Francis Thompson. The Perfect Suspect.

[Ausgirl]

I pondered it might have something to do with his own mother - but then, who in the poem's context is the dead Christ, and who's the (erstwhile) living Mary?

And what's it all to do with a bunch of dead East-end "unfortunates?"

[Richard Patterson]

Madness, isn't it, for a pious man to write a poem about the burden of survival, for the mother of Christ. If there's personal symbolism, it's clearly about the difficulty of carrying on after an unthinkably profound loss.

So what what loss would be? Not his prostitute, surely.

No Ausgirl, most likely he connected it to the loss of his own mother in 1879. It is interesting that his poem 'The Passion of Mary' was inspired by a sermon given by the brother of his step-mother, Ann Richardson. He wasn't too pleased about her replacing his mother Mary. Here is what he wrote of how he felt about it all.

'My father, too cruel,
Would scorn me and beat me;
My wicked stepmother
Would take me and eat me,
They looked in the deep grass
Where it was deepest;
They looked down the steep bank
Where it was steepest;
But under the bruised fern
Crushed in its feather
The head and the body
Were lying together,-
Ah, death of fair weather!
Tell me, thou perished head,
What hand could sever thee?...
My evil stepmother,
So witch-like in wish,
She caught all my pretty blood
Up in a dish,
She took out my heart
For a ghoul-meal together,
But peaceful my body lies
In the fern-feather,
For now is fair weather.'

Of his mother's death Thompson wrote,

'Died; and horribly
Saw the mystery
Saw the grime of it-...
Saw the sear of it,
Saw the fear of it,
Saw the slime of it,
Saw it whole!
Son of the womb of her,
Loved till the doom of her
Thought of the brain of her.
Heart of her side,
Joyed in him, grieved in him-
God grew fain [pleased] of her,
And she died.'

[Ausgirl]

Crazy I know but I believe that Thompson, in his poem 'The Passion of Mary' implies that the wounds done to Christ were also done to her.

'In the five wounds of Jesus dyed,
And in thy bleeding thoughts, Mary!

The soldier struck a triple stroke,
That smote thy Jesus on the tree:
He broke the Heart of Hearts, and broke
The Saint's and Mother's hearts in thee

Madness, isn't it, for a pious man to write a poem about the burden of survival, for the mother of Christ. If there's personal symbolism, it's clearly about the difficulty of carrying on after an unthinkably profound loss.

So what what loss would be? Not his prostitute, surely.

[Richard Patterson]

Crazy I know but I believe that Thompson, in his poem 'The Passion of Mary' implies that the wounds done to Christ were also done to her.

'In the five wounds of Jesus dyed,
And in thy bleeding thoughts, Mary!

The soldier struck a triple stroke,
That smote thy Jesus on the tree:
He broke the Heart of Hearts, and broke
The Saint's and Mother's hearts in thee

[Ausgirl]

No Ausgirl, that would be ridiculous. We both know of none of the canonical 'five' dying of five wounds. Maybe the number five meant something to the Ripper, who knows right? Nobody should die over a number and that Passion of Mary suggest this is simply one interpretation. Even if he Thompson did say the number had special magical power. Here is some of what he wrote about it, I found this in the archives at Burns Library on him. He does go on but here is the short version.

‘five among the ancients was called the number of Justice as “justly” dividing the digits & for mathematical reasons...Also that they called it the conjugal number; because resolvable into 2 & 3, parity and imparity the active & passive digits, the material & formal principles “in generative Societies” five wise and foolish virgins, Romans allowed but five torches in their nuptial solemnities.The most generative animals created on the fifth day. In kabala, the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the character of generation.’

All the best Ausgirl, and thanks for your continued interest. Don't worry I won't go on about here because it goes up that dangerous saint day road and all that is reserved for the chapter in my paperback.

Richard.

I'm not a total stranger to the Kabbalah and occult numerical symbolism in general, myself.. and frankly, even squinting at that poem very hard through gematria-coloured glasses, I can't find anything at all in the poem to suggest that:

Thompson described the mother of Christ, bleeding to death from the five wounds

.. which is what you plainly claimed it did.

And yes, I did actually ponder the potential for the "five" being of significance in relation to victim numbers (let's pretend that's been at all proven...) and this being a burden, blah de blah. And concluded it was a stretch of the highest order, considering the poem in its entirety does not support this, at all, that I can fathom.

Sometimes, your "maybes" extend very far beyond the realm of feasibility, Richard. And this one appears to me to have crossed over into Rorschach territory.

[Richard Patterson]

You've lost me, there?

Anyway, you can't, I think, feasibly say that the poem about anyone named Mary actually dying of five wounds.

No Ausgirl, that would be ridiculous. We both know of none of the canonical 'five' dying of five wounds. Maybe the number five meant something to the Ripper, who knows right? Nobody should die over a number and that Passion of Mary suggest this is simply one interpretation. Even if he Thompson did say the number had special magical power. Here is some of what he wrote about it, I found this in the archives at Burns Library on him. He does go on but here is the short version.

