WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.380 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.380 --> 00:00:03.720 align:middle line:84% We promise to keep this thing to an hour. 00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:10.670 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.670 --> 00:00:11.620 align:middle line:90% This is a new poem. 00:00:11.620 --> 00:00:17.202 align:middle line:90% 00:00:17.202 --> 00:00:18.160 align:middle line:90% And it's out of season. 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:21.160 align:middle line:84% It's called Elizabeth's War With the Christmas Bear. 00:00:21.160 --> 00:00:25.900 align:middle line:84% It's about something that's interesting. 00:00:25.900 --> 00:00:28.990 align:middle line:90% Not exactly pretty. 00:00:28.990 --> 00:00:31.390 align:middle line:84% My account is inaccurate account of bear 00:00:31.390 --> 00:00:37.030 align:middle line:90% baiting in the 16th century. 00:00:37.030 --> 00:00:49.390 align:middle line:84% And the Elizabeth is Elizabeth I. 00:00:49.390 --> 00:00:51.010 align:middle line:84% It was a very popular sport with her 00:00:51.010 --> 00:00:53.920 align:middle line:90% when plague was in the city. 00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:56.440 align:middle line:84% She'd go out in the country and have a bear baiting 00:00:56.440 --> 00:00:57.970 align:middle line:90% and feel better. 00:00:57.970 --> 00:01:00.530 align:middle line:90% 00:01:00.530 --> 00:01:02.770 align:middle line:84% Now, it depressed her, people were dying in. 00:01:02.770 --> 00:01:06.850 align:middle line:90% 00:01:06.850 --> 00:01:10.630 align:middle line:84% Elizabeth's war with the Christmas bear 1593. 00:01:10.630 --> 00:01:14.680 align:middle line:84% The Bears are kept by hundreds within fences 00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:16.510 align:middle line:90% are fed cracked eggs. 00:01:16.510 --> 00:01:19.360 align:middle line:84% The weakest are slaughtered and fed to the others 00:01:19.360 --> 00:01:21.790 align:middle line:84% after being scented with the blood of deer 00:01:21.790 --> 00:01:24.790 align:middle line:84% brought to the pastures by Elizabeth's men. 00:01:24.790 --> 00:01:29.530 align:middle line:84% The blood spills from deep pails with bottoms of slate. 00:01:29.530 --> 00:01:32.170 align:middle line:84% The balding queen had bear gardens 00:01:32.170 --> 00:01:34.630 align:middle line:90% in London and in the country. 00:01:34.630 --> 00:01:36.520 align:middle line:90% The bear is baited. 00:01:36.520 --> 00:01:39.910 align:middle line:84% The nostrils are blown full with pepper. 00:01:39.910 --> 00:01:42.190 align:middle line:84% The Irish Wolfhounds are starved. 00:01:42.190 --> 00:01:46.300 align:middle line:84% Then emptied made crazy with fermented barley. 00:01:46.300 --> 00:01:50.140 align:middle line:84% And the bear's hind leg is chained to a stake. 00:01:50.140 --> 00:01:54.400 align:middle line:84% The bear is blinded and whipped kneeling in his own blood 00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:55.810 align:middle line:90% and slaver. 00:01:55.810 --> 00:02:00.130 align:middle line:84% He is almost instantly worried by the dogs. 00:02:00.130 --> 00:02:04.540 align:middle line:84% At the very moment, that Elizabeth took Essex's head. 00:02:04.540 --> 00:02:07.870 align:middle line:84% A giant brown bear stood in the gardens 00:02:07.870 --> 00:02:10.669 align:middle line:90% with dogs hanging from his fur. 00:02:10.669 --> 00:02:14.650 align:middle line:84% He took away the son, took a wolfhound in his mouth, 00:02:14.650 --> 00:02:19.450 align:middle line:84% and tossed it into the white lap of Elizabeth I. Arrows 00:02:19.450 --> 00:02:22.180 align:middle line:90% and staves rained on his chest. 