The Pre-Raphaelite Unicorn

During my intense, embedded foray into the coverage of the unicorn re-emergence (see my upcoming journalistic endeavor, RAMPANT), I have found no evidence that the species survived past the 1850s. So imagine my surprise to discover, care of my buddy Saundra Mitchell, author of the fantabulous SHADOWED SUMMER, this Waterhouse painting from 1900:

Though I suppose it doesn’t signify, as all the Pre-Raphaelites were fond of painting scenes from legend — which, by 1900, unicorns would almost certainly have become.

This painting of course depicts the famous unicorn hunter Lady Clare, of the family Temerin. Her story was revised and set down by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1842.

Interesting story about that poem. Though there were still unicorns in 1842 (barely), Tennyson decided that the story was more properly focused on the question of the Lady Clare’s inheritance, and so de-emphasized the role of the unicorn in the story, downgrading it to a “lily-white doe.” See, the problem here is that to a contemporary audience, her possession of a pet unicorn — which marks her a hunter —  would have been a clear impediment to her marriage beyond the issues of her rank and inheritance. In such a short poem, Tennyson did not want to deal with both issues.

Luckily, I have found an original version. In the original, it is not a “lily-white doe” that is the Lady Clare’s companion, but an einhorn, which is not a lover’s gift from her betrothed, but rather, a part of her dowry. And the part where the Lady Clare says:

“He does not love me for my birth
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well,” said Lady Clare.

Was followed, in Tennyson’s original draft, by this stanza:

For, were I to learn his love was scorn,
That he counts my wealth the greater part
I’d take my pet’s most toxic horn
And drive it through his faithless heart.

Interesting, what?