Kristian Zahrtmann, Danish
When You’re One Day Into a 10-Year Prison Sentence and Realize You Forgot To Bring a Book, 1870
Oil on canvas
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Artist info is pointed to in my comment and reply at another blog entry.
/// Leonora Christina in Prison.
Why? She wouldn’t “confess” durin’ quizzin’
that her husband’s a traitor,
and her enemies hate her
after complex events had arisen.
/// So she’s stripped of her titles and power,
and spent twenty-two years in a tower.
Somehow managed to write
all about her sad plight,
and grew strong when expected to cower.
/// She’s the daughter of Christian, the King
of the Danes, but no Princess. The thing
is too melodramatic:
Mom’s a wife morganatic,
and lost rights being royal would bring.
/// So, although to the King Mom was married,
she did not share the titles he carried.
Leonora Christina
had, because of this been a
child, in Denmark, less honored than harried.
/// Her two “serving girls” really were spies—
hateful wenches she came to despise,
and her warder, that bastard,
tried to rape her while plastered,
but he fell asleep pawing her thighs.
/// With the journals L wrote while “inside,”
she kept sane and maintained inner pride.
Denied silk gowns and ermine,
she now dwelt among vermin,
who gnawed candles at night, she’d confide.
/// All her windows, indeed, had been locked,
so escape and a nice view were blocked.
Decades later a new
king some limits withdrew,
and her windows were opened. She’s shocked!