μεταμορφώσεις

[Jeff Bernstein]

1.

 

Who so ever is up to hear the boke
intitled Godefrey of Boloyne,
which speketh of Conquest of holy lands,
of warres diverse and noble feats of arms
in Iherusalem & countrees besides,
such reader will be mekede glad again,
to hear a’the many mervayllouys works
that happed and fallen on both sides this tyme;
no reader is so jaded of tale,
so sad with circumstance and enterprise,
but will be made glad again, the song’s so sweet,
of valyant Godefrey of Boloyne
conquering with smoting sword the said realm,
and was kynge there.

 

Or dient et content et fabloient

The ancient histories say that the very Cross, the true Cross, was brought again to Jerusalem by the Roman emperor Eracles, or Heraclius, after he defeated all those cursed and evil, who were very mighty indeed, and conquered Perse; after which he abode and dwelt in the land of Surrya. ¶ In his time the churches were made whole again, as masons & carpenters measured the foundations and reset stones of marble; and all the holy places that Perse had beaten down were cleansed and dressed, all the murals and necessities, and again shone in the light of the Crosse. ¶ Then invaders came with such great number of people that all the land was covered with them, and they assieged city after city, and none might resist them. ¶ Heraclius sent spies to search out their character, for he much desired to have a do with these people on the field, and fight and chase them out of the places which obeyed Christent & the empire of Rome. But when his messengers came they brought with them a news of no good portent; for Heraclius had by them certain knowledge that the number of his enemy was so great that none might resist them. ¶ So Rome decided to withdraw for a time while the invaders conquered all Surrya and burnt its cities and churches and killed a great part of the people. ¶ And now I shall tell you that the invaders took away with them the very Cross, the true Cross that our lord Ihesu suffered death on for us; and so the Romans considered what to do next. ¶ And the temples were carven within and without with Arabicé idiomatis litterarum in letters of gold. And Jerusalem was in bondage for ccccxxxiiij years continually.

 

¶ This original treatment by Scrooby, the story of the First Crusade told in the manner of the style of Aucassin & Nicolete, continues apace.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 9 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

For four hundred yere contynuelly
all the true people were cast down to ground,
Iherusalem was under subjection,
not allway in one manere, however;
one tyme better, & another tyme werse,
but the peple were alway in subiection
contynuelly for four hundred yere;
and in a season came miscreauntes
of Egypte that conquered all the cytees,
and in this tyme the fayth of Ihesu Criste
was more sorowful than was wonte to be.
The holy chirche of the holy sepulcre,
fontayne and begynnyng of our being,
jewell of Crystiens in Iherusalem,
was inragedly doun caste to the ground.
Thenne forlorn became all the true people,
for they toke grete displaysir in theyr heart
when they saw the chirche destroyed emong them,
the malyce & cruelte so sorowful.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Or dient et content et fabloient

Ah, my friends, it should be overlong a thing to recount to you all the trouble and mischief that the people of our lord endured that time. ¶ Many times the heathen took the children of the Christian people, both sons and daughters, into their own homes, and made them miscreants against their will. ¶ Thus our people suffered much shame and grief. ¶ Even in their own homes the godly might not have peace, but had cast at their windows stones, dung, dirt, and ordure. ¶ Sometimes the godly were commanded not to issue out of their homes. ¶ And if it happened that a Christian man say a light word that displeased any heathen, anon he should be brought to prison and should lose his fist or foot; or was brought to the gibbet and hanged until dead. ¶ You have heard how the people that were Christian were demeaned. Now listen and hear how an untrue man left a dead dog, rotten and stinking, before the doors of a church. At this there arose a cry throughout all the town and nothing was spoken of but this hound. The heathen assembled and put it out of doubt but that it were Christians who had done this deed. So the heathen men accorded that all Christians should be put to death at the point of the sword. ¶ It was then that a young man of great heart and great pity, a Christian man, stood before his own people and spoke to them and said, “Fair lords, I will take this thing on me, and say that I have done this fact, which they have put on us all.” ¶ And so he went before the heathen and said that he himself had done the deed. Thus he delivered all the others of his faith, who ever after promised him their prayers for his soul. ¶ All the others were saved, for the heathen had only the young man’s head smitten off. ¶ Thus we remember this in Yorkshire on Sunday.

