Sepia Saturday - Warrior Women

 

Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity to share their family history and memories  through photographs.

 

This week's prompt features a somewhat theatrical figure - Boadicea or Britannia?  Though my first reaction was -  is it a character from a Wagnerian opera?  It inspired me to take the theme  Warrior Women.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the famous London statue of BOADiCEA on Westminster Bridge opposite the House of Parliament.  Created by  Victorian sculptor Thomas Thornycroft, it was unveiled in 1902.

 

 

Boadicea  was queen of the British Iceni  tribe,  and  c.AD61 she  led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman  Empire  whose governor was then Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. The rebel queen is depicted as a heroic patriot, standing triumphantly in her chariot.

  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britannia

As regular readers of my blog know, I am always keen to promote the history of my local area - the Scottish Borders. 

Here is probably a little known fact - the words of "Rule BRITANNIA"  were written by  Borderer James Thomson(1700-1748), who was born in the village of Ednam, near Kelso, Roxburghshire. He  attended Jedburgh Grammar School and studied divinity at Edinburgh University, before making his home in London.  

 Britannia was an ancient term for Roman Britain and   came to be personified as a goddess, armed with a trident and shield and wearing a helmet. It later became  as an emblem of British imperial power and unity, featured on banknotes and coins.

 

Thomson's  words of "Rule Britannia were set to music in 1740 by Thomas Arne, and his poem "The Seasons" was used by composer Haydn as the text of his oratorio of that name.

 

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

When Britain first, at heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And Guardian Angels sang this strain:

 

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves

 



**NT5832 : The Temple of the Muses  by Walter Baxter

 

This circular nine columned gazebo, unveiled in 1817, was  dedicated to James Thomson.  It stands on a mound overlooking the River Tweed at  Dryburgh, near St. Boswells. in the Borders.   For the opening of the temple, poet Robert Burns wrote an “Address to the Shade of Thomson”

 

 



The Gallic equivalent of Britannia is MARIANNE, depicted below on a mural at Bastille Metro Station in  Paris. 

Bastille Metro Station in Paris

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne]

The Bastille Metro  Station pays homage to French history, notably events of 1789. In the centre of this picture is patriot Marianne, wearing the Revolutionary tricolour cockade in her cap. The origins of Marianne  are obscure, but she became a prominent national symbol in France, a personification of the new Republic, with its principles of Liberty and  Reason.  Statues of Marianne appear across France at civic buildings  and law courts and her image features on French euro notes and postage stamps.

 

 

JEAN OF ARC, Maid of Orleons (c.1412- 1431) was born a peasant girl, but became a folk heroine of France and a saint. Claiming divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years War.   She was captured, put on trial^] and was burned at the stake for heresy when she was  only 19 years old.

 

 

Statue in Paris of Joan of Arc  

The  gilded bronze statue in Paris  was commissioned by the French government following the defeat of the country in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. 


And finally,  I have included this 1960's photograph for two reasons. It is from a student production of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera,   "Iolanthe,  where the Fairy Queen (front right) has taken on the persona of a Wagnerian woman warrior.  Also I cannot helping thinking that the very short brown  tunic of Strephon in the centre is very reminiscent of the tunic worn in this week's photo  prompt.     As a matter of interest I am the "fairy" in the emerald green outfit on the right, behind the Fairy Queen's staff.  

 

 

Click HERE to see how other bloggers have taken to the stage
with this week's prompt.  

 

 ** Image Copyright Walter Baxter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic Licence. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.