‘five among the ancients was called the number of Justice as “justly” dividing the digits & for mathematical reasons...Also that they called it the conjugal number; because resolvable into 2 & 3, parity and imparity the active & passive digits, the material & formal principles “in generative Societies” five wise and foolish virgins, Romans allowed but five torches in their nuptial solemnities.The most generative animals created on the fifth day. In kabala, the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the character of generation.’

All the best Ausgirl, and thanks for your continued interest. Don't worry I won't go on about here because it goes up that dangerous saint day road and all that is reserved for the chapter in my paperback.

Richard.

[Ausgirl]

Well here's a another strange parallel. Thompson wrote his essay "Shelley" in 1889 and it was published posthumously. The subject of the essay was Percy Bysshe Shelley. Percy Shelley was an atheist and Thompson held to his Catholic beliefs. Percy Shelley was also a poet and the second husband of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. It was on the Percy Shelley estate in 1889, that the thigh of Elizabeth Jackson was found in the garden. Elizabeth, as we know, was living in Chelsea at the time.

Thompson living on the embankment brought that thought up.

Perhaps he's a better suspect for some of the torso murders?

I've always thought the Shelley estate parcel was some sort of message.. a joke, a statement. If a coincidence, then a truly weird one.

[Ausgirl]

but then the poem isn't metaphoric, even if the title is.

You've lost me, there?

Anyway, you can't, I think, feasibly say that the poem about anyone named Mary actually dying of five wounds.

[jerryd]

Hi Jerryd

Thanks for the compliment on my work done. You provide a lot of food for thought. Yes Thompson's prostitute did live in Cheslea. I have also pondered the parallels between the Winslow suspect. The connection first occurred to me when I read The English writer Robert Thurston Hopkins book, “Life and Death at the Old Bailey,” and the chapter within it, “Shadowing The Shadow Of A Murderer,” which begins with the idea that Ripper was motivated by religious fanaticism. This is of interest considering Thompson, was an obsessive religionist. Hopkins wrote of Forbes Winslow's account of the man seen outside St. Pauls Cathedral. Winslow was convinced that the man was a ‘religious homicidal monomaniac.’ Hopkins said that the police did not take Winslow seriously and press reports on it scared the suspect into hiding. I have wondered if this was Thompson. The Winslow suspect, like Thompson, was a medical student. He also, like Thompson had blue eyes, but the only thing that prevented my from looking further into this is simply that Thompson was a Catholic but St. Pauls is an Anglican church. I think too that Winslow student was named as someone else. It might be just a coincidence but there are some strange parallels like you say.

Richard.

Well here's a another strange parallel. Thompson wrote his essay "Shelley" in 1889 and it was published posthumously. The subject of the essay was Percy Bysshe Shelley. Percy Shelley was an atheist and Thompson held to his Catholic beliefs. Percy Shelley was also a poet and the second husband of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. It was on the Percy Shelley estate in 1889, that the thigh of Elizabeth Jackson was found in the garden. Elizabeth, as we know, was living in Chelsea at the time.

Thompson living on the embankment brought that thought up.

[Richard Patterson]

Hi Jerryd

Thanks for the compliment on my work done. You provide a lot of food for thought. Yes Thompson's prostitute did live in Cheslea. I have also pondered the parallels between the Winslow suspect. The connection first occurred to me when I read The English writer Robert Thurston Hopkins book, “Life and Death at the Old Bailey,” and the chapter within it, “Shadowing The Shadow Of A Murderer,” which begins with the idea that Ripper was motivated by religious fanaticism. This is of interest considering Thompson, was an obsessive religionist. Hopkins wrote of Forbes Winslow's account of the man seen outside St. Pauls Cathedral. Winslow was convinced that the man was a ‘religious homicidal monomaniac.’ Hopkins said that the police did not take Winslow seriously and press reports on it scared the suspect into hiding. I have wondered if this was Thompson. The Winslow suspect, like Thompson, was a medical student. He also, like Thompson had blue eyes, but the only thing that prevented my from looking further into this is simply that Thompson was a Catholic but St. Pauls is an Anglican church. I think too that Winslow student was named as someone else. It might be just a coincidence but there are some strange parallels like you say.

Richard.

[jerryd]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the work you have done on Francis Thompson. It's peaked my interest in him.

It seems to me that Thompson spent his time, at least by the information written by Meynell and others, in the West-end. He used the Charing Cross Post Office as a mailbox and another one in Essex Street closer to the embankment.

From, The Life of Francis Thompson

His bed was made according to his fortune. If he had no money, it was the Embankment; if he had a shilling, he could choose his lodging ; if he had fourpence, he was obliged to tramp to Blackfriars.

