The Grauballe Man Lyrics
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan’s foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a dark
elderberry place.
to his vivid cast?
Who will say ‘body’
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus’s.
I first saw his twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed
on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.
About
The poem’s title refers to a centuries-old, preserved body that was uncovered in 1952 from a peat bog near to the village of Grauballe in Jutland, Denmark. There was evidence to indicate that Iron Age societies were shockingly violent. Heaney sees a parallel between the bog-preserved body, its throat slit, thrown in the mud, and the violence of the Northern Ireland Torubles. So, Grauballe Man becomes a metaphor for the conflict.
Structure
The poem comprises twelve quatrains or four-lined stanzas. Lines are short and enjambed, and there is no regular rhyme scheme.
The poem progresses as the speaker takes the reader on an observational journey, pointing out features of the body and its preservation. It isn’t until the last stanza that the comparison is, by implication, made with the Northern Ireland Troubles.
Language and Imagery
The voice is that of a third person narrator referring to Grauballe man as “he”. The language is concise and pithy; no words wasted. The spareness could be take as a reflection of the brief and harsh life of this ancient Iron Age man. There is no pretence to romanticism or refinement.
The descriptions are vivid, with strong, tactile imagery and imaginative metaphors and similes. For example “The grain of his wrists is like bog oak”; “his spine an eel …” and “rusted hair”.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 3.Antaeus
- 17.The Grauballe Man
- 18.Punishment
- 19.Strange Fruit
- 28.Act of Union