The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size.
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Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size.
A fine portrait including the peacock’s tail.
Text Translation:
Of the peacock The peacock gets its name, pavo, from the sound of its cry. Its flesh is so hard that it hardly decays and it cannot easily be cooked. A certain poet said of it: ‘You are lost in admiration, whenever it spreads its jewelled wings; can you consign it, hard-hearted woman, to the unfeeling cook?’ (Martial, Epigrams, xiii, 70) ‘Solomon’s fleet went to Tharsis once every three years and brought from there gold and silver, elephants’ teeth and apes, and peacocks’ (see 2 Chronicles, 10: 21).
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size.
The ducks are shown not swimming but on land. They are multi-coloured and include the green and brown mallard.
Text Translation:
Of ducks. The duck, anas, has been aptly named because it is constantly swimming, natare. Some of its species are called Germanie, ‘from Germany’, because they eat more than the rest. The goose, anser, derives its name from the duck, either because they are similar or because the goose too is constantly swimming. The goose marks the watches of the night by its constant cry. No other creature picks up the scent of man as it does. It was because of its noise, that the Gauls were detected when they ascended the Capitol.
Each species of bird is born twice; for first the eggs are produced, then they are given form and life by the warmth of the mother’s body. They are called eggs, ova, because inside they are full of fluid. Anything that has fluid on the outside is umidum, ‘wet’; anything with fluid on the inside is called vividum, ‘life containing’. Some people think that the word ovum is of Greek origin. For the Greeks call eggs oa, losing the v. Some eggs are conceived by useless wind; nothing can be hatched from them, however, unless they have been conceived through intercourse with a male bird and penetrated by the spirit carried in his seed. Such is the quality of eggs, they say, that wood soaked in them will not burn, nor clothing, in turn, catch fire. In addition, eggs mixed with chalk, it is said, will glue pieces of glass together.
This won’t be my first time ranting about ostomy bags. They are badly designed, with little thought, and they are spectacularly ugly. You have 3 colour choices: beige and clear, beige all the way, or beige and white. Let’s not pretend people are this ugly ass shade of beige, they aren’t. Medical supply companies are apparently still on the colonial system too: one shade fits all. It doesn’t. Why in the fuckety fuck don’t they make them in colours? People who are using these things have gone through a big change in their life, they aren’t dead, and many of us refuse to start walking about in ugly ass smocks or shirts 2 sizes too big to try and hide them, and we happen to like colour. A range of solid colours would be good. Good in every way, because colours are cheerful, and they tend to make people feel better. It’s not enough I get to deal with a colostomy, I have to deal with deadly ugly and depressing too? No, I refuse. I also refuse to be complicit in helping medical supply companies keep the stigma of such procedures alive and well. Who in the fuck wouldn’t be trying to cover up that level of ugly? So…
© C. Ford.
enter Sharpie Markers. :D A couple of the bags are gessoed, a couple are not. The markers need a small amount of dry time, after that, they’re golden, no smears. This is all quick and dirty, nothing fantastic, but it’s not deadly beige. Fuck beige, I never want to see it again. It should be struck off the official colour list. These are, of course, my out and about bags. I can’t be arsed to do this for when I’m just working at home, but when I do have to go out, I’ll feel much better about them. If you’re stuck with a deadly ugly beige medical appliance which is fabric, Sharpie makes a lovely range of fabric markers, and there’s a whole lot of fabric paint out there too, all of it stable and washable! I say it’s time for a full on revolt against the standard, racist, ugly ass beige medical supply sticks everyone with. Fuck that noise. Fuck cancer, too.
And a huge shout out to Sharpie for some great products!
The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size.
The animal depicted is the mute swan. The characteristic knob at the base of the beak should be black instead of white as shown here. The white paint is covered with a thick coat of glair (made from egg white) which gives the feathers a luxurious sheen.