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

Read the signs—the ende of the world is nigh;
ye have herd how the crystens were demened,
but in truth the fayth was faylled all over.
Where is the hero at thende of the world?
Men are blynde to the nede to save theyr sowles,
& there is no fearfulness of Heaven.
Our own princes put us into torment,
and take from their subjects suche as they have
that those who had been well now go a-begging
door to door to get their bread.
Chirches everywhere have lost their privyleges;
and the crosses and chalyces and all,
the princes take and melt them down to selle,
and the ones who stand and protect these thynges
are drawen out evilly, as from a taverne.
There is no justice, our countrees are full
of treachery and treason and falsehood,
and I say to you finally that all
evyl workes have surprysed crystiantee
that everyone seems to follow the devyll.

 

What can I tell you of strength, of resistance, when our hero has not yet come? ¶ Marvellous to say that there were many who took the long journey and came into Jerusalem. The Greeks and the Latins made pilgrimages here, to pray to our lord that he might not forget his people. But on their way there were enemies all over, and many pilgrims were robbed and murdered. ¶ If these travellers made it to Jerusalem they found themselves stuck outside the city walls, for they had nothing with them to pay the tribute and enter in through the gates. So they waited, and suffered cold and hunger and misery, and many died. ¶ The Christians within the city grieved, and buried the dead; and quietly helped pilgrims to enter in; but then many pilgrims ended up murdered in secret places of the city. Others who yet lived and walked through the streets were spat at in their faces. And these pilgrims prayed for God to behold us in pity and deliver us of the torments we have long suffered; and they waited.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Then a stranger cam out of the deserte,
a smal man, litil of body, with nothing
to distinguishe in him from the pilgryms
of many landes who cam to Iherulsalem.
He didn’t tarrie long outside the gate
because he payed the tribute and entred
into the citie, and he found lodging
in a good christen man’s hows.
This was after we had been in servage
to the hethens CCCC lxxxx yere.
Le estranger came from the realm of ffraunce,
where he lived as a heremyte in a wode;
as he was named Peter, so was he called
Peter the Hermit. Peter spoke right well,
with good vnderstondyng, and clere engyne,
and he was of a merveyllous grete herte.
He heard how the cristente been defowled,
and all the holy places dishonoured,
and all the cristente people demened,
whiche was sorouful for Peter to here;
and he sawe well & perceyued the evil
all over the city where the peple lived.
At the chirche of the holy sepulcre
he made his prayers with plenteous teeris.
Aftir this he sleepte vpon the pavement
and had a dream, which changed alle histoire.

 

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

Or dient et content et fabloient

 

“Rise up and go, for I shall be with thee.” Such words Peter heard before waking. After which he urged all Christians to write letters and messages describing how it was with them in the city, and he, Peter the Hermit, before now a complete unknown, promised to deliver these letters and messages direct to Pope Urban in Rome. “I shall enterprise this voyage,” he told the people, “for the love of Ihesu Criste, & remyssyon of my synnes.” So the Christians of Jerusalem made their writings and sealed them with their seals, and they brought them to Peter, who went down to the sea and found there a merchant ship tethered to shore. He entered in, and a good wind came, and he went; then completed his journey on foot to Rome, where he stood before the Pope, and delivered to him all the messages of the people, and said to him, truly and wisely, of all the sorrows and miseries that the Christians were suffering in the Holy Land. He, Peter, was expert thereof, and could well say to him the truth. The Pope then sent Peter over the mountains into France, where he preached the Crusade so powerfully that his words brought tears of pity. ¶ At this time there were many petty wars and discords between the princes of France. But these princes and all the people heard that if they should follow their faith and join together to defeat their common enemies, then they should enter into the joy of Heaven, even if incontinent with sin. ¶ This word was spread through all the neighbouring lands, and the people heard and listened.

 

Tis a strange thyng, and a right grevious one,
for a man to leave his contree, his wyf,
his children—all that he loveth by nature;
but when he thynketh what reward is his
if he doo this thyng for to save his soul,
then the men, who were enclynéd to sin,
took a fervent love in the entrepryse
to avenge the wronges that the hethen did
to our lord and his peple in Iherusalem.
Ah, my friends, you should have seen the husbonde
departe from his wyf, and the fadres fro
the children, and the children fro the fadres.
There was in the lands so grete an affraye
ye would have founde an hows but that som there
had enterprised the voyage to the east.
But I saye that not alle who wente were wyse.
Monkes slunk out of theyr cloystres without leave
of theyre abbotes or pryours; & recluses
left the places where they ben closed, and wente.
Some joined in simply for love of theyr frendes,
to show them felawship. Some went only
to escape any claim of cowardice.
Some went to put themselves at great distaunce
from their creditors and escape their debts.
And at a counseyl for the amendement
of the peple in the moneth of Novembre
of the yere 1095, the Crusaders
avowed to sette the signe of the red crosse
on their right sholdre, as the lord sayth
in the gospell, “Who that will live with me,
take the cross and follow me.”

