The Anathemata
Keel, Ram, Stauros (continued)
Ossifragaa for his personnel?
then lammergeyerb for his
last draft of under-aged.1
Or, preponderant
very great (to date)
composite, experimental.
Of selected boles, orneus,c assembled and tied with iron or of tall beams, coniferous, bolted.
Thirty paces and a bit from butt to business end—well above the maximum last show-done—eleven an’ a half hands thick where she takes her war-head.
Show-piece
for the immaculate tribuni, temporarily attached, battering-train.
Storm-goat, rodded in the Æsir’s yard2
for the blond, acting, Under-optio,d beleaguer-group.
For the layer, from Londinium:
A bit o’ alright.
David Jones notes
1 The largest type of assault-towers were called ‘city-takers’; the various weapons were operated from platforms at different levels, the terebra to bore into the wall and the ‘wall-sickle’ (falx muralis) to engage the loosened masonry of the upper courses and as it were reap them down together with the personnel manning the crennels.
2 Cf. Sturmbock, the German name for the Roman military aries, and cf. Asgard, the Olympus of the Northern peoples.
additional notes
DJ note 2: aries means ram; battering-rams were so called because they sometimes had a ram’s head at the business end.
The residents of Asgard (the gods) were collectively called the Æsir (a singular noun).
b The lammergeyer (‘lamb-snatcher’)‚ largest of the European raptors, is also known as the ossifrage.
see also
semantic structures
glossary
a Ossifraga: bone-shatterer.
c orneus: made of ash (ornus = mountain ash).
d optio: an assistant to the centurion.
comments
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