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Welsh History 101B:

My neighbour from England has come across raiding,
Slain six of my kinsmen and burned down my hall.
It cannot be borne, this offence and injustice:
I’ve only killed four of his, last I recall.
I’ll send for my neighbours, Llewellyn and Owain;
We’ll cut him down as for the border he rides.
But yesterday Owain stole three of my cattle,
So first I’ll retake them, and three more besides.

I didn’t get the meaning of “we’ll cut him down as for the border he rides”. Please can anybody explain?

CowperKettle
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Ahmad Moustafa
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    "since he's riding towards the border". – RonJohn Apr 30 '18 at 18:35
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    @RonJohn: "As" isn't "since" here - rather "while" or "at the same time as". – psmears May 01 '18 at 07:00
  • @psmears since we know he's riding for the border, we know what route he's taking, and thus we can cut him down. – RonJohn May 01 '18 at 07:26
  • @psmears: I'd argue that either interpretation is valid (out of context, at least) – Lightness Races in Orbit May 01 '18 at 13:55
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit: You're right - out of context, either would be fine; context here strongly suggests (to me, at least) that the "at the same time as" meaning is much more likely :) – psmears May 01 '18 at 14:38
  • @psmears: I think you're probably right. – Lightness Races in Orbit May 01 '18 at 14:39
  • He's an Englishman who's been raiding in Wales. They're not going to cut him down because he's fleeing for England, they're going to cut him down for killing 6 kinsman and burning the hall! – Rob K May 01 '18 at 15:25
  • I concur with the existing answers, but I've gotta say that as a native English speaker I couldn't immediately parse the sentence, although maybe it hurt that I saw the relevant phrase out of context (in the question title) first. I kept trying to read "as" as "because." – Daniel McLaury May 01 '18 at 22:48

2 Answers2

36

We’ll cut him down as for the border he rides.

Ah, one of the things one can do in English, but which is non-idiomatic and thus generally only appears in poetry, is re-arrange clause order like this, sticking the prepositional phrase in the middle of things.

"As" here means "while", and the more conventional place for "for the border" would be at the end:

We'll cut him down [while] he rides for the border.

"Cut him down" is idiomatic, and means more literally "murder him with swords", though also is used to refer, poetically, to murdering people with other weapons like firearms.

Codeswitcher
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  • Actually, the phrase "cut him down" as an alternative to "shoot him" is hardly poetic. – WhatRoughBeast Apr 30 '18 at 17:50
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    This is probably from before firearms, so the weapon really would be swords or the like. – Loren Pechtel May 01 '18 at 00:40
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    I think you're correct that "as" means "while" in this context. But it might be worth mentioning that in this same type of construction, "as" could mean "because".. – Shufflepants May 01 '18 at 13:28
  • It may or may not be worth noting that this suggests that they will kill him while he is in their lands and somewhat vulnerable. If he reaches the border, he is in his lands with stronger defenses. –  May 01 '18 at 14:06
  • Or it it could mean they wish to kill him for fleeing/desertion – Troyseph May 01 '18 at 14:29
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    It may be worth noting that the idiom of “cutting” used for killing of all kinds (and of “falling” for dying regardless of cause of death) goes back at least to Latin, where cidere (to cut, especially a tree for lumber) and cadere (to fall) were idiomatic for “to kill” and “to die” respectively (and cidere is the source of the -cide suffix in English, as used in homicide from homo for man, suicide from sui for himself, patricide from pater for father, regicide from rex for king, and so on). – KRyan May 01 '18 at 15:37
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We’ll cut him down as for the border he rides.

means "We will kill him while he rides towards the border".

CowperKettle
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