Mortar

“ Errors, iv. 3. 28; morispike, Ascham, Toxophilus (ed. Arber, 67) . See morisco.
mort (a hunting term) . The note sounded on a horn at the death of the deer, Winter’s Tale, i. 2. 118; ‘He that bloweth the Mort before the fall of the Buck’, Greene, Card of Fancie (Nares) .
mort (Cant) , a girl or woman. B. Jonson, Gypsies Met. 65; a female vagabond, harlot, Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1 (Higgen) . Later, written mott (mot) , London slang for a woman of the town, see NED.
mortar: in phr. to fly to Rome with a mortar on one’s head, app. a legendary achievement of some wizard; Middleton, Span. ”

“ No one touched the grey-headed murderer, who knelt down—not to pray, but to look into his son's eyes—and to examine his lips—and to feel his left breast—and to search out all the symptoms of a fainting-fit, or to assure himself—and many a corpse had the plunderer handled on the field after hush of the noise of battle—that this was death. ”

“ I open my eyes—my fingers grasp a sleeve, an arm. A wounded man? I yell to him—no answer—a dead man. My hand gropes farther, splinters of wood—now I remember again that we are lying in the graveyard.
But the shelling is stronger than everything. It wipes out the sensibilities, I merely crawl still deeper into the coffin, it should protect me, and especially as Death himself lies in it too.
Before me gapes the shell-hole. ”

“ The mass upon the floor fetches a last agonizing shrug, and a low moan, and is dead. The murderer stands over him, exultant, as the blood streams from the deep fracture. In fine, the blood of his victim would seem rather to increase his satisfaction at the deed, than excite a regret. ”

“ If they are in a murderous mood, nothing less than a full-grown battle, with a big list of killed and wounded, will satisfy their thirst for blood; and if they fancy a touch of the ghastly, nothing will do but new-made graves, coffins, corpses, gibbering ghosts, and grinning skeletons. ”

“ Under the peaceful vault of God's house the chilling sound of iron penetrating men's flesh or sliding along their bones, the single broken groan of men struck in a vital spot, the crushing of skulls, the roar of victims unwilling to die, the atrocious hilarity of those who had succeeded in killing an enemy,—all this re-echoed distinctly. ”

“ A corpse is laid with no one near.
Ah, what is this—this nameless fear—
The ghouls are stirring—they are here!
One hears them—they are gliding on—
And strange and weird their ghostly song.
“The body to the earth is told,
Alas! for him who lost his soul.” ”

“ The very man who had dealt him his death-wound has laid the body straight out on the ground, and spread a cloak over it. "And when he wiped the blood from the face it was very beautiful, and there was red in the cheeks, as if he only slept." ”

“ A moment before I had thought less of death than of the pain which the steel, suspended over my head, would occasion me. Death is seldom seen so close without striking his blow. I heard every syllable uttered by the assassins, just as if I had been calm. ”

“ Others again, for their more lightness, cast away shoes and doublets, and ran in their shirts; and some also seen in this race all breathless to fall flat down, and have run themselves to death. Soon began a pitiful sight of the dead corpses lying dispersed abroad; some their legs off, some but houghed, and left lying half dead, some thrust quite through the body, others the arms cut off, divers their necks half asunder, many their heads cloven, of sundry the brains pushed out, some others again their heads quite off, with other thousand kinds of killing. ”

“ For some of them have been cut and chopped all to pieces, some have had their eyes bored through, some have been sodden, some roasted, some flayed alive, some buried quick, stoned, crucified, grinded betwixt millstones, drawn and hailed hither and thither unto execution, drowned in waters, strangled and hanged, torn in pieces, vexed with rebukes before their death, pined in prisons, and afflicted in bands. ”

“ The shop at the midday hour appears to me like a bloody battlefield where all are at rest; about me I see lying the dead, and the blood that has been spilled cries from the earth. A minute later—the tocsin is sounded, the dead arise, the battle is renewed. The corpses fight for strangers, for strangers, and they battle and fall and disappear into night. ”