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

Many followed. Come, good reader, stay and hear the story, for it was all wondrous, as it had not been accustomed to see such things in Europe. ¶ Hughe the Great, the younger brother of the king of France, came as a leader of the pilgrimage; & there was the valiant Godffrey of Bologne and his two brothers; & there was Guillem of Montpellier; & Beaumont of Tarento. Ha! ’Twould take too long a time to list the many earls and barons and knights; and with them came the common people whom Peter the heremyte collected and unified as he went out of France and into Germany. In March 1096 the Crusaders went east. On the bodies of the wealthy were great Appareyllemens on show, lovely fabrics and sparkling armour and sharpest swords, for they had prepared all winter long, with letters and messages travelling back and forth from castle to castle, acquainting one earthly power with another, and discussing the journey; and imagine how much of many things was needful for them to decide on and do. ¶ It was decided that the barons would not go together as one, for no country they passed through might suffice for the needs of a collective army. So each baron went his own way east on his horse arrayed magnificently, leading knights and people and all other; and the army of the Crusade never assembled until they came to the city of Nicaea. ¶ Today Nicaea, in Turkey, is a tourist destination, with its ruins of churches, theatre, aqueduct, gate, and so on. ¶ When the day of departing came at the time of the melting snow, there were great sorrows, great weepings, and great cries. But even so it was a marvellous thing, for never before was such a union born to take a pilgrimage for the good.

[Jeff Bernstein]

COMMERCIAL BREAK : Sappho & Megalopolis

SCRIPT : "Some say cavalry and a fleet of long oars is the supreme sight on the black earth. I say . . . it is the one you love."

 

οἰ μὲν ἰππήων στρότον οἰ δὲ πέσδων
οἰ δὲ νάων φαῖσ’ἐπὶ γᾶν μέλαιναν
ἔμμεναι κάλλιστον, ἔγω δὲ κῆν’ ὄτ-
τω τις ἔραται

 

SCROOBY :

An army of horsemen and foot soldiers
and ships of war—some say all this is most
beautiful on our dark earth. But I say
it's whomever I passionately lust after.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Now Godffrey in great apparayllement
rode through a forest deep, and together
with him were many a valyant knight,
and with them came a merueyllous plenty
of folke a-foot and on horsbak, an army
of pylgrims of our lord, with no talente
for to trouble the peace, but to go quiet.
They drew them towards the bounde of Hungrye,
all envyronned with waters and marshes
and lakes in suche wyse that none might entre
but only by certayne places. Beyond
Hungrye was thoryent, and Iherusalem.
So they came to a pass into Hungrye,
a brydgge of stone on a river running
with great distourblying. Beyond this limit
was a castle standing high on a hill,
and in the town beyond that, Godffrey hoped
to find vytaylles at a resonable prys,
and to pass through without any debate.
Then a messenger rode up to Godffrey.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Godffrey heard of the displeasure of the king of Hungary, whom all knew was a good Christian man. It was late in the first year of the Crusades, and a number of Christian armies had already passed through Hungary, including the colossal ragtag army of pilgrims led by Peter the Hermit, before then a complete unknown. ¶ When the king of the Hungarians had first heard, back in the springtime, that Christians had come by land with great number of people, he received them debonairly in his realm, for he thought favourably on the pilgrimage being enterprised, and had thereof much joy. ¶ But now it was autumn. ¶ “What, then?” asked Godffrey. ¶ Then the messenger answered him in full.

