CONSTANTINOPLE
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mpire of the East! Byzantium! Constantinople! The Golden City ofthe World. A crystal fixed in aquamarines; a jewel-box set down in aseaside garden. All the seas are as blue as Spring lupins, and thereare so many seas. Look where you please, forward, back, or down,there is water. The deep blue water of crisp ripples, the long lightshimmer of flat undulations, the white glare, smoothing into purple,of a sun-struck ebb. The Bosphorus winds North to the Black Sea.The Golden Horn curves into the Sweet Waters. The edge of the cityswerves away from the Sea of Marmora. Aquamarines, did I say?Sapphires, beryls, lapis-lazuli, amethysts, and felspar. Whateverstones there are, bluer than gentians, bluer than cornflowers, bluerthan asters, bluer than periwinkles. So blue that the city must begolden to complement the water. A geld city, shimmering andsimmering, starting up like mica from the green of lemon trees, andolives, and cypresses. Gold! Gold! Walls and columns covered with gold. Domes of churchesresplendent with gold. Innumerable statues of "bronze fairer thanpure gold," and courts paved with golden tiles. Beyond the white androse-coloured walls of Saint Sophia, the city rounds for fourteengreat miles; fourteen miles of onychite, and porphyry, and marble;fourteen miles of colonnades, and baths, and porticoes; fourteenmiles of gay, garish, gaudy, glaring gold. Why, even the Imperial_triremes_ in the harbour have gold embroidered gonfalons, and thedolphins, ruffling out of the water between them, catch the colourand dive, each a sharp cutting disk-edge of yellow flame. It is the same up above, where statues spark like stars jutted from amid-day sky. There are golden Emperors at every crossing, and goldenVirgins crowding every church-front. And, in the centre of the greatHippodrome, facing the _triremes_ and the leaping dolphins, is a finechariot of Corinthian brass. Four horses harnessed to a gilded_quadriga_. The horses pace evenly forward, in a moment they will betrampling upon space, facing out to sea on the currents of themorning breeze. But their heads are arched and checked, gracefullythey pause, one leg uplifted, seized and baffled by the arrestedmovement. They are the horses of Constantine, brought from Rome, sopeople say, buzzing in the Augustaion. "Fine horses, hey?" "A goodbreed, Persia from the look of them, though they're a bit thick inthe barrel for the horses they bring us from there." "They bring ustheir worst, most likely." "Oh, I don't know, we buy pretty well.Why, only the other day I gave a mint of money for a cargo ofEgyptian maize." "Lucky dog, you'll make on that, with all theharvest here ruined by the locusts." It is a pretty little wind which plays along the sides of the gildedhorses, a coquettish little sea wind, blowing and listing and finallydropping away altogether and going to sleep in a plane-tree behindthe Hippodrome. Constantinople is a yellow honey-comb, with fat bees buzzing in allits many-sided cells. Bees come over the flower-blue seas; beeshumming from the Steppes of Tartary, from the long line of Nile-fedEgypt. Tush! What would you! Where there is gold there are alwaysmen about it; to steal it, to guard it, to sit and rot under itslotus-shining brilliance. The very army is woven of threads drawnfrom the edges of the world. Byzantines are merchantmen, they rolland flounder in the midst of gold coins, they tumble and wallow inmoney-baths, they sit and chuckle under a continuous money-spray.And ringed about them is the army, paid to shovel back the scatteringgold pieces: Dalmatians with swords and arrows; Macedonians withsilver belts and gilt shields; Scholarii, clad in rose-colouredtunics; Varangians, shouldering double battle-axes. When they walk,the rattle of them can be heard pattering back from every wall anddoorway. It clacks and cracks even in the Copper Market, above theclang of cooking pots and the wrangling whine of Jewish traders.Constantinople chatters, buzzes, screams, growls, howls, squeals,snorts, brays, croaks, screeches, crows, neighs, gabbles, purrs,hisses, brawls, roars, shouts, mutters, calls, in every sort ofcrochet and demi-semi-quaver, wavering up in a great