Chronicles and Characters :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Ω πολις πολις, πολεων πασων οφθαλμε, ακουσμα παγκοσμιον, θεαμα υπερκοσμιον, εκκλησιων γαλουχε, πιστεως αρχηγε, ορθοδοξιας ποδηγε, λογων μελημα, καλου παντος ενδιαιτημα! ω η εκ χειρος κυριου το του θυμου πιουσα ποτηριον, ω η γενομενη πυρος μεπις πολλω δραστικωτερου του καταιβασιου καλαι πυρος πενταπολεως, τι μαρτυρησω σοι;”— Nicetas. Alexius Ducas, p. 763. c. 5.

I.JUSTICE

“Te lucis ante terminum” . . . . and lo,
One half of heaven is wrapt in rosy glow!
“Rerum creator poscimus” . . . . the hymn
Sweet-heaving swells o'er solemn air and dim.
Sunset. A few large stars. The sea-wind vents
Among the narrow-streeted silken tents,
From Chalcedonian palace chambers calm,
The lofty, pure, sonorous Latin psalm
Forth-pour'd by sworded priests athwart the tramp
And hoarse buzz humming deep from camp to camp
Of those six battles, ranged and banner'd all
Under the Counts of Flanders, of St. Paul,
Of Montmorency, of Blois, and Montferrat
Who, with his Lombards, holds the rear, stretch'd flat
Behind the city, lengthening many a mile
Into the midnight toward St. Stephen's pile.—

And all athwart this rustling region far
Buzz'd over by the sounding wings of War
(That frets and flutters, bound in brazen chain,
And breasts his iron cage) from brain to brain
One passionate purpose seethes.

For now those eight
Ambassadors, return'd, with wrath relate
In clamorous conclave their scorn'd embassage:
Whose high compeers consult how best to wage
Now-imminent conflict with self-confident Crime,
And wield the weighty instrument of Time,
Ready to smite.

So, after lowly prayer,
Each Knight upon his naked sword doth swear
A solemn oath to see dread justice done,
And rouse the slumbering war at rise of sun.
Therefore, all night, the humming tents about,
By twos and threes conversing, in and out
'Twixt mighty mangonel, and wheelèd tower
Arm'd with spring-shoulder'd arbalists of power,
The great chiefs stride indignant.

II.ARMED

At sunrise
The six-times-folded Battle, serpent-wise,

Slid past Blachernæ, and with steely fold
At sunset wrapt grey Boemond's castle hold.
There, by long labouring in the dark, was made
All round the camps deep trench and palisade;
'Gainst which the war for many a night and day
Flared, rock'd, and roar'd.

Full hard it were to say
What multitudes of mighty deeds were done,
Since first Lascaris by the Bourgignon
Was captived, till the Danish curtle axe
Dropp'd on the walls, before those fierce attacks
Which, all unarm'd, Eustache Le Marchis led,
Only an iron cap upon his head.

III.BY SEA AND LAND

Meanwhile, at sea, the white Fleet, following,
Hover'd hard by; and crept with cautious wing
Under the wave-girt city; planting there
A formidable grove.

Not anywhere
Thro' seas and skies were ever sail'd or row'd
Ships huge as these. The Paradiso proud,
Like a broad mountain, monarch of the morn,
By the mad clutch of tumbling Titans torn
Down from the windy ruins of the sky,
With Jove's chained thunders throbbing silently

In his strong pines, adown the displaced deep
Shoulders the Pelegrino,—half asleep,
With wavy fins each side a scarlet breast
Slanted. Hard by, more huge than all the rest,
—Air's highest, water's deepest, denizen,
A citadel of ocean, throng'd with men
That tramp in silk and steel round battlements
Of windy wooden streets, mid terrced tents
And turrets, under shoals of sails unfurl'd,
—That vaunting monster, Venice calls “The World.”

And now is pass'd each purple promontory
Of Sestos and Abydos, famed in story,
And now all round the deep blue bay uprise
Into the deep blue air, o'er galleries
Of marble, marble galleries; and lids
O'er lids of shining streets; dusk pyramids
O'er pyramids; and temple walls o'er walls
Of glowing gardens, whence white sunlight falls
From sleepy palm to palm; and palace tops
O'ertopp'd by palaces. Nought ever stops
The struggling Glory, from the time he leaves
His myrtle-muffled base, and higher heaves
His mountain march from golden-grated bower
To bronzen-gated wall,—and on, from tower
To tower,—until at last deliciously
All melts in azure summer and sweet sky.

Then, after anthem sung, sonorous all
The bronzen trumpets to the trumpets call;
Sounding across the sea from bark to bark,
Where floats the wingèd Lion of St. Mark,
The mighty signal for assault.

