I speculate on the saying that has bothered me all my life: "a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse."5:30 p.m. - 2002-07-21
Okay, I just thought of something that has always bothered me. It all surrounds this saying that I have heard all my life.
This occured to me just now, right after I finished my exercise for the day (I'm still all sweaty and yucky, in fact). I was listening to Michelle Branch, the spirit room, I think is the cd. Song six had just ended. But anyway, I was thinking about Michelle Branch, and how I wished I had the ambition to go and try to be a singer. Which made me think of my profile (on here), and how I had said if I were to grow up and had some ambition, I would want to be her. And then I thought about what I had written after that.
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.
And then I remembered what has bothered me about that saying for a long time.
Okay, pretty much everyone knows the story behind that saying. I haven't heard it since I was like, 6, but the general story is this: A blacksmith runs short one nail, and so the horse's shoe isn't on strong enough. When a messenger comes to warn a king or something, on said horse, that an enemy army is coming, the horse loses its shoe and throws the messenger (I don't know if thats right, but the whole horse and nail thing is true). So the king isn't warned, the kingdom doesn't have time to prepare, the enemy army comes, they all rush into battle, and the king loses. So, he is, like, de-throned or something, and as he's lying on the bloody battlefield, he cries, "a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse." (Which I also thought never made sense, how did he know that the messenger or whoever couldn't make it because the horse lost its shoe?) And its a tale about how little things can affect large things. But here is what always bothered me: He says "a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.", when in reality, it was the horses shoe that caused the problem. Actually, it was the lack of the NAIL in the horses shoe that caused the problem. So shouldn't the king have said, and the saying be
A nail, a nail, my kingdom for a nail.
???? Well shouldn't it? Sure, it doesn't seem quite the same, but thats because we've all heard the damn saying all our lives. I mean really! Anyway, just one of the many small thoughts that plague my existence. Does anyone have any thoughts on to WHY its the horse instead of the nail? Beyond, of course, the obvious solutions that I've already thought of:- The blacksmith's (or iron worker, whatever) job has always been under rated, and so the whole thing was yet another attempt to bring the blacksmith down.
- People like to blame innocent animals for things that are really people's fault (like the cows' farting creating all the methane thats hurting the ozone layer), so instead of, "oh, the blacksmith didn't put in another nail, thats what went wrong." it was "damn horse! What the hell were you thinking when you lost that shoe?!"
- It seems kinda silly to blame an inantimate object (a.k.a. the nail) for the loss of the kingdom. Although, shouldn't the kingdom have more than one messenger to warn of things like that?
- I just remembered this one! (Its technically tomorrow, as this is yesterday's entry) Okay, so fairy tales, or cautionary tales, or whatever are supposed to be about like politics and stuff back when they were written. So if this was written today, (these are just dumb-ass things that I'm dragging out of nowhere, other than some slight physical resemblance, I don't follow politics, or really anything, so don't be all weird about it if you are political) it would be about the horse (george bush) not supporting some promise that he made to someone (hence, losing his shoe and using that as an excuse to not tell them or whatever). Okay, so maybe my example didn't make any sense, but do you get what I mean? And so obviously they didn't have a politician who looked like a nail or horseshoe, but they did have one that looked like a horse, so the horse was blamed! Right? That makes sense... doesn't it?
Hmmmmmmmm. Perhaps, the world will never know.
:o)
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