Dismemberment Lessons: Poem Analysis

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The items were dismembered. Dismemberment means the separated parts of animals, plants, and humans. This symbolizes the breaking up of Scotland, along religious and political divides and the chaos that follows when the country fights within itself and also fights the descendants of the king. “…Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, /Witches' mummy, maw and gulf /Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, /Root of hemlock digg’d i' th' dark, /Liver of blaspheming Jew, /Gall of goat and slips of yew, /Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse: …” (4, 1, 22- 28) Everything needed to be found to make the right potion. Every item is so different from each other. These objects would have to be found everywhere throughout the world. Every object symbolized something else. “…Fillet of a fenny snake. /In the cauldron boil and bake. /Eye of newt and toe of frog, /Wool of bat and tongue of dog, / …show more content…

A slice of swamp snake, goes into the cauldron to boil and bake. Next, a newt’s eye and a frog’s toe are thrown in. Venom, intestines, slice of snake, eye, and toe are all dismembered parts of an animal. Some a bat’s wool, a dog’s tongue, and an adder’s forked tongue are next to go in. Then, a blindworm’s sting, a lizard’s leg and a baby owl’s wing. Wool from a bat, tongues, sting, legs, and wings do not come off an animal naturally, so these are more examples of dismembered parts. A dragon’s scale, a wolf’s tooth, a witch’s mummified skin (Avia Venefica), a shark’s stomach and throat, a goat’s bile, a tiger’s intestines, and a baboon’s blood. These are more examples of pieces of an animal. A hemlock’s (Agnes Scott) root that was dug up in the dark, and cuttings from a yew tree (Yew) are examples of a dismembered part of a plant. A liver of a Jew, that swears against God, a Turk’s nose, Tartar’s lips, and finger of a baby, who died at child-birth, are examples of a dismembered parts of a human. Furthermore, the items show what is happening in

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