Hunting and the Revolution

Major upheavals begin with small gestures, as this eighteenth-century text, written by Matthias Claudius and translated here, can attest: 

"A LETTER FROM A STAG RECENTLY HUNTED DOWN 
TO THE LORD WHO HUNTED HIM DOWN, 
WRITTEN FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER 

I had the distinction of being chased down by your serene highness today and request most subservently that your lordship might condescend in future to spare me this ordeal.

If your serene highness should ever once be hunted in this manner, you would find my request not unreasonable in the least. I am lying here and cannot raise my head, blood is flowing  from my mouth and nostrils. How can your highness have the heart to drive an animal to its death, especially one that lives innocently, eating only herbs and grass.  Next time have them come out and just shoot me dead, that way it will be over quickly.  It may be that your serene highness takes pleasure in hunting, but if you knew how my heart beats, you would surely never do it again. . . .”

--This satire on aristocratic hunting, written in the manner of an administrative memo from a dying buck to his feudal lord, goes far beyond criticizing an ancient sport; in the stag's last request we hear bitterness and defiance mixed with helpless begging.  One wonders whether Kafka read this story, for the voice of an animal writing an official letter in bureaucratic German would surely have caught his attention.  The text draws us to identify with the dying animal and to recognize ourselves in him—as just another lowly subject driven to an exhausted death by a self-indulgent elite.  The dying buck stands in for all those (humans as well as animals) beneath the feudal lord, especially when he makes the revolutionary suggestion that the lord should himself be hunted down by dogs until he collapses.  With its last breath, the animal imagines a violent revenge whereby the arrogant abuses of feudalism are turned against its masters, and yet the beast is not strong enough, the lord’s hunting party too well armed, and so all the buck can do in the end is ask for mercy.  Still this satire was written in 1775 and you can sense that the hunt might someday indeed turn against the hunters, just as the dying deer desired.

The original you can find on Gutenberg.de and Zeno.de: 

SCHREIBEN EINES PARFORCEGEJAGTEN HIRSCHEN AN DEN FÜRSTEN DER IHN PARFORCEGEJAGT HATTE, D. H. JENSEIT DES FLUSSES

„Durchlauchtigster Fürst, Gnädigster Fürst und Herr!

Ich habe heute die Gnade gehabt, von Ew. Hochfürstlichen Durchlaucht parforcegejagt zu werden; bitte aber untertänigst, daß Sie gnädigst geruhen, mich künftig damit zu verschonen.

Ew. Hochfürstliche Durchlaucht sollten nur einmal parforcegejagt sein, so würden Sie meine Bitte nicht unbillig finden. Ich liege hier und mag meinen Kopf nicht aufheben, und das Blut läuft mir aus Maul und Nüstern. Wie können Ihre Durchlaucht es doch übers Herz bringen, ein armes unschuldiges Tier, das sich von Gras und Kräutern nährt, zu Tode zu jagen? Lassen Sie mich lieber totschießen, so bin ich kurz und gut davon. Es kann sein, daß Ew. Durchlaucht ein Vergnügen an dem Parforcejagen haben; wenn Sie aber wüßten, wie mir noch das Herz schlägt, Sie täten´s gewiß nicht wieder …….“