The Greater Trumps: (19) Death

Death rides, armoured in black steel, against the white fire of the rising sun. Somehow resplendent in his fuliginous robes, the gaunt figure on a pale horse strikes fear into every watching soul. In long and skilful hands, Death wields a scythe; he sometimes bears a flag unfurling to reveal a single silver rose. It is almost too obvious a symbol. Yet, near the hooves of his charger, a small child plays, fearless and unmoved by the grim sight above.

The image here is one of Transformation, from one state to another of almost-equal potential. Death is the facilitator here, a catalyst which shifts the nature of the landscape, from the familiar to the unknown, from one perspective to another; and of course, Death walks the thin line, the boundary or terminus between Life and what lies beyond it. Yet, Death is also Change, the progression from one state to another quite different - from night to day as the sun rises, from darkness to light, from childhood to maturity. Death is the harbinger of the new.

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It's odd how often one returns to T S Eliot. And yet, he was one of the great prophets of the Age of Decay - so perhaps we should not be surprised. In his Dans le Restaurant, and again in his magnum opus, The Waste Land, Eliot returns to the theme of Death as transformation.

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passes the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

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Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,
Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cornouaille,
Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d’étain:
Un courant de sous-mer l’emporta très loin,
Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure.
Figurez-vous donc, c’était un sort pénible,
Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille.

Death transforms us all; the death of self and the resultant transformation, while still in this flesh, may be one for the better.