00:02:22.180 --> 00:02:25.690 align:middle line:84% And standing, he then stood even taller. 00:02:25.690 --> 00:02:28.480 align:middle line:84% Seeing into the Queen's private boxes, 00:02:28.480 --> 00:02:33.040 align:middle line:84% he grinned into her battered eggshell face. 00:02:33.040 --> 00:02:35.770 align:middle line:84% Another volley of arrows and poles. 00:02:35.770 --> 00:02:38.740 align:middle line:84% And opening his mouth, he showered blood 00:02:38.740 --> 00:02:42.460 align:middle line:84% all over Elizabeth and her Privy Council. 00:02:42.460 --> 00:02:45.910 align:middle line:84% The very next evening, a cool evening, the queen 00:02:45.910 --> 00:02:51.340 align:middle line:84% demanded 13 bears and the justice of 113 dogs. 00:02:51.340 --> 00:02:55.990 align:middle line:84% She slept all that Sunday night and much of the next morning. 00:02:55.990 --> 00:02:59.710 align:middle line:84% Some said, she was guilty of this and that. 00:02:59.710 --> 00:03:03.220 align:middle line:84% The Protestant queen gave the defeated bear 00:03:03.220 --> 00:03:06.580 align:middle line:90% a grave in a Catholic cemetery. 00:03:06.580 --> 00:03:11.260 align:middle line:84% The marker said, Peter, a solstice bear, a gift 00:03:11.260 --> 00:03:14.620 align:middle line:90% of the Tsarevitch to Elizabeth. 00:03:14.620 --> 00:03:18.040 align:middle line:84% After a long winter, she had the grave opened. 00:03:18.040 --> 00:03:21.760 align:middle line:84% The bear skeleton was cleared with lye. 00:03:21.760 --> 00:03:25.690 align:middle line:84% She placed it at her bedside, put a candle inside 00:03:25.690 --> 00:03:27.640 align:middle line:90% behind the sockets of the eyes. 00:03:27.640 --> 00:03:31.060 align:middle line:90% And then she spoke to it. 00:03:31.060 --> 00:03:33.280 align:middle line:90% You were a Christmas bear. 00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:35.860 align:middle line:84% Behind your eyes, I see the walls 00:03:35.860 --> 00:03:39.400 align:middle line:84% of a snow cave, where you are a cub still smelling 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:43.180 align:middle line:84% of your mother's blood, which is dried in your hair. 00:03:43.180 --> 00:03:45.610 align:middle line:84% You have troubled a queen, who is afraid 00:03:45.610 --> 00:03:51.070 align:middle line:84% when seated in shade, which standing you had created. 00:03:51.070 --> 00:03:54.790 align:middle line:84% A queen who often wakes with a dream of you at night. 00:03:54.790 --> 00:04:01.330 align:middle line:84% Now, you'll stand by my bed and your long white bones alone. 00:04:01.330 --> 00:04:04.990 align:middle line:84% You will frighten away at night all visions of bear. 00:04:04.990 --> 00:04:08.680 align:middle line:84% And all day, you will be in this cold room. 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:10.660 align:middle line:90% Your constant grin. 00:04:10.660 --> 00:04:14.650 align:middle line:84% You'll stand in the long white prodigy of your bones. 00:04:14.650 --> 00:04:18.670 align:middle line:84% And you are every inch of you, a terrible vision 00:04:18.670 --> 00:04:20.454 align:middle line:90% not bear, but virgin. 00:04:20.454 --> 00:04:35.883 align:middle line:90% 00:04:35.883 --> 00:04:38.300 align:middle line:84% You discovered that I liked the old girl after all, right? 00:04:38.300 --> 00:04:46.410 align:middle line:90% 00:04:46.410 --> 00:04:48.780 align:middle line:90% She's only playing men's games. 00:04:48.780 --> 00:04:49.280 align:middle line:90%