Terror of Constantinople by Blake Richard

Author:Blake, Richard [Blake, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Hewer Text UK Ltd
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2010-01-20T16:00:00+00:00

Wasted thus by death on death

All our city perisheth.

Corpses spread infection round;

None to tend or mourn is found.

One voice became two, and then a dozen, and then hundreds. Almost at once, in a rolling blaze of sound that united all parts of the Circus beyond the Senatorial Terrace, the words continued to their conclusion:

Golden child of Zeus, O hear

Let thine angel face appear!

There is no public theatre in Constantinople. Even so, the old plays do get a regular airing in the Circus. They’re put on in afternoon sessions during the hot summer months, when it’s too hot for racing, or there are no executions left over from the morning.

This, by the way, comes from Oedipus the King, and is part of the long opening cry of the Chorus for salvation from the curse that is destroying Thebes. Bearing in mind how circuitously both Thebes and Constantinople were saved, these lines had a new irony that I don’t think was lost on the crowd.

And they saved Phocas.

As the recital ended, the crowd sat back and broke out into a chatter of mutual compliments on how educated everyone was. The embarrassment wasn’t forgotten. There might yet be another crisis but for the moment the tension was broken. The stormclouds had wafted away on a gust of hot breath and pedantic self-praise.

I saw Theophanes turn to the herald.

The herald stood forward again. ‘O Most Excellent and Erudite People of the City,’ he cried, ‘we have suffered grievously from the barbarians.’

He quoted further from Oedipus:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.