[Jeff Bernstein]

“Some months before us,” said the messenger to Godffrey, “the good Peter the Hermit sent letters to the king of Hungary, to the end that he might pass through his realm in peace, without meddling and outrages; and the king welcomed him to do so. Then our right noble knights brought great clamours and mischief to the land.” ¶ “What was the nature of these clamours and mischief?” asked Godffrey. “Did the common men lead off the beasts of their hosts?” ¶ “Good duke,” said the messenger, “the pilgrims slew thousands of the Hungarians. On both sides foolish people went forth and made great noise and would not obey. Many thousands were killed on both sides. Each fought to avenge the blood of their brethren. Each side said that it had been demeaned, which had brought them great despite and much sorrow and overmuch shame.” ¶ It happens often that the worse counsel overcomes the better, and it is no marvel, for there are more fools than wisemen. ¶ “Peter the Hermit had lost control of his army. There were bataylles & fyghtyng in the mountains and in the cities, and great noise and affray in the deep forests; fighting on horseback and on foot; and our armies ignored their leaders, nor believed them of anything, but did many ills and outrages, with many dead and decapitated on both sides. The littlest offence brought catastrophe, and our pilgrims left great clamours after them. ¶ “What was the outcome?” asked Godffrey. ¶ “The King of Hungary chased Peter out of Hungary altogether. And there was a cart lost that belonged to Peter, full of riches.” ¶ The valiant Godffrey considered the Situation in silence, and you should have seen the waves of heat rising from his debonair concentration. ¶ “That is not all,” said the messenger. “After this came the priest Godescalcus with his army, and they entered into Hungary, and led the beasts away from the fields, and took the Hungarian women and beat their husbands and slew them, and for no man in the land would they leave off these outrages. The king of Hungary heard of these outrages and again was much displeased. But this time he had a wiser solution to his problem.”  ¶ “What was that?” asked Godffrey. ¶ “The king counseled them thus,” said the Messenger. “If you yield in good faith, we promise in good faith that ye shall never have damage on your way forth through our land. So the priest Godescalcus and his men did by the counsel of the wise men of their party, and they yielded to the king, supposing thereby to have gotten mercy from their hosts. Then the king slew so many that the Hungarians waded in blood up to the knee; it was sorowe and pyte to see theyr bodes of so many peple slayne in the stretes, ways and feelds.” ¶ Some happened to escape and told this mischief to others, so that none should trust to the people of Hungary. ¶ The valiant Godffrey considered the Situation in silence, and you should have seen the waves of heat rising from his debonair concentration.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Hear then, friends, how the miraculous took place.
Godffrey took up writing impedimenta
and drafted a worde to the Hungarian king.
First, the knights had to assemble for this,
counsel among them, and decide if writing
a Worde be the best manner to pass on
in peace, after all the evil tidings
aforetold, and the evil misadventures
of Hungarians smitten into pieces
and suchlike cruelties of the pilgrims;
so the knights assembled to decide the plan
of entering into communication
peacefully with the king; and this they chose,
and Godffrey himself would deliver the Worde.
So he took writing impedimenta
and drafted the worde to the Hungarian king,
then went himself to deliver this Worde.
As for the outcome of the enterprise,
what a marvel it was when it was heard.
“The King of Hungary salutes you, Godffrey,
and hath much desire to do you honour,
and since all these pilgrims that be with you
do service to such an honourable man,
therefore, fair lord, may it please you go
in peace.” ¶ Now, what Godffrey wrote in the Worde
is lost to our history entire;
at any rate Godffrey led his pilgrims
through forest and took leave of Hungary.
Thus was our first glimpse of the valiance
of Godffrey, and of his heroism.

[Jeff Bernstein]

COMING ATTRACTION before the colossal siege of Nicaea—Scrooby’s Epic Death of Sophonisba

“See there! For a moment all is lucky,
then all our loving is brought to an end.
The sun rises from the sea, and sails
through the sky, but must go down finally.”
Thus she said. She sent a marvellous groaning
up into the stars, and the sight she saw
of the infinite night terrified her.
“My soul,” said she, “be strong enough to lift,
one last time, this cup to my thirsting lips!
I leave now our bitter marriage, Massininna,
which you were too weak to remediate.”
Then she lifted with the last of her power
the cup to her lips, and drank the potion,
and her spirit went violently down to the shadows.

[Jeff Bernstein]

The wondrous 2.15 of Tolstoy’s War and Peace

 

1. The soldiers standing together, drinking canteens of vodka—

Все лица были такие спокойные, как будто все происходило не в виду неприятеля, перед делом, где должна была остаться на месте, по крайней мере, половина отряда, а как будто где-нибудь на родине в ожидании спокойной стоянки.

 

Every face was serene as if all this was happening at some quiet halting-place at home in Russia, instead of within sight of the enemy on the eve of an action in which at least half of the detachment must be left on the field.

