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To: Bonemaker
Okay, I went down the rabbit hole, morbid as it might be, and got this; I find it kinda interesting:

The engraving is called "The Hanging", from a series of engravings called "Les Grandes Miseres de la guerre" (The great miseries of war), by Jacques Callot in 1633.

The work in its whole is an "anti-war" description of the French occupation of Callot's native Lorraine in the early 1600's. Other pieces in the work depict other scenes involving war and mayhem. It has nothing to do with "Tyburn Tree" except whatever incorrect internet citations exist for it, and the fact that it does have a "hanging" tree in it.

Tyburn Tree, OTOH, is a well-known location in London with a rich history where criminals were hanged on man-made gallows with a unique type of triangular construction that allowed for several to be hanged at once. The gallows were referred to as "Tyburn Tree", although there was no actual tree. Hanging days are described as being a big party scene; the condemned were expected to dress up for the occasion, were allowed to drink up some, and were expected to be good sports about their fate and to die well.

So - the translation, again from Callot's inscription on his work "The Hanging":

======================

"At the end these infamous and lost Thieves, As unhappy fruits to this hanging tree,

Show that the crime (horrible and dark spawn) Is the same instrument of shame and revenge,

And that it is the Destiny of vicious men To escape sooner or later the instigation of Heaven"

=============== Hmmm... Maybe something lost in the translation... I'm not sure what he meant... "escape... the instigation of Heaven?" Okay, whatever. If I ever meet him I'll ask him.

68 posted on 03/24/2020 11:02:00 AM PDT by OKSooner (Hey Xi, do you see this here, you know what this means?)
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To: OKSooner

Nice job...you have great intellectual curiosity!

We can just go with the old British “long drop”.


70 posted on 03/24/2020 11:48:16 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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