“ I seat myself beside the men who pass along among the tombs, and in untimely season I assume the form of the dead; and if I catch any one, I at once destroy him with my sword. But if I cannot destroy him, I cause him to be possessed with a demon, and to devour his own flesh, and the hair to fall off his chin. ”

“ Their manner of burying the dead is to dig a deep narrow hole, into which the corpse is put in a sitting posture, the elbows between the two knees: a poor person is buried without any ceremony; a rich man has guns fired, and rum drank over his grave, and in his house by his friends and retainers. ”

“ There we knew men had fallen singly, and had long lain wounded or dead, until their friends had taken them to grave or shelter. Out in the open again, where skirmishes had happened and bill and bow or spear had met their like, the dead lay thicker. Gods! how drear those fair French fields did lie in the autumn moonlight, with their scattered dead in twos and threes and knots and clusters! There were some who sprawled upon the ground—still clutching in their dread white fingers the grass and earth torn up in the moment of their agony. ”

“ Few things can be imagined, more thoroughly revolting and absurd, than the vengeance of the living, rioting among the ashes of the dead—rudely rolling the stone away from the door of the sepulchre—entering the narrow houses of the unresisting, vi et armis, with the pickaxe and the crowbar—and scattering to the winds the poor senseless remains of those, who were consigned to their resting-places, with all the honors of a former age. ”

“ Death has been painted as a skeleton grasping a scythe, a grinning skull, a threatening figure with terrible face and uplifted dart, a bony scarecrow shaking an hour-glass—all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors. ”

“ Turning in our saddles, by the flare of our torches held high above our heads we beheld three corpses swaying in the wind. A wailing cry of a woman's voice came from close at hand, and we fled as if pursued by a thousand demons. ”

“ There lay the ghastly dead, cold and pale in the grey light of the morning,—across them in heaps the wounded, quivering with intensity of agony, grasping the gory ground with convulsive clutches, and tearing up the earth, which was soon to cover them, in handfuls, while their eyes, starting from the sockets, were becoming glazed and terrible in death. ”

“ I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand. 32:40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, And say, As I live forever, 32:41 if I whet my glittering sword, My hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my adversaries, and will recompense those who hate me. 32:42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the head of the leaders of the enemy. 32:43 Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. ”

“ His hunting spear in lightning gleams,
And he waits, he calls for thee.
He must not at the chase be late,
He, of the soul of fire,
Haste! Haste!"—the death-shot seals his fate,
With sharp and sudden ire. ”

“ To wake once more to killing, killing, killing.
Give me the hunter's hand, the patriot's fervour
To hold death naught, or for my land to serve her,
Slay and still slay, with heart that holds no sorrow
For these dead men and all their carnal horror.
Was I not one who loved my land for growing
Sweet, eager life, and pretty things all blowing?
How glad these hands to give their toil, how willing,
That now, O God ! grow strong in killing, killing. ”

“ When a soldier fell fighting in the field, and his body could not be found, he was honoured with the carriage of an empty bier, and funeral ceremonies as if his remains were present.
If a man killed himself, the hand with which the deed was committed was cut off, and buried in another place to that in which the other part of the body was interred. If one man killed another in a righteous cause, the slayer washed his hands and held up the weapon that had been used towards the sun, with the blood on it, to show that he feared not though the heavens as well as the earth knew what he had done. ”

“ It was soon done, for the murderers had hurried their victim into a shallow tomb. In a few minutes the body of the dead man was exposed to view. Decay had not commenced, and death had given fresh depth and beauty to the serenity which had been their habitual expression in life. ”

“ By every possible device death was clothed with new and vivid terrors, and in every possible way the truth was brought home to the mind that the coming of death could be as unexpected as it was inevitable and unwelcome. The tolling of the church-bell spread the gloom of the death-chamber over the whole town; and the death-crier, with bell and lantern, wearing a garment made terrible by a skull and cross-bones, went his rounds, by day or night, crying to all good people to pray for the soul just departed. ”

