marmion’s bridal stayed:
To Whitby’s convent fled the maid,
The hated match to shun.
‘Ho! shifts she thus?’ King Henry cried;
‘Sir Marmion, she shall be thy bride,
If she were sworn a nun.’
One way remained—the King’s command
Sent Marmion to the Scottish land:
I lingered here, and rescue planned
For Clara and for me:
This caitiff monk, for gold, did swear,
He would to Whitby’s shrine repair,
And, by his drugs, my rival fair
A saint in heaven should be. ”

“ A light on Marmion’s visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:
With dying hand, above his head,
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted ‘Victory!- 990
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!’
Were the last words of Marmion. ”

“ Now, gallant Marmion, well I know,
Would gladly to the vanguard go;
Edmund, the Admiral, Tunstall there,
With thee their charge will blithely share:
There fight thine own retainers too,
Beneath De Burg, thy steward true.”
“Thanks, noble Surrey!” Marmion said,
Nor farther greeting there he paid;
But, parting like a thunderbolt,
First in the vanguard made a halt,
Where such a shout there rose
Of “Marmion! Marmion!” that the cry
Up Flodden mountain shrilling high,
Startled the Scottish foes. ”

“ A sudden light broke upon Marmion. "Dastard! fool! I, to reason lost, when I rode to meet a fay, a ghost, on Gifford's moor. It was this Palmer fiend, De Wilton in disguise, I met. Had I but fought as is my wont, one thrust had placed him where he would never cross my path again. Now he has told my tale to Douglas. This is why I was treated with scorn. I almost fear to meet my Lord Surrey. I must avoid the Lady Clare, and separate Constance from the nuns.
"O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive! ”

“ But yet ‘twas melancholy state
Received him at the outer gate;
For none were in the Castle then, 240
But women, boys, or aged men.
With eyes scarce dried, the sorrowing dame,
To welcome noble Marmion, came;
Her son, a stripling twelve years old,
Proffer’d the Baron’s rein to hold; 245
For each man that could draw a sword
Had march’d that morning with their lord,
Earl Adam Hepburn,-he who died
On Flodden, by his sovereign’s side.
Long may his Lady look in vain! 250
She ne’er shall see his gallant train,
Come sweeping back through Crichtoun-Dean. ”

“ The bars descending razed his plume.
XV.
The steed along the drawbridge flies,
Just as it trembled on the rise;
Nor lighter does the swallow skim
Along the smooth lake’s level brim:
And when Lord Marmion reached his band,
He halts, and turns with clenchéd hand,
And shout of loud defiance pours,
And shook his gauntlet at the towers.
“Horse! horse!” the Douglas cried, “and chase!”
But soon he reined his fury’s pace:
“A royal messenger he came,
Though most unworthy of the name.
A letter forged! Saint Jude to speed!
Did ever knight so foul a deed! ”

“ Marmion is a knight with a claim to nothing more than the half of the proverbial qualifications. He is sans peur, but not sans reproche; and it is one expression of the practical irony that constantly lurks to assail him that even his fearlessness quails for a time before the Phantom Knight on Gifford Moor. ”

“ Gave them a chain of twelve marks’ weight,
All as he lighted down.
“Now, largesse, largesse, Lord Marmion,
Knight of the crest of gold!
A blazoned shield, in battle won,
Ne’er guarded heart so bold.” ”

“ For lady’s suit, and minstrel’s strain,
By knight should ne’er be heard in vain,
XIV.
‘Now, good Lord Marmion,’ Heron says,
‘Of your fair courtesy,
I pray you bide some little space 215
In this poor tower with me.
Here may you keep your arms from rust,
May breathe your war-horse well;
Seldom hath pass’d a week but giust
Or feat of arms befell: 220
The Scots can rein a mettled steed;
And love to couch a spear:-
Saint George! a stirring life they lead,
That have such neighbours near. ”