A shout
Shakes heaven. And swift from underneath upspout
Thick showers of hissing arrows that down-rain
Their rattling drops upon the walls, and stain
The blood-streak'd bay. The floating forest groans,
And creaks, and reels, and cracks. The rampart-stones
Clatter and shriek beneath the driven darts.
And on the shores, and at the gates, upstarts,
One after one, each misshaped monster fell
Of creaking ram, and cumbrous mangonel,
Great stones, down-jumping, chop, and split, and crush
The rocking towers; wherefrom the spearmen rush.
The morning star of battle, marshalling all
That movement massive and majestical,
Gay through the tumult which it guides doth go
The grand grey head of gallant Dandalo.
With what a full heart following that fine head,
—Thine, noble Venice by thy noblest led!
In his blithe-dancing turret o'er the sea,
Glad as the grey sea-eagle, hovers he
Thro' sails in flocks and masts in avenues.

Elsewhere, the inland battle, broken, strews

With flying horse the hollows; while but ill
The heavy-harness'd Frankish Knighthood still
Strains, staggering as each Flanders stallion falls,
In the rear region, round the city walls,
Against those silken turms and squadrons light,
That follow and fly, scatter and reunite,
Tormenting their full-bulk'd too-cumbrous foe;
Like swarms of golden bees that come and go
About the bear whose paw is on their hive
Patient and pertinacious, tho' they drive
Their stings into his eyes, settle and swarm,
Disperse and close again, to do him harm,
Unharm'd. For there in splendour eminent
Is pitch'd the purple-topt Imperial tent,
And domes of crimson glow i' the azure sky,
Girt by Byzantium's gorgeous chivalry.

So to the kindling of the Even Star
The groaning-hearted battle greatens.

IV.IS TRIUMPHANT.

Far
And near the strong siege tugs by sea and land
The storm-struck city,—hugg'd on either hand
By heavy ruin—till from mast to wall,
From sea to shore, the high drawbridges fall,
And in mid-air the arm'd men march, and drop

On battlemented roof and turret top.
The deadly Greek fire dips, and drips, and crawls,
And twists, and runs about the ruining walls,
And all is blaze and blackness, glare and gloom.
Pietro Alberti, the Venetian, whom
His sword lights, shining naked 'twixt his teeth
Sharp-gripp'd, thro' rushing arrows, wrapt with death,
Leaps from his ship into the waves: now stands
On the soak'd shore: now climbs with bleeding hands
And knees the wall: now left, now right, swift, bright,
Wild weapons round him whirl and sing: now right,
Now left, he smites, fights, shakes, breaks, all things down.

The Standard of St. Mark is on the town!

André d' Herboise, the gallant gay French knight,
Fast following him, hath gain'd the other height.
Prompt as a plunging meteor, that strikes straight
And instantaneous thro' the intricate
Thick-crowded stars its keen aim, flitting thro'
The choked breach, flashes dauntless Dandalo.
In rush the rest. In clattering cataract
The invading host rolls down. Disrupt, distract,
The invaded break and fly. The great church bells
Toll madly, and the battering mangonels
Bellow. The priests in long procession plant
The cross before them, passing suppliant

To meet the marching conquest. With fierce cries
Against the throne the rabble people rise,
And slaves cast off their fetters, and set free
Their hidden hates. For aye the craven knee
That meekest crooks, adoring present power,
Before the little idol of the hour,
Is cousin to the craven hand that smites
Most fiercely down the image it delights
To insult and shame when greater gods wax wroth.

V.SICUT FUMUS.

Now, therefore, when Alexius saw that both
The creatures and destroyers of his power
Were on him, to his soul he said—“The Hour
Is mine no more. Soul, we have lived our day.”
Then, waiting for the night, he fled away
Into the night. Night took him by the hand
And led him silently into the land
Of darkness. Darkness o'er his forehead cast
Her mighty mantle, murmuring “Mine, at last!”

In the great audience chamber at Byzance
A Latin soldier, leaning on his lance
Fatigued with slaughter, on the marble ground
Blood-bathed an empty purple garment found.
And then, for the first time, immersed in thought,

The Latin soldier mutter'd “I have fought
Against an Emperor!”

Jewels in her head
And serpents in her hand,—smiling, and dead,
And beautiful in death,—each glorious globe
(Loosed from the glittering murrey satin robe)
Of her upturn'd defiant bosom, bare
Save for the few looks of delicious hair
That swept them—saved by scornful death from scorn—
Only the beauty left of her—at morn
They found the Egyptian Jezraäl.

So fades
Star after star along the cypress glades,
Face after face from the rose-bowers: so song
After song dies the lonesome lawns along.
Each to his time! The revel and the rout
Lamp after lamp, mask after mask, go out;
Still for new singers the old songs to sing
In the same place to the same lute-playing:
Still for new dancers, to new tunes the same
Dance dancing ever, to take up the game
All lose in turn.