Text Translation:
Of the swan. The swan, olor, is the bird which the Greeks call cygnus. It is called olor because its plumage is wholly white; no-one can recall seeing a black swan. In Greek olos means ‘entire’. The swan is called cignus, from its singing; it pours forth the sweetness of song in a melodious voice. They say that the swan sings so sweetly because it has a long, curved neck; inevitably, a voice forcing its way through a long, flexible passage produces a variety of tones. They say, moreover, that in the far north, when bards are singing to their lyres, large numbers of swans are summoned by the sound and sing in harmony with them. The Latin name for the swan, I repeat, is olor; the Greeks call it cignus. Sailors say that seeing a swan is a good omen for them; Emilianus said: ‘When you are observing birds for omens, the swan is always the most favorable bird to see; sailors set great store by it because it does not plunge beneath the waves’.
The swan has snow-white plumage and dark flesh. In a moral sense, the white colour of its plumage signifies the effect of deception, whereby the dark flesh is hidden, in the same way that a sin of the flesh is concealed by pretence. When the swan swims in a river, it holds its neck and head high, as a proud man is led astray by transitory things and even glories at the time in his temporary possessions. They say that in the far north, when bards are singing to their lyres, large numbers of swans fly there and sing in harmony with them. In the same way those who long for sensuous pleasure with all their hearts, like the swans flying north, harmonise with other pleasure-seekers. But when, at the very end, the swan dies, it is said to sing very sweetly as it is dying.
Likewise, when the proud man departs this life, he still delights in the sweetness of this present world and, dying, remembers the evil he has done. When the swan is plucked of its white plumage, it is set on the spit and roasted at the fire. Likewise, when a rich, proud man is stripped at death of his worldly glory, he will descend to the fires of hell where he will be tormented; he who used to seek food in the lowest places, descending into the abyss, is fed into the fire.
The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size.
Portrait of the Crow in a Roundel.
Text Translation:
Of the crow The crow is a long-lived bird, called cornix in Latin and Greek. Soothsayers assert that the crow can represent by signs the concerns of men, show where an ambush is laid and foretell the future. It is a great crime to believe this – that God confides his intentions to crows. Among the many omens attributed to crows is that of presaging by their caws the coming of rain. Hence the line: ‘Then the crow loudly cries for rain’ (Virgil, Georgics, 1, 388).
Another strike against the christian god. What’s wrong with confiding in crows?
Let men learn from the crow’s example and its sense of duty, to love their children. Crows follow their young in flight, escorting them attentively; they feed them anxiously in case they weaken. A very long time passes before they give up their responsibility for feeding their offspring. In contrast, women of our human race wean their babies as soon as they can, even the ones they love. Rich women are altogether averse to breastfeeding. If the women are poor, they cast out their infants, expose them and, when the babies are found, deny all knowledge of them. The rich themselves also kill their children in the womb, to avoid dividing their estate among many heirs; and with murderous concoctions they destroy in the uterus the children of their own womb; they would rather take away life than transmit it. What creature but man has taken the view that children can be renounced? What creature but man has endowed parents with such barbarous rights? What creature but man, in the brotherhood created by nature, has made brothers unequal? Different fates befall the sons of a single rich man. One enjoys in abundance the rights and titles of his father’s entire heritage; the other complains bitterly at receiving an exhausted and impoverished share of his rich patrimony. Did nature distinguish between what each son should receive? Nature has shared things equally among everyone, giving them what they need to be born and survive. Let nature teach you to make no distinction, when dividing your patrimony, between those whom you have made equal by the title bestowed by brotherhood; for truly as you have bestowed on them the equal possession of the fact of their birth, so you should not grudge them the equal enjoyment of their status of brotherhood.
The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size.
Portrait of the quail. This rather characterless and legless portrait shows the correct tawny colour of the quail but is the wrong shape. The quail has a plump body and minimal tail.
Text Translation:
Of the quail Quails are so called from their call; the Greeks call them ortigie because they were first seen on the island of Ortigia. Quails have fixed times of migration. For when summer gives way to winter, they cross the sea. The leader of the flock is called ortigometra, ‘the quail-mother’. The hawk, seeing the quail-mother approaching land, seizes it; because of this, the quails all take care to attract a leader from another species, through whom they guard against this early danger. Their favorite food is the seed of poisonous plants. For this reason, the ancients forbade them to be eaten; for alone among living things, the quail suffers, like man, from the falling sickness.
The Illustrations to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe, by Harry Clarke, 1919. Click for full size. The second image is the Finis. This is the end of the black and white illustrations. There are eight colour plates, however I don’t know which stories they belong to, so anyone’s guess.
