[Suzerain of Sheol]

Originally Posted by Quiet Man Cometh

Was wondering where those random status comments come from Sheol. :)

That reminds me, I could use a new one. Been a few weeks.

For a quote, possibly the most badass fictional battle speech ever:

"Listen to me. I will not lie to you. The Nansur can afford no quarter, because they can afford no Truth! We all die this night!"

He let these words ring into silence.

"I know nothing of your Afterlife. I know nothing of your Gods or their greed for glory. But I do know this: In days to come, widows shall curse me as they weep! Fields shall go to seed! Sons and daughters shall be sold into slavery! Fathers shall die desolate, knowing their line is extinct! This night. I shall carve my mark into the Nansurium, and thousands shall cry out for want of my mercy!"

And the spark became flame.
- Scott Bakker, again. I kind of worship that man's writing.

[Gallowsraven]

that is a pretty awesome battle speech.

"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door."
(Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman)

One of my two favourite poems, the other being The Listeners. Can a story, poetic or otherwise, be set in a cooler, more awesome way than this? And it's just such an epic poem!

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Originally Posted by Gallowsraven

that is a pretty awesome battle speech.

"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door."
(Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman)

One of my two favourite poems, the other being The Listeners. Can a story, poetic or otherwise, be set in a cooler, more awesome way than this? And it's just such an epic poem!

I really like that. The long syllable-count per line is something that I haven't seen very much (though I'm woefully ill-read in classic literature and poetry...) I actually kind of want to try writing a poem like that, now...

Obligatory quote: Love's golden arrow at him should have fled, And not death's ebon dart, to strike him dead

For some reason, I've always wanted to twist that line around into something like, "Better love's golden arrow from him had fled, and death's ebon dart to have struck him dead." I don't know. I'm weird. (and that's a syllable too long...)

[Quiet Man Cometh]

I like that too. :). Longer sylable counts tend to be harder to pull off I think, because it's easy to run the lines too long and lose the melody. That's a nice one.

[Espy]

I was gonna mention William's pre-battle speech in Braveheart, before I realized that's not literature XD I fail at my own thread.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

I liked Theoden's in LOTR: RotK. Of course, that would not be literature either, but I did like some of his comments in the battle of helm's deep, pre-charge, in the book. Now if I had the book I would dig them up.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Off the top of my head, something along the lines of...

"Arise, arise riders of Theoden! Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield shall be shriven, now for wrath, now for ruin, and a red nightfall! Forth, Eorlingas!"

I may be combining the two...

Eomer's death-song is pretty epic, too.

[Fey]

I find it interesting that most of our favourite quotes come from The Bard...he was one dirty minded guy, but he definitely sticks with you. My favourites:

'Oh what fools these mortals be.'
'Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright, in the forests of the night...' <-pretty much the whole of that poem, but that first line always gets me
'"You're either crazy or stupid." "You mean I get a choice?!"'

I'm sure I have more, but these are the ones that first come to mind.

Also, entertained by the love of Poe...I enjoy his stuff, but only so far as the knowledge that I'm distantly related to him....

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Oh, actually, speaking of Tolkien, I can't believe I forgot my favorite line from the Silmarillion:


Be he friend or foe, whether demon of Morgoth or Elf, or child of Men, or any other living thing in Arda, neither law, nor love, nor league of hell, nor might of Valar, nor any power of wizardry, shall defend him from the pursuing hate of Feanor's sons, if he take or find a Silmaril and keep it. For the Silmarils we alone claim, until the the world ends.

[Gallowsraven]

All of those are awesome!

And yeah, i love The Highwayman and The Listeners for the rhythm (? i'm having a spell-fail day . . .) you can't beat it. Loreena McKennitt sings it and it sounds fantastic! Though she misses out one of the stanzas, but then, it's a ten-minute song without it. I guess i love the sense of sitting before a fireplace in winter and hearing the stories feeling that i get from them.

"But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call."

My fave part of The Listeners, by Walter De La Mare

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I like that one as well, though my inner poetry critic makes me wrinkle my nose at "moonlight" and "moonbeams" used within a line of each other, but that's just my personal preference. I may just have an irrational dislike of the word "moonbeams"...