I also found another write up by John Craig in, Catholic World, Volume 115 [page 662], which mentions the prostitute he met and how she took care of him after he was run over by a cab. She nursed him to health, then left him. https://books.google.com/books?id=rg...201888&f=false

I do see a parallel with Thompson and Forbes Winslow's suspect in his Forty Years of Recollections. Winslow's suspect was a lodger and visited St. Paul's Cathedral every morning at 8 a.m. This sounds like something Thompson would have done considering he was thinking about becoming clergy at one point and St. Pauls was fairly close to Drury Lane where he was known to buy his opium. Also of interest is the letter Winslow supposedly received. The P.S.R. Lunigi letter. The writer requested a reply to the Charing Cross Post Office and gave an address of 22, Hammersmith Road, Chelsea. Winslow said the address did not exist. That sounded very familiar to Thompson's request to Meynell to reply to Charing Cross Post Office for the manuscripts he sent in.

Didn't Thompson meet his prostitute friend in Chelsea?

Also from, The Life of Francis Thompson,

In a common lodging-house he met and had talk with the man who was supposed by the group about the fire to be a murderer uncaught. And when it was not in a common lodging-house, it was at a Shelter or Refuge that he would lie in one of the oblong boxes without lids, containing a mattress and a leathern apron or coverlet, that are the fashion, he says, in all Refuges.

I'm sure this is referring to the man you referenced earlier in the thread whom Francis nicknamed by initials, D.I. The leather apron comment was interesting too.

[Richard Patterson]

Excuse me, Richard, but have you ever read or studied religious poetry of any era? I think you should know that Catholic poets are some of the most metaphorical / mystical writers around, and even if Thompson said his poems are "a diary" of sorts, he may very well mean in a metaphorical, internal world, sort of a way.

You look at the "Hound of Heaven" and tell me if that really means Thompson was being pursued by a giant angelic dog or not!

Should we have a discussion on what I know about poetry? You may want to read up on what academics write about Thompson and that his verse are more biographical than almost any other Victorian poet. When Thompson, who was a student priest, says that his poems were confessions of real things, I make no assumptions 'of sorts' and 'may very well'. Of course I guess you will say this mystical poet was writing in solely in metaphor when he wrote to his editor the following about his poems.

'I am painfully conscious that they display me, in every respect, at my morally weakest...often verse written as I write it is nothing less than a confessional, a confessional far more intimate than the sacerdotal [religious] one. That touches only your sins....if I wrote further in poetry, I should write down my own fame.

’ {Letters p29}

Of course it not just I who says Thompson's poems were autobiographical. You may wish to read a master thesis from the Catholic Loyola University Chicago, that holds that Thompson's poems are so autobiographical that it almost impossible to understand his poetry, so full are they of references to his personal life, without studying the life of the poet.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ce59/4cfc7b838a0b2503a6c2a74540fe525062ef.pdf

[Pcdunn]

I'm sorry-- NOT metaphorical?!

You are right Ausgirl, but then the poem isn't metaphoric, even if the title is.

Excuse me, Richard, but have you ever read or studied religious poetry of any era? I think you should know that Catholic poets are some of the most metaphorical / mystical writers around, and even if Thompson said his poems are "a diary" of sorts, he may very well mean in a metaphorical, internal world, sort of a way.

You look at the "Hound of Heaven" and tell me if that really means Thompson was being pursued by a giant angelic dog or not!

[Richard Patterson]

Um.. no?

I think he means she was "dyed" red with the blood of Christ, ie, as she cradled his body after his death. The poem is about her surviving her son's death, the "harder way of Calvary" being the difficulty of having to carry on without him, until she herself passed away and joined him in Heaven.

So kind of the opposite of "bleeding to death from five wounds"..

You are right Ausgirl, but then the poem isn't metaphoric, even if the title is.

[Ausgirl]

An interesting poem, 'The Passion of Mary' I can see why it may have caught the eye of a Catholic editor. This poem, along with his ‘Witch Babies’ murder poem, was sent, in February of 1887, to his future editor Wilfrid Meynell. In the poem, Thompson described the mother of Christ, bleeding to death from the five wounds. A flood tide of misfortune imaged as a flood tide of blood. Here's a bit of it.

‘Thou hung'st in loving agony,…
'The red rose of this Passion-tide
 Doth take a deeper hue from thee,
In the five wounds of Jesus dyed,
And in thy bleeding thoughts, Mary...
O thou who dwellest in the day!
 Behold, I pace amidst the gloom,
 Darkness is ever round my way
 with little space for sunbeam-room!’

Richard.

Um.. no?

I think he means she was "dyed" red with the blood of Christ, ie, as she cradled his body after his death. The poem is about her surviving her son's death, the "harder way of Calvary" being the difficulty of having to carry on without him, until she herself passed away and joined him in Heaven.

So kind of the opposite of "bleeding to death from five wounds"..