Word: scaffolds
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While Schiller's original text favors the romantic Scottish queen and casts Elizabeth as the villain, Stephen Spender's verse translation depicts both monarchs as victims of historical circumstance. If Elizabeth's decree obliges Mary to mount the scaffold, the Stuart queen has at least the consolation of dying surrounded by admirers and absolved from sin. Elizabeth, on the other hand, in her zeal to save appearances is finally condemned by them, retaining her crown only at the cost of losing the friendship and popular support that gave it meaning...
...monarchy through the succession of Prince Juan Carlos, warns Maldonado, "will necessarily lead to violence and chaos." Premier Valera is more specific: "For the usurper Juan Carlos, we foresee a war without mercy. Instead of climbing carpeted stairs to the throne, he will be forced to mount the scaffold. Regicide awaits...
...tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you." And St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in the 12th century, wrote engagingly that "if mercy were a sin, I believe I could not keep from committing it." Moreover, as a French Jesuit theologian observed last week, by building a religious scaffold for the pardon, Ford may well have hoped to disarm potential critics. "If Ford draws the cloak of New Testament moral theology around his pardon," said Father Michel de Certeau, "it makes it infinitely harder to argue with it. It puts opponents in the position of not having a Christian...
Then came the Tower, Brixton Prison and the Old Bailey. Nothing so became Roger Casement as his stride to the scaffold. No reputable barrister would handle his case: the diaries were circulating; the Allies were suffering horrendous losses in France. It was not even seriously questioned whether the English had the right to try an Irish conspirator save as a prisoner...
Holmes took down his violin and played an air that fortunately our guest did not recognize: Berlioz's March to the Scaffold. Then he brightened. "I have but one motto, Watson...