Another time begins.
New passions, and new pleasures, and new sins,
For ever the old failure in new forms;
To fashion a metropolis for worms
And write in dust man's moral!

Meanwhile, where
Hides Muzufer? what doth he? how doth fare?
How fares the small sunshiny insect thing
That feeds on death and in the beam doth sing,
When quench'd the beam, and stopp'd the moment's play?
Nature both brings to birth and sweeps away
Myriads of minims such: whose souls minute
For loss or gain doth Heaven or Hell compute?
Please they, or tease they, how shall Fate devise
Fit retribution for dead butterflies?

Then, Power being changed, the changeful people went,
And from the noisome pit where he was pent
Drew forth blind Isaac.

Seven black years of night
Clung to him, and kept him cold in the sun's light.
For he had grown to hold familiar talk
With newts and creeping things,—long wont to walk
About him in the silent dark down there,
Which he would miss henceforth. He was aware
Of little else. And it was hard to him
To understand (so very faint and dim
To his dull memory were the former times)
Why the great world, intent upon its crimes
And pleasures, was at pains to take him back
Unto itself, from that oblivion black,
Where he, the loveless man of long ago,

Had learn'd to love, what men abhor—the slow
Soft-footed dwellers of the dark. He had
So lost the habitude of being glad,
And all the strength of it, that, tho' thrice o'er
New friends explain'd to him his joy, no more
Than one born deaf and dumb he seem'd to find
A meaning to the matter in his mind.
So, passively, he yielded to the crowd
That robed him, crown'd him, and proclaim'd aloud
Him only the true Cæsar.

VI.TWO BLIND MEN.

Now once more
Proud to up-prop all Power, those lions four,
Subservient, their broad blazing backs upon
The bright floor crouch, beneath the throne whereon
Blind Isaac sits; with fumbling hand, in dull
Delaying doubt, to affix the golden bull
And great sign manual, by the Barons claim'd,
To that high treaty with Alexius framed
In Zara.

Which to place in those weak hands,
Blind Dandalo before blind Isaac stands.
Two grey old men, and sightless each. The one
Sits robed in royal state on sumptuous throne,
Distinguisht by the imperial diadem
And purple mantle proud with many a gem;

And sees them not: but, in himself, doth gaze
On darkness, gloomy death, and guilty days.
The other, by long noble labours marr'd,
With august brows by battle thunder scarr'd,
Stands,—mark'd to sight by honourable soils
Of his yet recent self-regardless toils;
And sees them not: but, in himself, doth see
The bright beginnings of great days to be,
And glory never dying.

VII.THE DOGE IS OBSTINATE.

After this,
In the Cathedral (as old custom is)
On battle shield, in purple buskins, borne,
And vermeil robe, by new-made Cæsars worn,
The young Alexius, in full pomp and state
Of sovran power, supreme beneath the great
Imperial ensign's eagle wings unfurl'd,
Receives high homage of one half a world.

Which things accomplisht; and a month or more
Of pageant and carousal being o'er
(Whose swiftly-sliding and soft-footed hours
Slipp'd unsuspected by, mid myrtle bowers,
From porphyry palaces) the Red Cross lords,
Yawning, with listless looks down their long swords,

As banquet after banquet pall'd on them,
Cry . . . “Now for Joppa and Jerusalem!”

The new-made Emperor still their presence prays
And added aid, with promised guerdon: says
Need yet remains to heal by wholesome arts
The much-hurt empire,—all the popular parts
Bind up in single, and compact the state;
Which tasks more time: hints vaguely hindrance great;
Claims to appease, and scruples nice to weigh;
Funds hard to find; grave causes for delay;
With promise fair of further profit still,
Thereby implied.

“The Treaty, sign'd, fulfil
First, Emperor of the East,” said Dandalo.

VIII.VERTIGO.

Alas, that in this world 'tis ever so!
For men might be as gods, if it were not
That greed of power goes mad from power got.
Who stands upon the pinnacle, as 'twere,
Of Greatness,—seeing, hearing, everywhere
About himself the dazzling orb spin round,
Turns dizzy at the sight and at the sound,
And tumbles from the top to the abyss.
Of all high places this the danger is:—
—That those who stand there needs must gaze beneath,

Till they wax desperate; being wooed to death
By depth; from whose black clutch some point of sight
Above them seen, if such there were,—some height
Higher than theirs,—whereon to fix their eyes,
Might haply save them. But this Heaven denies.
And, seeing that, of Emperors and Kings,
The Scribe of Judgment (who plucks out his wings
To write their histories o'er and o'er again,
Leaving meanwhile the lives of meaner men
To kind oblivion) doth record to us
So many monsters, so few virtuous,
What wonder if some weary souls suppose
That 'tis perchance the thing itself (who knows?)
Time cannot cure: the nature of the thing,
Not of the man: the kingship, not the king?

