Every Real-World Reference in Legends, Part 1

Header Image: Emerald Dragonfly by Quinton Hoover

Harthag Gave a Jolly Laugh

We're approaching the next stop in our journey though all the real-world references in Magic. This stop is a big one. 

We've covered Alpha and Arabian Nights here and here, respectively, and there's no time to waste as we get into Legends. There are a whopping 41 Legends cards that have flavor text related in some way to non-Magic literature, drama, religion, Shakespeare... hell, there's even one card that derives its flavor text from a Navajo war chant.

We're going to try covering them in only two articles, which means we may not have the ability to go into each reference as in-depth as we have in previous articles. 

But anyway, what's the deal with Legends, anyway?

First off, it's the third expansion after Arabian Nights and Antiquities. Why, you ask, did we skip Antiquities, then? Well, unlike Alpha and Arabian Nights, Antiquities leaned into building lore for Magic as a game instead of pulling inspiration from outside sources. We really start to flesh out some burning questions derived from Alpha, like who this Urza guy is and why do we care that he has some sick sunglasses

In fact, there's only one real-world reference present in Antiquities, in Shapeshifter:

That's a quote from Jonathan Swift, and it's not from "A Modest Proposal" or Gulliver's Travels. Unlike what we were all taught in high school, Swift actually wrote other things, too, not just those two. The one interesting thing about this particular flavor text is that the quote is attributed to "Vanbrug's House," which by all accounts is not the correct spelling of the title of that particular poem. Most sources say that it's actually "Vanbrugh's House", Vanbrugh in this case being Sir John Vanbrugh, an architect who designed a few very fancy estates in England in the early 18th century. The poem itself was actually about this house, if you're curious.

But enough about Antiquities, we're here to talk about Legends. Legends was released in June of 1994 as a stand-alone set in the sense that it doesn't continue the storyline established in Antiquities, but rather is somewhat of a hodgepodge, with many of the characters going on to be featured in stories written after the fact. Those characters, as it happens, were actually created as homages to the creators' Dungeons & Dragons campaigns at the time. If you want to get more in-depth with that particular trivia nugget, go here.

Through that lens, we could argue that nearly the entire set is derived from real-world references, but I will not entertain those arguments because there are only 24 hours in each day.

Boomerang

"O! call back yesterday, bid time return." - William Shakespeare, King Richard the Second

Officially, the play's name is The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, but that's just nitpicking. Richard II, as it's frequently abbreviated, along with the rest of Shakespeare's history plays, are often considered his works for more "serious" dramaturgy. In other words, not the ones you often get in high school next to Romeo and Juliet, et. al. 

This particular line is uttered by Salisbury, an earl and loyalist to Richard II, interrupting Richard II's grandiose speech about how God's blessed his cause in rebuffing invaders to England. Here's more context into Salisbury's reality check:

Discomfort guides my tongue,
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late I fear me, noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
O call back yesterday, bid time return,
And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men.

Today, today, unhappy day too late,
Overthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;
For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispersed, and fled.

In the play, Richard II's cousin Bolingbroke, whom Rick had banished, has returned at the head of an invading force. Richard's authority is now in question, and he's not coping with that fact very well. 

Cosmic Horror

"Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies." - Alexander Pope, "The Rape of the Lock"

"The Rape of the Lock" is a fantastic and fascinating "mock" epic poem by Alexander Pope, an 18th Century English poet and satirist. You may recognize some quotes present in his works that have wormed their way into common parlance, like "damning with faint praise," or "to err is human; to forgive, divine." 

The whole conceit of "The Rape of the Lock" is that it's a very minor and uninteresting story of a weirdo stealing a strand of hair from his crush. However, it's written in the epic, soaring poetry usually reserved for tales of high adventure and impact. The title, it should be noted, uses the word "rape" in the more Latin-derived sense of "to snatch" or "to steal." The "lock," naturally, is referring to a lock of hair. 

The poem features air spirits called Sylphs who are trying to protect the girl's hair from being stolen, and there are also gnomes, as you'd expect. 

This particular quote is from the poem's third canto. Here's a bit more context:

The peer now spreads the glitt'ring forfex wide,
T' inclose the lock; now joins it, to divide.
Ev'n then, before the fatal engine clos'd,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd;
Fate urg'd the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain,
(But airy substance soon unites again).
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!

Then flash'd the living lightning from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.
Not louder shrieks to pitying Heav'n are cast,
When husbands or when lap-dogs breathe their last,
Or when rich China vessels, fall'n from high,
In glitt'ring dust and painted fragments lie!

The "living lightning" and "screams of horror" are from the Sylph, who failed to protect the girl's hair from the Baron's "fatal engine," or in other words, a pair of scissors

Darkness

What is "darkness," if not a black fog?

"If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in my arms." - William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

Returning to Shakespeare, we've got another quote from one of his less-read plays, but this time it's a comedy. The play is basically the premise we'd later see stolen for the reality show "Undercover Boss." 

Well, I say it's classified as a "comedy," but people get executed for fornication, so it's up to you to define what you find funny, I guess. That's what the above quote is in reference to: Claudio, a nobleman sentenced to death for fathering a child out of wedlock with the woman he's betrothed to. Measure for Measure is largely about these puritanical and draconian technicalities and the harm they cause to regular people, and how often the people enforcing them are much worse morally then the laws they claim to uphold.

But, if you prefer your Shakespeare to be animated and uncredited, maybe you'd prefer to hear it out of the mouth of Captain Hook?

