For Whom the Bell Tolls

Well, I don't really know what popped this one in my head today, but I feel it needs a bit of investigating!

The other half was reading a Ben Elton* some time ago, and commented on the Executioner character with the tattoo on his head that reads;

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee"

Which, apart from being nice and dramatic, got me thinking. And I remarked that the "bell" refers to the bell at Saint Sepulchre's that used to toll on execution day outside London's Newgate prison.
Then I thought, "where the bloody hell did I get that idea from? It's a quote from scripture isn't it?" Swiftly followed by thinking about the Metallica song and forgetting all about it.

Que a bit of actual research!

Well, I was sort of right. It is a bit religious at least. And that is the whole phrase, whereas I figured Ben Elton had made up the last part! It's from a poem written by an English "Metaphysical Poet" in the 1600s.

Here it is in the original context;

No Man is an Island - John Donne

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory** were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

First Published: 1624


The bell in question turns out to be funeral bells. (Church bells tolling to mark a funeral) And the meaning, is in my opinion anyway, a touch morbid. I mean, yes, it's making a striking point about unity, and solidarity etc. Still morbid though; Every time a man dies, a bit of you dies because you are a member of mankind too, just like the deceased. No man is immune, "No man is an island", we're all...continents?

I'll stick to my Edward Lear, thanks all the same mate.


Anyway, there's the origins of the phrase right there. But there is more, of course.

Ernest Hemmingway published a book called "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in 1940 and used Donne's slightly creepy little poem as part of the introduction.
(You know what...it might be creepy, but it's growing on me the more I read it. Bit like that "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" bit from Macbeth does. It's equally a bit creepy, but somehow eloquent and beautiful, and memorable. Probably because it's creepy.)
Anyhow, I digress. Hemmingway's book is about war, and according to Wikipedia;

"The novel graphically describes the brutality of civil war [...] There is camaraderie in the face of death throughout the novel, with the need for surrender of one's self for the common good repeated."

I presume that is the relevance of using the poem right there, and Hemmingway's seems to be the most famous use of the phrase. That is until Metallica came along of course...





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* The book was Blind Faith. If you haven't read it, go and buy it now!! It really should have been called 2084 if you ask me. It's pure genius, and bloody hilarious.

**Incase you're wondering, I didn't have a clue what the heck a promontory was either, (And no, it's not a Tory who is Pro-Money) so I looked it up; "A promontory is a prominent mass of land that overlooks lower lying land or a body of water (where it may be called a peninsula or headland)"