tokyo national museum

odoshi - to frighten

whip 'em off

 

‘We’ve found undoubting evidence for defleshing, disarticulation, human chewing, crushing of spongy bone, and the cracking of bones to extract marrow.’

cellini perseus

phantasmagoria up west

The power of enclosing land and owning property was brought into the creation by your ancestors by the sword; which first did murder their fellow creatures, men, and after plunder or steal away their land, and left this land successively to you, their children. And therefore, though you did not kill or thieve, yet you hold that cursed thing in your hand by the power of the sword; and so you justify the wicked deeds of your fathers, and that sin of your fathers shall be visited upon the head of you and your children to the third and fourth generation, and longer too, till your bloody and thieving power be rooted out of the land

A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England  Gerrard Winstanley

beheading

henry's little bronze horse

pacing horse /// pietro tacca ///

Kings in old legends seem
Like mountains rising in the evening light.
They blind all with their gleam,
Their loins encircled are by girdles bright,
Their robes are edged with bands
Of precious stones—the rarest earth affords—
With richly jeweled hands
They hold their slender, shining, naked swords

rilke / book of pictures 

wound man / wound woman

histroygrrlz

the end and a beginning / sealed objects

And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. (Revelation 5:1-4)

And when matins and the first mass was done,
there was seen in the churchyard, against the high
altar, a great stone four square, like unto a marble
stone; and in midst thereof was like an anvil of
steel a foot high and therein stuck a fair sword
naked by the point, and letters there were written
in gold about the sword that said thus:-
Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and
anvil, is rightwise king born of all England

Malory/ Morte d'Arthur

After a Lost Original

damascene sword - pattern welding

infinitization
the serpent in the sword

Beowulf's swords
The first is Hrunting, loaned to Beowulf by Unfero and said to be damascened and ring-patterned on its edge. The giant-sword taken by Beowulf from the monsters' lair beneath the lake is likewise "ring-marked" and inscribed with a wavy pattern as is Beowulf's un-named sword. Although the blade of the giant-sword melts "just like ice", Beowulf returns to Heorot and presents the hilt to Hrothgar:

Hrothgar spoke--he studied the hilt of the old heirloom, where was written the origin of ancient strife [...]. Also, on the sword-guard of bright gold was rightly marked in rune-letters, set down and said for whom that sword, best of irons, had first been made, with scrollery and serpentine patterns.