Our Fathers Have Told Us: Part I. The Bible of AmiensRuskin, John
History
Our Fathers Have Told Us: Part I. The Bible of Amiens
Ruskin, John
Cathédrale d'Amiens; France -- History
41. Having thus put the sequence of the statues and their quatrefoils
briefly before the spectator--(in case the railway time presses, it
may be a kindness to him to note that if he walks from the east end of
the cathedral down the street to the south, Rue St. Denis, it takes
him by the shortest line to the station)--I will begin again with St.
Peter, and interpret the sculptures in the quatrefoils a little more
fully. Keeping the fixed numerals for indication of the statues, St.
Peter's quatrefoils will be 1 A and 1 B, and Malachi's 28 A and 28 B.
1, A. COURAGE, with a leopard on his shield; the French and
English agreeing in the reading of that symbol, down
to the time of the Black Prince's leopard coinage in
Aquitaine.[61]
[Footnote 61: For a list of the photographs of the quatrefoils
described in this chapter, see the appendices at the end of this
volume.]
2, B. COWARDICE, a man frightened at an animal darting out
of a thicket, while a bird sings on. The coward has
not the heart of a thrush.
2, A. PATIENCE, holding a shield with a bull on it (never giving
back).[62]
[Footnote 62: In the cathedral of Laon there is a pretty compliment
paid to the oxen who carried the stones of its tower to the hill-top
it stands on. The tradition is that they harnessed themselves,--but
tradition does not say how an ox can harness himself even if he had a
mind. Probably the first form of the story was only that they went
joyfully, "lowing as they went." But at all events their statues are
carved on the height of the tower, eight, colossal, looking from its
galleries across the plains of France. See drawing in Viollet le Duc,
under article "Clocher."]
2, B. ANGER, a woman stabbing a man with a sword. Anger
is essentially a feminine vice--a man, worth calling so,
may be driven to fury or insanity by _indignation_,
(compare the Black Prince at Limoges,) but not by
anger. Fiendish enough, often so--"Incensed with
indignation, Satan stood, _unterrified_--" but in that last
word is the difference, there is as much fear in Anger,
as there is in Hatred.
3, A. GENTILLESSE, bearing shield with a lamb.
3, B. CHURLISHNESS, again a woman, kicking over her cup-bearer.
The final forms of ultimate French churlishness
being in the feminine gestures of the Cancan.
See the favourite prints in shops of Paris.
4, A. LOVE; the Divine, not human love: "I in them, and
Thou in me." Her shield bears a tree with many
branches grafted into its cut-off stem: "In those days
shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself."
4, B. DISCORD, a wife and husband quarrelling. She has
dropped her distaff (Amiens wool manufacture, see farther
on--9, A.)
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