What an interesting question. Thank you, Marigold.
I'm unclear what the metaphor "grapes of wrath" means, in the Battle Hymn line, "the Lord/He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." Are grapes stored in a "vintage" and are they "trampled" there?
The bible doesn't seem to use the phrase "grapes of wrath". WWH noted a bible metaphor that makes much more sense (winepress of the wrath of God), were divine wrath is the active force (winepress), not passive (trampled grapes).
Could "grapes of wrath" be a mixed metaphor that Howe originated when she wrote her Civil War Hymn? Clues:
--- Isaiah 5:1-7 (shortened) "My wellbeloved hath a vineyard and planted it with the choicest vine, and yet it brought forth wild grapes. Judge I pray you betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more, that I have not done in it, that it should bring forth wild grapes? I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will lay it to waste. The vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel, and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry."
--- Per a Lincoln biographer: A contemporary battle hymn begins with Isaiah 64:4, and then mirrors the vineyard image: "tread down God's grapes, till blood / Unto your horses' bridles hath out the winepress flowed! The day of vengeance dawns, the day of wrath of God. His soul is marching on."
--- Same biographer: while Howe watched soldiers marching by and singing, her companion suggested she write better words to the same marching tune. "When she woke at dawn the next morning lines and stanzas came to her as she lay in bed half dreaming that she was the voice of the nation. She sprang from the bed and wrote in a dim grey twilight, not daring to light the lamp, as it would wake her baby sleeping in its crib."