“ Upon the earl’s own favourite steed:
All sheathed he was in armour bright,
And much resembled that same knight,
Subdued by you in Cotswold fight:
Lord Angus wished him speed.”
The instant that Fitz-Eustace spoke,
A sudden light on Marmion broke:
“Ah! dastard fool, to reason lost!”
He muttered; “’Twas nor fay nor ghost
I met upon the moonlight wold,
But living man of earthly mould. ”

“ Found his steed wet with sweat and mire;
Although the rated horse-boy sware,
Last night he dressed him sleek and fair.
While chafed the impatient squire like thunder,
Old Hubert shouts, in fear and wonder,
“Help, gentle Blount! help, comrades all!
Bevis lies dying in his stall:
To Marmion who the plight dare tell,
Of the good steed he loves so well?”
Gaping for fear and ruth, they saw
The charger panting on his straw;
Till one who would seem wisest, cried,
“What else but evil could betide,
With that cursed Palmer for our guide? ”

“ He knows the passes of the North, and is on his way to distant shrines beyond the Forth. Little he eats, and drinks only of stream or lake. He is a fit guide for moor and fell."
"Gramercy!" exclaimed Lord Marmion. "Loth would I be to take Friar John, if this Palmer will lead us as far as Holy-Rood. I'll pay him not in beads and cockle shells, but in 'angels' fair and good. I love such holy ramblers. They know how to charm each weary hill with song or romance.
"'Some jovial tale, or glee, or jest,
They bring to cheer the way.'"
"Ah! ”

“ Bothan, driven off the beeves of Lauderdale, and fired homes that the inmates might have light by which to dress themselves."
"In good sooth," replied Lord Marmion, "were I bent on war, a better guard I could not wish, but I go in form of peace, a friendly messenger to a foreign King. A plundering border spear might arouse suspicious fears, and the deadly feud, the thirst for blood, break out in unseemly broil. More fitting as guide, would be a friar, a pardoner, traveling priest, or strolling pilgrim." ”

“ Remember your unhappy child! If it be the decree of the King that I return not to the sanctuary with thee to dwell, yet one asylum remains—low, silent, and lone, where kings have little power. One victim of Lord Marmion is already there."
Weeping and wailing arose round patient Clare. Eustace hid his tears, and even the rude Blount could scarce bear the sight. Gently the squire took the rein and led the way, striving to cheer the poor fainting girl, by courteous word and deed. ”

“ It was not till 1808, three years after the publication of The Lay, that Marmion, Scott's greatest poem, was published. But I may as well say what seems necessary of that and his other poems, while I am on the subject of his poetry. Marmion has all the advantage over The Lay of the Last Minstrel that a coherent story told with force and fulness, and concerned with the same class of subjects as The Lay, must have over a confused and ill-managed legend, the only original purpose of which was to serve as the opportunity for a picture of Border life and strife. ”

“ Chaucer applies the name to the loose frock of the ploughman (Prologue, 541) . See Clarendon Press ed. of Chaucer’s Prologue, &c.
line 152. scutcheon = escutcheon, shield.
line 156. ‘Lord Marmion, the principal character of the present romance, is entirely a fictitious personage. In earlier times, indeed, the family of Marmion, Lords of Fontenay, in Normandy, was highly distinguished. Robert de Marmion, Lord of Fontenay, a distinguished follower of the Conqueror, obtained a grant of the castle and town of Tamworth, and also of the manor of Scrivelby, in Lincolnshire. ”

“ Stood a tall form, with nodding plume;
But ere his dagger Eustace drew,
His master Marmion’s voice he knew.
XXVIII.
“Fitz-Eustace! rise,—I cannot rest;—
Yon churl’s wild legend haunts my breast,
And graver thoughts have chafed my mood;
The air must cool my feverish blood;
And fain would I ride forth, to see
The scene of elfin chivalry.
Arise, and saddle me my steed ”

