Moschus Moschiferus- Alec Derwent Hope

          Alec Derwent Hope, Australia’s most widely honored poet, was born in Cooma, New South Wales, on July 21, 1907, the son of a Presbyterian minister. In 1911, the Hope moved to Capbell town in the Macquaise valley and island of Tasmania. In his early year, Hope was educated at home and then attended a member f secondary schools. In 1924, he was admitted to the university of Sidney, Where he read English and Philosophy and graduated in 1928, winning a scholarship to university college, Oxford, to study English. His first book was, The Wandering islands which appeared in 1955 when he was 48.

         Through this poem titled “Moschus Moschiferus” Hope discloses the hunting of moschiferus and how humans entrap it. Moschus Moschiferus is Siberian musk deer that makes up Moschus, the only extant genus of the family moschidae. Musk deer live mainly in forested and alpine shrub habitats in the mountain Southern Asia, notably the Himalayas. The musk gland is found only in adult males it lies in a sac located between the genitals and the Umbilicus, and its secretions almost likely used to attract mates.

        In this poem, Hope reveals a great danger which put the deer to death that is “Divine Music.”  In the very beginning of the poem, he tells about the habitats of Kastura deer, most archaic of deer which is found in the high jungle where the border of Assam meets Tibet. The poet portraits the suffering of deer which is been in herds just to extract the musk from its body.In those forests where these tiny creatures live the hunters find it so difficult to find these creatures, so they used new techniques to trap them. 

       

The hunters then set into the forest splitting into groups of two or three members carrying a bow but except one who holds a slender flute. All these hunters start their work, some of the hunters whose are also the archers choose a tree for themselves and climb upon it and beneath the tree sits the piper with his slender flute. So they wait until all their traces pass away. They melt into the leaves and calmly watch their camrade play. In these lines, “Through those vast listening woods a tremulous skein/Of melody weavers delicate and shrill:”,(17-18).

        The author brings out the situation the woods. After the music is played by the piper, that from the word “listening woods” the poet comes to say that trees are living creatures that have life but it response to the music. Immediately on hearing the music the deer starts dancing according to music. Here one can see the tempting strength of the music played by the piper. Soon the music turns into a tune of lamentation and makes the deer sad. Now the poet expresses the concentration of  hunters  who are focused on getting their kill. They hold their breath for not diverting the deer and the piper plats the flute without pause until the trace of noon grows tense. In these lines, “The little musk deer slips into the glade/Led by an ecstasy that conquers fear”(27-28), the poet reveals the glory of music that makes the deer to conquer its fear. 

Immediately the deer falls on the net and get trapped and the archer injects the poisoned the shaft into it. 

       As soon as the deer is injected in faints and in these lines, “Then, as the victim shudders, leaps and falls, / The music soars to a delicious peak,”(33-34), the poet discloses that the reward given to hunters by music only. They climb down from the trees and count the preys and the collect the musk glands from the deer and abandon the place for the carcasses to rot away. Each year a ‘Hundred Thousands’ of deer are killed in this way, in order to get their musk which is used to make many man-made products. Rich scents and perfumes are made exported world wide for a large amount of money.

1.         According to the reader, the deer have been killed for human purpose while they were alive. After death, their spirits in the form of fragrance of musk are being captured. So the deer even after death gives fragrance, it not only gives fragrance it makes its enemies into a good fragrant person. In this poem, hunters have used two types of traps one is visible which is the net and another which is invisible is “Music”. This poem is dedicated to Divine Cecilia by the poet who could not tolerate the turmoil of nature. 
2.        According to the reader the theme is “Nature against Nature”, in that how natural product like the slender flute, bow, shaft etc... are used to trap the deer which is also a part of nature.
3.    It is highly chronicle that Hope has added the dedication to St.Cecilia, the patron saint of music, in order to highlight the fact that how divine music is used to serve deadly ends.