“ Cracked will our skulls be and speared our bodies.
Eerin can warn us no more with his cry,
Only his spirit can come to us ever, an offering let us now pour to it."
Then with loud wailing, seizing stone knives and comeboos, the mourners cut themselves, letting their blood drop into the grave. Never before" was there such a blood offering. Then the earth was thrown quickly into the grave, while some of the mourners corroboreed round it, crooning a dirge. ”

“ We know that in every room, in every storey, on the level of every floor, young mutilated bodies are ranged side by side. A hundred hearts send the over-heated blood in swift pulsations towards the suffering limbs. ”

“ When a man died far from home, frequent solemn invocations were made for his soul, which, it was thought, could hear and understand what was said by friends even in distant lands. At the burial of one that was slain in battle, his comrades marched three times round the burning pile or grave, shaking their arms, and throwing swords, bridles, belts, and other articles into the fire or grave after the body. ”

“ Every old man and woman was killed, slain with a sword, or hacked to death, or speared. Babies, and little children were brained against the walls of the houses; strong men—fathers, lovers, sons—had been murdered with every wantonness of savagery conceivable. ”

“ Yet singly in battle I have given over the bodies of so many men to the pyre of destruction, that a mound like a hill could grow up and be raised out of their lopped limbs, and the piles of carcases would look like a burial-barrow. ”

“ Deep lanes were mowed amidst the thick crowd; the dead and dying covered the ground, and the shrieks and wails and cries of horror filled all the air, till it seemed as if there were nothing else in the world but murder and death. Those of our armed men who were still unhurt cheered wildly and opened a scattering fire on the soldiers. One or two soldiers fell; and I saw the officers going up and down the ranks urging the men to fire again ”

“ The pale green or livid horse, the color of a corpse, reflects the ghastliness of a dead body bordering on dissolution, and points to the ruin wrought by death. Death is here considered as in itself a trial, and some of the more terrible [pg 129] and widespread agencies by which it is brought about are mentioned in order to make its ravages more impressive. Among other forms death by sword and famine are included, evils already introduced under the two former seals as the occasion of suffering, but here regarded as leading to death and constituting a separate trial. ”

“ The night attack, murder, rapine, fire and bloodshed became common experiences, and the discovery of many bodies, the skulls crushed with battleaxes, of skeletons of men slain with the deadly arrow, of bodies twisted by torture and charred by fire, reveal what a reign of terror and dread that epoch must have been in the land of the cliff-dweller. ”

“ And when the whole place was filled with corpses, some also lay among them still half alive, vainly cherishing a hope of life, some of them having been pierced with bullets hurled from slings, others with arrows barbed with iron. ”

“ We are told that when the king visits the burial-place of his ancestors he offers a human sacrifice on approaching the skeleton of each one, and in this manner some thirty persons are slaughtered. When about to repair a roof at the burial-place after a storm, as many more victims are offered to appease the wrath of the departed. On funeral occasions many villagers are killed, till it pleases the king to forbid the further shedding of blood. ”

“ From the strange mixture of the material and spiritual common to men in that barbarian condition, the bodies or the blood of the slain appear to be the essentials of these requirements. Thus, also, the utmost horror is felt at decapitation, or at the severing of limbs from the body after death. ”

“ Others raced round the scene of slaughter with their heads full four feet high, or gathered about the dead and dying, and lashed the air with their sharp tails, producing sounds like the cracking of whips. ”

“ Blood continued to be spilt as water, day after day, till the Epiphany; priests, lay-men, young men and old, noble and vile, daily found their end by the knife or the cord. Fifty-seven people died publicly by the hand of the executioner in the course of a very few days ”

“ Who die and leave no lament on the wind. . . .
And straightway gazing on him I beheld
Not death's magnificence; not fame's hushed tomb—
But grim Oblivion, and the fields of France!
And on some nameless hillside, where the night
Sets out wild flaming candles for the dead,
Innumerable corpses palely sprawled
Beneath the silent, cold, anonymous stars. ”