Howe'er that be, Alexius, now made strong
By rights restored, forthwith wax'd weak by wrong
Renew'd: and palter'd both with his allies
And with his people; teasing each with lies,
And fronting bothways with a double face.
Thus, since, with reason shrewd, the populace
Look'd coldly, and askance, on power restored
By foreign arms, the frighten'd Prince ignored
Those foreign friends to whom he owed his throne:
Carp'd at their claims, and did his oath disown.
For heedless Hope in misery oft is fain
To mortgage more of gratitude for gain

Than, in possession, frugal Memory yields
Her clamorous claimant, from full harvest fields.
But since, withal, he fear'd the people too,
He plotted still, and still desired (untrue
To all alike) by foreign arms kept still
Still, too, to keep in check the people's will.
Till foes, thus finding friends in friends turn'd foes,
Said, “Power is powerless.”

IX.A DARK DEED.

Then one night uprose
Myrtillus, the one-eyebrow'd, in the dark
(Mark'd out for mischief by the devil's mark
Across his squinting double-minded eyes)
And seized on the Boy-Emperor by surprise
And treason foul, in unsuspecting sleep;
Whom, having plunged him down a dungeon deep,
Six times with hell-brew'd hebanon he tried
To poison. But the Prince, because he died
That way too slowly, being young and hard
Of life, 'tis said, was strangled afterward.
No need to strangle Isaac. Soon as told
Of what was done, he did his mantle fold
Across his brows, and said, “This was to be
Because of my great sins that follow me.”
And that same night he died.

The morrow morn,
On battle shield, in purple buskins, borne,
Myrtillus men crown'd Emperor.

X.THE FULNESS OF TIME.

Dandalo
Said then . . . . “The time is come, which long ago
I saw in Zara. Who eschew the good
Must choose the evil. Drunk with brawl and blood,
This Empire reels upon her downward road;
Corrupt at home, contemptible abroad.
Devilish, she would be godlike without God:
Godless, would rule, who needs, herself, the rod:
And deems, not being good, she can be great:
—Great, without one great man, i' the face of Fate!
The singular tyrant breeds the general slave,
And shameless citizens shamed cities have.
The time is now, and ours the hands, O friends,
To sweep this rubbish hence, and make amends
To earth, too long encumber'd with the same.
—To arms, for all men's sake, and in God's name!”

So, down before the iron Occident
The guilty golden-crownèd Orient went.

Because those Powers that make, and break, and keep,
And cast away—Spirits that in the deep

And toilful stithy of that underground
Grey miner, Nature, with unheeded sound
Monotonously hammer, heave, and beat,
And bend with blow on blow, and heat on heat,
The pliant world to every shape it wears,
Upon the stubborn anvils of the years—
—Said to each other “Break we up this Past!”
And suddenly one half a world was cast
Into the furnace, to be forged anew.

XI.THE HORSES OF LYSIPPUS.

At midnight, in the murtherous streets, the dew
Was blood-red, and the heavens were hurt with sound
Of shriek and wail the ransack'd region round.
So that men heard not, in the Hippodrome,
Those Four Bronze Horses, that had come from Rome,
In conference, talking each to each.

One said
“Our purple-mantled master, Power, is fled.
And how shall We Four fare? Let us away
Thro' the thick night! For ever since the day
We follow'd that great Western Cæsar home
To grace the glories of Augustine Rome,
We Four have felt no hand upon our manes
Less great than theirs, who grasp the golden reins
Of Empire; they behind whose chariot wheel
Yet-burning ruts their fervid course reveal,

Who rode the rolling world. We also, when
Power pass'd from Rome, his car drew here again,
And carried Conquest in his course divine
From West to East, to dwell with Constantine.
But now is Power departed, who knows where?
Out of the East!”

So spake that voice in air.
The others answer'd “Whither shall we go?
Our master being gone? For who doth know
Where we may find him?”

XII.AND THE LION OF ST. MARK.

Listening in the dark,
To these replied the Lion of St. Mark.
“Power rideth on my wings. Come also ye
Whither I go, across the vassal sea.
And let us bear with us, to please him well,
Beauty, the spouse of Power. And we will dwell
Together.”

Then they answer'd “Even so,
Lion! and where thou goest, we will go.”

So those Five Beasts went forth. And took with them
Power, and Beauty. For whose diadem
They also brought great store of precious things,
And gather'd graven gems in golden rings,
And carved and colour'd stones, to be the dower

Of Beauty and the heritage of Power:
Clear agate cups and vases crystalline,
Porphyry, and syenite, and serpentine,
Obsidion, alabaster: statues fair
Of lucid gods: garments of richness rare:
And gold, and bronze, and silver: turkis blue
As Venus' veins: and rubies red in hue
As Adon's lips: and jasper, onyx, opal.

In this way Venice took Constantinople.

END OF BOOK VI.