BS: The Highwayman

Subject: "The Highwayman"
From: BigDaddy
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 02:01 AM

About "The Highwayman" poem by Alfred Noyes: When the English soldiers tied the landlord's daughter with a musket at her breast, how did she ever reach the trigger to "warn him with her death?" She would have to have arms like a chimpanzee. All the standard issue rifles (e.g. the "Brown Bess") for the English army had barrels well over three feet long. Anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 02:18 AM

What Noyes forgot to add was that Bess was actually an orang-utan, the red hair dyed black. Sdly, none of the commonly available rhyming dictionaries of the time had any useful rhymes for orang-utan, so the poem suffered as a result.
Either that or the soldiers were armed with carbines.

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 03:08 AM

Sawn off musket???

Doesn't quite have the same ring does it....

Give the guy a little poetic license please?

What intrigues me is how did she reach it if she were tied? "English soldiers tied the landlord's daughter with a musket at her breast" Surely that would suggest she were bound and someone holding the musket to her....

Prehensile toes??

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: Teribus
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 04:38 AM

Big Daddy,

One thing to take into account was how notoriously unreliable the firing mechanism of fire-arms were. This topic is covered very well in Richard Holmes book, "Redcoat".

Are you familiar with the expression, "Going off at half-cock". For the landlords daughter to cause the weapon to discharge all she would need to do would be to knock it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 05:30 AM

Or it might have been a poetic gun licence.

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: MMario
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 08:16 AM

or perhaps it wasn't tied perpendicular to her body

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: BigDaddy
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 11:35 AM

Teribus, the poem specifically states "the tip of one finger touched it, the trigger at least was hers" in reference to how she discharged it at her breast. Also, "they bound a musket beside her with the barrel at her breast." Previous to this we have mention that she was tied "at attention." In spite of this she also is said to have worked at the knots "behind her, but all the knots held good." Perhaps a double-jointed contortionist with really long arms?

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: mack/misophist
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 02:22 PM

Eureka!!! I have the answer. It must have been a musket PISTOL!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 04:27 PM

Where can I get one of these Poetic Licences,and how much are they?

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 05:18 PM

I prefer a licencious poet meself. Although she might go off with a bang. Still forewarned is firearmed. Tee Hee

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: Mr Happy
Date: 30 Sep 02 - 07:10 PM

i've not read the pome meself but all these excerpts only mention her being 'tied at the breast'. if that's all that was tied up, then surely her other limbs & digits would be free to manipulate things freely.

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: GUEST,Dunkle
Date: 01 Oct 02 - 12:38 PM

I've enjoyed the poem as a song ever since hearing Phil Ochs' version so many years ago...but I've been 'captivated' by the version that Steve Gillete and Cindy Magneson (sp?) do...have folks heard them do it? (Are there other versions that you enjoy...?)

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 01 Oct 02 - 09:21 PM

Well, it was a useless warning because the highwayman got shot too

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: alison
Date: 02 Oct 02 - 05:04 AM

Loreena Mc Kennitt, and Andy Irvine have both done recordings... sound great too...

I must say you've killed the romance a bit though... next time I hear it I'll be seeing this orangutan with long black hair leaning out of a casement........ *grin*


slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Oct 02 - 05:32 AM

Actually if they'd tied her at the elbows it'd just about be possible.

Subject: RE: BS: The Highwayman
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 02 - 09:02 PM

And Alfred Noyes wrote a lot more poems than just The Highwayman. Here is one:

CAROL, every violet has   
Heaven for a looking-glass!   
   
Every little valley lies   
Under many-clouded skies;   
Every little cottage stands         
Girt about with boundless lands.   
Every little glimmering pond   
Claims the mighty shores beyond—   
Shores no seamen ever hailed,   
Seas no ship has ever sailed.   
   
All the shores when day is done   
Fade into the setting sun,   
So the story tries to teach   
More than can be told in speech.   
   
Beauty is a fading flower,   
Truth is but a wizard's tower,   
Where a solemn death-bell tolls,   
And a forest round it rolls.   
   
We have come by curious ways   
To the light that holds the days;   
We have sought in haunts of fear   
For that all-enfolding sphere:   
And lo! it was not far, but near.   
We have found, O foolish-fond,   
The shore that has no shore beyond.   
   
Deep in every heart it lies   
With its untranscended skies;   
For what heaven should bend above   
Hearts that own the heaven of love?   
   
Carol, Carol, we have come   
Back to heaven, back to home.