The poet Rimbaud wrote in his ‘Season in Hell’

“Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed.

One evening I took Beauty in my arms – and I thought her bitter – and I insulted her.

I steeled myself against justice.

I fled. O witches, O misery, O hate, my treasure was left in your care!”

Rimbaud understood, at the start of his brief career, what others only understood at the end, if at all, that the sacred word no longer has validity. It carries ‘no weight’, as we say. He realized that the poison of culture (our so-called ‘civilized world’ and its values), had transformed beauty and truth into artifice and deception.

He takes Beauty on his knees and he finds her bitter. He abandons her. It was the only easy way that he could still honour her.

The ‘Fugitive Stag’ endeavours to honour Beauty in its own unique way.