 

2. On the front line—

Цепь наша и неприятельская стояли на левом и на правом фланге далеко друг от друга, но в средине, в том месте, где утром проезжали парламентеры, цепи сошлись так близко, что могли видеть лица друг друга и переговариваться между собою.

 

Our line and that of our enemy were separated by a considerable distance at both flanks but in the centre where the truce envoys had crossed that morning the lines came so close that the pickets of the two armies could see each other’s faces and exchange remarks.

 

3. On the front line, camaraderie among enemies—

Го, го, го! Ха, ха, ха, ха! Ух! Ух! — раздался между солдатами грохот такого здорового и веселого хохота, невольно через цепь сообщившегося и французам

 

Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! Ouh! Peals of of such hearty, jovial laughter rang out from the [Russian] soldiers, in which the French across the line could not help joining . . .

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 24 by Jeff Bernstein

[Jeff Bernstein]

Profecto pes animae illa est portio despicatissima, qua ipsa materiae tamquam terrae solo innititur.

Surely the foot of the soul is our most despised part, for it rests on the ground of matter.

Pico della Mirandola

[Jeff Bernstein]

Flat lines

"I love you, Danny. I love you more than anything else in the whole world."

"Hawaii? I was thinking about going there."

"Well, let's find out."

"I'm going to make this a week you'll never forget."

 

[Jeff Bernstein]

Excisum Euboicae latus ingens rupis in antrum,
quo lati ducunt aditus centum, ostia centum;
unde ruunt totidem voces, responsa Sibyllae.

Ventum erat ad limen, cum virgo. “Poscere fata
tempus” ait; “deus, ecce, deus!”

[Jeff Bernstein]

On Star Wars

Ben Burtt. "We were going to design a visual world that had dirt." (Droidmaker, 60)

[Jeff Bernstein]

"Were you allowed to keep the heads?"

"The heads always become the property of the king."

1097AD. Our peple had moche grete ioye of this vyvtorye / A thousand heedes of the slain they sente to the emperour

[Jeff Bernstein]

Cinema is holy—

—it's light in darkness.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Or dient et content et fabloient

 

Good reader, the fighting shall begin soon, and, God willing, a memorable sequence it shall be from your pious and effortful author. ¶ Just now, my friends, imagine our well-apparelled heroes cresting a high hill on horseback and overlooking an ancient city, named at this time Nicaea. Standing behind the valyant Godffrey and his fellow knight Beaumont and the other noble leaders are 600,000 footsoldiers, together with 100,000 knights and horsemen. Well-a-day! There among the throng is Peter the Hermit, who admitted in council that his misadventures on the way had been of his own folly, and was forgiven, and now his ragtag army stands with the rest. ¶ Down below & spread across a level ground & protected shrewdly around by a high wall is a city that had fallen and risen many a time over a thousand years before these pilgrims appeared. Later, our heroes will enter through the gates of the city and admire its venerable ruins; they will see the fields of green peppered over with broken pillars, once churches; and, here and there in the open air, carven sepulchres small as huts but ornate as palaces, their stone sunbleached and cracked, and anyone’s guess who’s inside. But that was later, after the mystick discovery of a bloody relic of Jhesu; and after the vaylant Tancred had lost his heart to Clorinda, a woman of the city and fearless swordfighter. On the 28th night Tancred & Clorinda will share an unforgettable fate. ¶ Now in the March morning sunshine Godffrey’s eye evaluates the Situation. ¶ Nicaea below them is broad, what we today would measure as three mile across (4.82803 kilometres), and is fortified all round with a hundred towers. Godffrey notes not one but two ditches skirting the city walls; they will need filling in during the fighting. ¶ One tower aspires higher than the rest, heavy and ornate and wonderful; later this tower will come to symbolise the strength of the townspeople, a fierce & hearty people, well-advised of arms and full of fight. ¶ Just now Godffrey faces complexities beyond ditches and towers. The city of Nicaea touches the eastern end of a large lake, and the city walls rise up right out of the water, and in the morning breeze the waves were smiting sore against the heavy walls. This lake disturbed him much, for the enemy might come and go by water as often as they would, as Godffrey’s people had no ships to defend the lake. Every day the enemy might bring fresh vytaylles and new men, new armours and artillery, new messengers and letters, and the pilgrims could not defend it. He wondered how he might distrouble the coming by water. ¶ First and foremost, the pilgrims must surround the city and get over those walls—or under them. ¶ Thus, good reader, the prologue to the Siege of Nicaea : Day 28.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Shot of the Ages

Post-nuclear Hollywood nihilism.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Daedalus, ut fama est, fugiens Minoïa regna,

praepetibus pennis ausus se credere caelo,

On they move . . . 
                         . . . and the passive Air upbore
Thir nimble tread, as when the total kind
Of Birds in orderly array on wing
Came summond over Eden to receive
Thir names of thee; so over many a tract
Of Heav'n they march'd

Aeneid, 6.14–15 / Brazil (1985) / Paradise Lost, 6.68–77 / Dunkirk (2017)

[Jeff Bernstein]

Say hello to my little friends.

