Like Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Marmion leaves the reader hoping poor Robert Reese didn’t have to memorize the whole thing, because this puppy put the “epic” in “epic poetry” at a whopping 224 pages . This is the same poem from which we get the famous lines:
Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.
(Canto VI, 17)
The context of this part of the poem is this: Lord Marmion, a favorite of the young King (Henry VIII), tries to dissuade the Scots under King James IV from invading England during peacetime. He is unsuccessful at convincing them, and so Marmion fights at Flodden Field, the largest battle between Scottish and English armed forces ever recorded on British soil, on September 11, 1513. They win the battle, but our guy Marmion falls. This part of the poem consists of his dying words. So spunky and alliterative. Poor Marmy.
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From Marmion
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
Canto VI, 32:
A light on Marmion’s visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye.
With dying hand, above his head,
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted “Victory!
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!”
Were the last words of Marmion.