Devouring Deep

We're going to see a lot of Shakespeare in Legends, and there's nothing wrong with that. You can do much worse when it comes to quotability. 

"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange." - Shakespeare, The Tempest

For some reason they left off the most memorable part of this particular song:

"Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,--ding-dong, bell."

I say "song" because that's what it is. It's Ariel's Song, sung by her. It's a hugely influential and oft-referenced bit from The Tempest. The phrase "full fathom five" is pulled out and used in myriad other works, most notably Jackson Pollack's painting of the same name:

Nearly every other line of the song is found in future works by other art luminaries; hell, the line "Nothing of him that doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange" is on Percy Bysshe Shelley's tombstone in Rome. 

Dream Coat

"Adopt the character of the twisting octopus,
which takes on the appearance of the nearby rock.
Now follow in this direction,
now turn a different hue." - Theognis, Elegies 1, 215

We're going a little bit further back in time than Shakespeare with this one. Specifically, around the 6th century BCE. That's whereabouts when the ancient Greek poet Theognis of Megara lived, and penned the lines you see above. It being translated from Ancient Greek, there are other versions of the above line:

Adopt the disposition of the octopus, crafty in its convolutions, which takes on
The appearance of whatever rock it has dealings with.

At one moment follow along this way, but at the next change the color of your skin:
You can be sure that cleverness proves better than inflexibility.

From what is assumed, Theognis is giving this advice to his friends and is his way of explaining that the best way to integrate oneself into the social strata of Megara is to be an octopus. Naturally, this advice is well-heeded. I think we can all stand to be a little bit more like octopuses in our own lives, wouldn't you agree?

Durkwood Boars

"And the unclean spirits went out, and entered the swine: and the herd ran violently..." - The Bible, Mark 5:13

Here's our first Bible verse adapted as a Magic: The Gathering flavor text. Aptly, it's about big pigs, kinda. Not really. It's really about Jesus and His authority over matters spiritual.

Essentially, what we're reading here is Jesus exorcising a person who was host to evil spirits (or demons, depending on the particular version of the Bible you're reading). The spirits exited the guy and instead possessed a herd of around 2,000 pigs, who then were so frenzied they took off down a hill, into a lake, and drowned. 

Those spirits, by the way, call themselves "Legion." So, basically the connective tissue between The Bible and Ermac from Mortal Kombat is Durkwood Boars. 

Emerald Dragonfly

"Flittering, wheeling,
darting in to strike, and then
gone just as you blink." - Dragonfly Haiku, poet unknown

If you've ever taken a poetry class, you know the 5-7-5 of haiku. And for this card, you can't get much more on-the-nose than a haiku about dragonflies on a card called "Emerald Dragonfly." 

The interesting thing about haiku is that we assume it's an ancient form of poetry, but it's really only a few centuries old, drawing its origin from longer works called hokku in the late 17th century. And in its current form as an independent form of poetry, it's only about 150 years old or so. 

As for dragonflies, the little flittering, wheeling, darting dudes are well-suited for haiku subject, as Japan is colloquially known as "Dragonfly Island," with the insects being of significant cultural value.

Firestorm Phoenix

Back to Shakespeare:

"The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new-create another heir
As great in admiration as herself." - King Henry the Eighth

The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth, or Henry VIII was written in the early 1600s as another history play. 

These lines are spoken by Archbishop Cranmer to Henry VIII about the death of Queen Anne (Boleyn) and that tragedy's effect on the kingdom at-large. They're said during the christening of the future Queen Elizabeth I, the daugher of Henry VIII and Anne.

Oh, and a fun fact about this particular play: during a performance at the Globe Theatre in 1613, a cannon shot employed for special effects ignited the theatre's thatched roof, burning the original whole thing to the ground. How's that for dramatic realism?

Gaseous Form

"...and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name." - A Midsummer Night's Dream

Like many of Shakespeare's comedies, you might know A Midsummer Night's Dream better as an early 2000s high school goof-em-up. In this case, that would be Get Over It, starring Kirsten Dunst and screen legend Sisqo. 

Our lines of flavor text are lifted from Act V, Scene 1 and are spoken by Theseus to Hippolyta: 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

Those two characters are the central figures of the play, with the two bound to be married. Theseus is the Duke of Athens, while Hippolyta is the Queen of the Amazons, if you're wondering. These lines are essentially an epilogue and occur in the final scene of the play. 

Giant Strength

We'll round out our article for the day with the final instance of our little Shakespeare trilogy:

"O! it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant." - Measure for Measure

We're back in Measure for Measure, and thus back in the conversation about executing poor Claudio for his jumping the gun a bit on the whole baby-making thing. 

These lines are spoken by Isabella, Claudio's sister. The guy who is sentencing her brother to death, Angelo, is the recipient of her venom. The issue is further wrinkled when Angelo decides he's in love with Isabella, because he's not exactly adept at reading the room. 

But don't worry: Claudio doesn't die at the end, but is instead saved by The Duke, the real boss of Vienna who was disguised as a friar to see how his deputy Angelo would handle power. Clearly it did not go well. While the art on Giant Strength does not depict Angelo physically, it could be argued that his soul and character could be inspiration.

Out in the Cold a Long, Long Time

I think that's enough of Legends for the day, but we've still got quite a bit to go. You'll have to tune in in a few weeks to learn all about Ogden Nash, Lau Tzu, Washington Irving, and heck, let's toss some Emily Dickinson in there, too.