The Hunter's Tear

The Hunter’s Tear

 

The Third Rhyme of Jean Ami

 

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She held my gaze without a way

Of understanding why,

 

And did not sense

That she was doomed

To suffer soon and die

 

Too fair for Earth,

Too young to know,

Too dear a song to sing -

 

She was an angel of the grass,

A darling of the spring

 

For innocence trumps all things well

In good and ill, God knows -

And she was destined

 

For the jaws

Of instinct, as it goes.

 

That thing, I knew, undoubtedly,

But must confess a tear

For one who knew

A life too brief

 

And died a thing

 

Too pure.

 

Thoughts of Camille Du Monde: Entry Five

 

It is difficult to ponder a hunt and not think of our dinners. Yet Jean Ami would shed a tear and spurn the better blessing in a rabbit. I wonder how he felt about a cabbage! The ancient priests of Bretagne thought that rabbits, birds, and fish did have a kind of soul - and even trees and brambles, too, but all the Celts did eat. It is, of course, the mere fruit of a poetic notion to express such depth of feeling for what is, after all, a commodity of food. Yet, in degrees, I am a little moved, as I have kept both dog and falcon in my house and loved them as my children. Still, I wonder, had I not the prospect of a meal, would they grace the table at my supper? I am convinced they would.^[1]

 

There is a story told by the Knights of de Montfort about the fall of a Cathar stronghold to the will of Christian forces, and how a noble maiden of that place was turned over to the victors to pay the price of her lord’s treachery. It is said she was beautiful and quite young, knew not of men, nor the world at large, but was abused for days before her stoning. To me, this maiden seems a thing comparable to the rabbit in Ami’s poem. She could not know of nature until it killed her. Nor could she know of saints and sinners, but learned that day of Satan, as did they all who threw the stones. Still, her murder is not surprising, since evil flies toward innocence, and the more tender that innocence is, the faster evil flies. In any case, Ami’s poem vaguely reminds me of that story, save I doubt that what killed the rabbit buried its crime in rocks.

 

But all men sometimes lean toward evil, regardless of the will of heaven. Some are better than others, and some are worse, but Man’s nature invariably leads him to seek an advantage over everything, and he sins so easily that demons must blush with envy. He needs not much herding to a pasture he knows well, and there he will linger, lest a nobler mind prevails. I do not like such realities, but I honor them since much of my success flows through that channel, and nothing that I think or feel can change the course.

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[1] Paris conceded that had he been required to kill an animal each time he ate, he would have died of starvation because he so hated the “insatiable monster” that devoured meat nearly every day of his life. But Du Monde does not share that hypocrisy. He recognizes the extremes to which human beings will go to survive and freely admits that he is among their number.