Anyway,

The Ravaged Face

Outlandish as a circus, the ravaged face
Parades the marketplace, lurid and stricken
By some unutterable chagrin,
Maudlin from leaky eye to swollen nose.
Two pinlegs stagger underneath the mass.
Grievously purpled, mouth skewered on a groan,
Past keeping to the house, past all discretion ---
Myself, myself! --- obscene, lugubrious.
Better the flat leer of the idiot,
The stone face of the man who dosen't feel,
The velvet dodges of the hypocrite :
Better, better, and more acceptable
To timorous children, to the lady on the street.
O Oedipus. O Christ. You use me ill. --Sylvia Plath

[Gallowsraven]

o.o

very nice, very vivid imagery.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Whilst trying to think of other quotes, I remembered Shelly's drama, Prometheus Unbound, of which I've only ever read one scene, but it's always stuck with me. (That play has been on my list to read for years, I just never remember to.)

Anyways, spoiled since it's an epically long speech.

ASIA:
Who reigns? There was the Heaven and Earth at first,
And Light and Love; then Saturn, from whose throne
Time fell, an envious shadow: such the state
Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway,
As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves
Before the wind or sun has withered them
And semivital worms; but he refused
The birthright of their being, knowledge, power,
The skill which wields the elements, the thought
Which pierces this dim universe like light,
Self-empire, and the majesty of love;
For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus
Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter,
And with this law alone, 'Let man be free,'
Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven.
To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be
Omnipotent but friendless is to reign;
And Jove now reigned; for on the race of man
First famine, and then toil, and then disease,
Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before,
Fell; and the unseasonable seasons drove
With alternating shafts of frost and fire,
Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves:
And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent,
And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle
Of unreal good, which levied mutual war,
So ruining the lair wherein they raged.
Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes
Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers,
Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms,
That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings
The shape of Death; and Love he sent to bind
The disunited tendrils of that vine
Which bears the wine of life, the human heart;
And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey,
Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath
The frown of man; and tortured to his will
Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,
And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms
Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves.
He gave man speech, and speech created thought,
Which is the measure of the universe;
And Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven,
Which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind
Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song;
And music lifted up the listening spirit
Until it walked, exempt from mortal care,
Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound;
And human hands first mimicked and then mocked,
With moulded limbs more lovely than its own,
The human form, till marble grew divine;
And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see
Reflected in their race, behold, and perish.
He told the hidden power of herbs and springs,
And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep.
He taught the implicated orbits woven
Of the wide-wandering stars; and how the sun
Changes his lair, and by what secret spell
The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye
Gazes not on the interlunar sea:
He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs,
The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean,
And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then
Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed
The warm winds, and the azure ether shone,
And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen.
Such, the alleviations of his state,
Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs
Withering in destined pain: but who rains down
Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while
Man looks on his creation like a God
And sees that it is glorious, drives him on,
The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth,
The outcast, the abandoned, the alone?
Not Jove: while yet his frown shook Heaven ay, when
His adversary from adamantine chains
Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare
Who is his master? Is he too a slave?

[Gallowsraven]

long indeed; i'd have hated to pull that speech in Lit. class, though Hecate's in Macbeth is a similar length and i don't mind reading hers, go figure :D

"Have I not reason, beldams as you are,
Saucy and overbold? How did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth
In riddles and affairs of death;
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never called to bear my part
Or show the glory of our art?
And, which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,
Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you.
But make amends now: get you gone
And at the pit of Acheron
Meet me i' th' morning. Thither he
Will come to know his destiny.
Your vessels and your spells provide,
Your charms and everything beside.
I am for th' air. This night I'll spend
Unto a dismal and a fatal end.
Great business must be wrought ere noon.
Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a vap'rous drop profound;
I'll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that, distilled by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprites
As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear:
And you all know security
Is mortals' chiefest enemy.
Hark! I am called. My little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me."

Hecate's Monologue from Act 3 Scene 5 (i think; working from memory)

Not as long as your's though Suzerain, your's is epic-length :D

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I wonder if Prometheus Unbound is ever performed. It doesn't have much in the way of stage directions from what I remember, and it's described as a "lyrical drama" so I'm not really sure. I'd love to see it, if it was, though. I imagine Quiet knows.

Also, Macbeth was always my favorite play of Shakespeare's. I just wish I had the motivation to read his plays again since it's hard to separate the memory of the play itself from the horrid atmosphere of high school I had them presented to me in. Of course, I'm heading to university for English, now, so I imagine I'll get my chance. :p

And, for a quote, a short one I like from Steven Erikson's Toll the Hounds:

"The dust dreams of the world it had once been. But the dust, alas, does not command the wind."

[Gallowsraven]

I like that one; pretty and simple. Another couple i like are;

"Does the walker choose their path or the path the walker?"

"What happens to the dream when the dreamer awakes?"

Can't remember where i read them though, two different stories i think, at least.