Saturday, February 16, 2008

Villany Rewarded; or the Pirate's Last Farewell to the World, 1696


Even though Valentine's Day has past, I was feeling romantic. I suppose I'm just an old softy at heart. Feel free to use this image as a greeting card for your significant other on anniversaries, birthdays, or "just because."

This image is from a ballad about the execution of a pirate. The other image it contains features pirates hanged at the execution dock at Wapping, which is where they were usually hanged and left (covered in tar to preserve them) as a warning to other criminals. Still, we have some quality stuff here: quarters of the body and the head on spikes, the scavenging birds, the disemboweling and burning of viscera, and of course the message of undying love. I guess ladies had to take what they could get in 17th century London.

4 comments:

meghan said...

Since Doug and I broke up through these LOLcomments, he'll probably try to win me back using this image. It's only fitting... but it WON'T WORK. It will take much more than the image of a treacherous pirate's still-beating heart to get this heart back.

Now, if you ever provide him with a particularly romantic one featuring monstrous births, THEN I might reconsider...

Sarah Redmond said...

Don't let him! Or only maybe consider it if he writes an allegorical poem like in "Beast of Rome," but instead of decoding the symbols as an invective against Popery it's about his love for you.

(And Doug, I actually do have an image of a sort of romantic monstrous birth. I think you should only ask for it when you do something unforgivable...it's a powerhouse of emotions.)

Doug said...

First of all, I want to know where the still-beating heart of the giant pirate is. His head is half as big as the castle tower! And it's being devoured by Pterodactyls!

This actually isn't that surprising, based on new evidence revealed in the Onion-esque newsletter of Landover Baptist Church: http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0605/flyingdinos.html

Sarah, please hold on to that monstrous birth image for me. There's a poker night coming up in a few weeks, and I may need to hold that image in front of me when I try to sneak home at 2 AM.

Doug said...

Eh, my linkage skills are not up to par. Just add a little ".html" on the end.