A Ministering Angel
As Lord Marmion lies dying on Flodden Field, there is no one near to tend him but the woman he has wronged.
1808
King George III 1760-1820
A drawing of a nurse, by Edvard Munch.
By Edvard Munch (1863–1944), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Introduction
It is 1513, and Lord Marmion has been mortally wounded on the battlefield of Flodden. As he lies there, his lifeblood ebbing away, a woman kneels beside him. Clare feels no love for him, and the ungoverned passion he feels for her has spread death and dishonour all around. Yet her heart is not as hard as his.
Clare drew her from the sight away,
Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan,
And half he murmur’d, — ‘Is there none,
Of all my halls have nurst,*
Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring
Of blessed water from the spring,
To slake my dying thirst!’
O, Woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;*
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou! -
Scarce were the piteous accents said,
When, with the Baron’s casque,* the maid
To the nigh streamlet ran:
Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears;*
The plaintive voice alone she hears,
Sees but the dying man.*
From ‘Marmion: A Romance of Flodden Field’ (1808) by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832).
* An unusual past form of ‘nurse’.
* That is, shaking unpredictably like the shadow of the aspen tree, populus tremuloides, which shimmers in the breeze because of the peculiar structure of the leaves. See also F. W. Bain’s fable in The Dilemma. The line is sometimes quoted as “By the light of quivering aspen made” but the first edition published in 1808, and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations published in 1999, give it as it is given above.
* A casque is a helmet in a suit of armour.
* Marmion destroyed his rival for Clare’s love, Sir Ralph, by forging documents that brought him dishonour and drove him into exile.
* For a brief historical background to the battle, see Flodden Edge.