Sophoclis Tragoediae Septem
Londini : Sumptibus A. Robinson & Co., 1824.

Nouvelles Françoises en Prose du Xiiie Siècle
Paris : Chez P. Jannet, 1856.

[Jeff Bernstein]

1.  The Tower

Come hear the fantastic tale, my friends,
and may it please you to stay awhile.
In the ancient city of Nicaea
stands a tower taller than all the rest;
and beside it the wonderful palace
of Solyman, sultan of the city,
is presently facing a bombardment
by the Earl of Toulouse and his forces.
So the Sultan has spirited his wife
and two sons out of the troubled palace
and led them up the tower beside it,
heavy and ornate and high and wonderful,
a beacon seen from all around the realm.
“Here you will be safe” (he said) “my loved ones!”

And, high up in the stars, his two young sons
peeped out a window, and saw the warring
as a storm mist moving over the plain,
a meddle hard and vigorous and loud.
They gave to them now so many assaults
day and night that the boys got little rest,
and all the townspeople were discouraged.

Now the boys look straight down and see a sight :
right flush against the wall of the tower
is an Engine of the bad men, a castle
made of tree, with a roof of heavy stone,
and both boys hear the pick of the axes
of the bad men inside it mining their wall,
coming to pry through; then come yells—“Hey! Ho!”
from above, and the two boys slip their heads
in just as a rainstorm of stone and fire
spills down with a clatter onto the Engine
of the enemy; and all the window
fills with a marvellous sheet of flame,
and the two boys fall onto their backsides.
And fallen on the floor they hear the sound
of the great stones, cast through the air, slamming
into the walls of the tower, sending
powder and dust into the air of the room.

Behind them, Solyman was much wroth and angry
at his wife. “You must stay here” (he told her);
“Retreat will look like weakness, and the men,
who fight fierce and hearty for us right now,
will give up their fighting for what is ours;
and you and I and all of us will have lost.”
Then he softened and took her hand and said,
“When we make others dearer to ourselves
than ourselves, we pay dearly for that love.”
Then he said, “What are you looking? Nothing’s
behind you; and nothing shall hurt you while
I’m here. You should well know, for it’s not long,
but we shall discomfit them, and without fail
be delivered of them all.” Then, wondrously,
his wife laughed, a terrified sound, and she spoke :

“Once you ridiculed these people, saying
they had come from far where the sun goes down,
and they be weary, and have no horses
that may endure a long travail. We be fresh,
you said, and our horses here are rested;
it is no doubt we be better then they.”

All this she said to him, with mockery.

Laughing at him, and in front of his boys,
should have got her killed right then, but the man
was wise, Solyman, Sultan of Nicaea,
and he comforted his wife, and he said,
“It looks as if they’re doing us great hurt,
but when the sun has risen, you shall see
things differently.” But as the Sultan spoke
his words were punctuated by the crashes
of the stones against the walls, and the dust
rose around them. “The walls here are strong”
(he said); “Thick. They haven’t broken one stone
of this tower!” Then his wife reached out her hand
to the wall, and touched newly-dried plaster,
and spoke, and almost got herself killed again.

So then Solyman, in sight of his boys,
peered out a window on the other side
of the room, and looked into distance,
and said, “Their people have no ships to take
the lake”; and the Sultan smiled to himself,
as he saw, deep in the distance, the lake,
and he said, “Even now they come, bringing
in vitals and new men and merchandise.
Do not be afraid. We will keep the city.
I say we will know joy in the morning.”

Solyman, a much puissant and rich man,
narrowed his warrior’s eyes, and he saw
in the deep distance the precious flicker
of the fire-lamps, like stars, on the decks
of his boats on the lake. “We shall not flee
foully. Our people would follow us
and not fight.” And he told her, “We have power
in such wise that no man might grieve us.
So you shall stay here tonight with our sons.”

[ to be continued ]