“ He expresses his own opinion that Marmion is preferable to the Lay, because its species of excellence is of much more difficult attainment. He thinks that Marmion, from the nature of the plot, and from the quality and variety of the characters, might with advantage have been largely extended, and elevated to the rank and dignity of an Epic in twelve books. Such seems to have been, in brief, the spontaneous verdict on Marmion of London literary circles when the poem was fresh from the press. The Edinburgh Review, all-powerful as the critical oracle of the time, had not yet recorded its verdict. ”

“ Scott himself said at the time that it gave him “such a heeze that he had almost lost his footing.” The Letters introducing the several Books are, in all Scott’s verse, perhaps the poems that most perfectly present to us his own personality. They form no part of “Marmion,” in fact there had been a plan for their publication as a distinct book. As they stand they interweave the poet with his poem, making “Marmion,” too, a “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” in the first days of its publication. ”

“ And Flodden had been Bannockbourne!
The precious hour has passed in vain,
And England’s host has gained the plain;
Wheeling their march, and circling still,
Around the base of Flodden Hill.
XXI.
Ere yet the bands met Marmion’s eye,
Fitz-Eustace shouted loud and high,
“Hark! hark! my lord, an English drum!
And see ascending squadrons come
Between Tweed’s river and the hill,
Foot, horse, and cannon: hap what hap,
My basnet to a ’prentice cap,
Lord Surrey’s o’er the Till!
Yet more! yet more!—how far arrayed
They file from out the hawthorn shade,
And sweep so gallant by! ”

“ As if men fought in upper earth,
And fiends in upper air.”
“Marmion” was published early in the year 1808; its first edition of two thousand, in the form, then usual, of a quarto volume, priced at a guinea and a half, was sold in a month. Then came the editions in octavo, of which there were twelve, between 1808 and 1825. ”

“ A poet has seldom been a better prophet.
The plot of Marmion is in one way strangely akin to the plot of Ivanhoe. In both we have a hard-bitten, hard-hearted, and unscrupulous knight, Marmion and the Templar. In both we have a pilgrim guide, who is no pilgrim, but a knight in disguise, returned from exile, with a deep grudge against the Templar, or Marmion (Wilfred, Wilton) . Both sets of partners are rivals in love, at least if Wilfred, as we believe, loved Rebecca. In both we have a tourney between the rivals, in which Marmion and the Templar are defeated by Wilton and Wilfred. ”

“ It is hardly to be expected, that an Author whom the Public have honoured with some degree of applause, should not be again a trespasser on their kindness. Yet the Author of MARMION must be supposed to feel some anxiety concerning its success, since he is sensible that he hazards, by this second intrusion, any reputation which his first Poem may have procured him. The present story turns upon the private adventures of a fictitious character; but is called a Tale of Flodden Field, because the hero’s fate is connected with that memorable defeat, and the causes which led to it. ”

“ Marmion called itself a town, but it was a good deal shrunken since the decline in the shipbuilding interest; it turned out a good many vessels every year, in the palmy days, before the war. There were shipyards still, where you could almost pick up the old shavings, the old nails and rivets, but they were grass-grown now, and the water lapped them without anything to interfere. ”

“ The town was considered "picturesque" by citizens of the smaller farm villages standing bleakly where the prairie lanes intersected. To be able to live in Marmion was held to be eminent good fortune by the people roundabout, and the notion was worth working for. "If things turn out well we will buy a lot in Marmion and build a house there," husbands occasionally said to their wives and daughters, to console them for the mud, or dirt, or heat, or cold of the farm life. ”

“ After the descriptions and the characterisation, the remaining important features of the poem are its marked practical irony and its episodes. Marmion, despite his many excellences, is throughout-and for obvious reasons—the victim of a persistent Nemesis. Scott is much interested in his hero; one fancies that if it were only possible he would in the end extend his favour to him, and grant him absolution; but his sense of artistic fitness prevails, and he will abate no jot of the painful ordeal to which he feels bound to submit him. ”

“ He marked not Marmion’s colour change,
While listening to the tale;
But, after a suspended pause,
The baron spoke:—“Of Nature’s laws
So strong I held the force,
That never superhuman cause
Could e’er control their course ”