contrapuntalmurmur--adagio, maestoso, capriccioso, scherzo, staccato, crescendo,vivace, veloce, brio--brio--brio!! A racket of dissonance, a hubbubof harmony. Chords? Discords? Answer: Byzantium! People pluck the strings of rebecks and psalteries; they shock thecords of lyres; they batter tin drums, and shatter the guts ofkettle-drums when the Emperor goes to Saint Sophia to worship at analtar of precious stones fused into a bed of gold and silver, and, ashe walks up the nave between the columns of green granite, and thecolumns of porphyry, under the golden lily on the Octagonal Tower,the bells pour their notes over the roofs, spilling them in singlejets down on each side of the wide roofs. Drip--drip--drip--out oftheir hearts of beaten bronze, slipping and drowning in the noise ofthe crowds clustered below. On the top of the Hippodrome, the bronze horses trot toward thelupin-coloured Sea of Marmora, slowly, without moving; and, behindthem, the spokes of the _quadriga_ wheels remain separate and single,with the blue sky showing between each one. What a city is this, builded of gold and alabaster, with myrtle androses strewn over its floors, and doors of embossed silver openingupon golden trees where jewelled birds sing clock-work notes, andfountains flow from the beaks of silver eagles. All this splendourcooped within the fourteen miles of a single city, forsooth! InBritain, they sit under oaken beams; in France, they eat withhunting-knives; in Germany, men wear coats of their wives' weaving.In Italy--but there is a Pope in Italy! The bronze horses pause onthe marble Hippodrome, and days blow over them, brushing their sideslike wind. It is May eleventh in Constantinople, and the Spring-blue sea shiverslike a field of lupins run over by a breeze. Every tree and shrubspouted over every garden-wall flouts a chromatic sequence of greens.A long string of camels on the Bridge of Justinian moves, black andostrich-like, against the sheen of water. A swallow sheers past thebronze horses and drops among the pillars on top of the curve of theHippodrome; the great cistern on the Spina reflects a speckless sky.It is race-day in Constantinople, and the town is turned out upon thebenches of the Hippodrome, waiting for the procession to begin."Hola! You fellows on the top tier, do you see anything?" "Nothingyet, but I hear music." "Music! Oh, Lord! I should think you did.Clear the flagged course there, the procession is coming." "Down infront. Sit down, you." "Listen. Oh, dear, I'm so fidgety. If theGreen doesn't win, I'm out a fortune." "Keep still, will you, wecan't hear the music, you talk so loud." "Here they come! Green!Green! Green! Drown those Blues over there. Oh, Green, I say!" Away beyond, through the gates, flageolets are squealing, andtrumpets are splitting their brass throats and choking over thesound. Patter--patter--patter--horses' hoofs on flagstones. Theyare coming under the paved arch. There is the President of the Gamesin a tunic embroidered with golden palm-branches; there is theEmperor in his pearl-lappeted cap, and his vermilion buskins; andhere are the racers--Green--Blue--driving their chariots, easilystanding in their high-wheeled chariots. The sun whitens the knivesin their girdles, the reins flash in the sun like ribbons of spunglass. Three-year-olds in the Green chariot, so black they are blue.Four blue-black horses, with the sheen of their flanks glisteninglike the grain of polished wood. The little ears point forward,their teeth tease the bits. They snort and jerk, and the chariotwheels quirk over an outstanding stone and jolt down, flat andrumbling. The Blue chariot-driver handles a team of greys, white asthe storks who nest in the cemetery beyond the Moslem quarter. Hegathers up his reins, and the horses fall back against the pole,clattering, then fling forward, meet the bit, rear up, and swinginward, settling gradually into a nervous jigging as they followround the course. "Blue! Blue! Go for him, Blue!" from the NorthCorner. "Hurrah for the Blue! Blue to Eternity!" Slowly theprocession winds round the Spina, and the crowd stands up on theseats and yells and cheers and waves handkerchiefs, sixty thousandvoices making such a noise that only the high screaming of theflageolets can be heard above it. The horses toss and twitch, theharness jingles, and the gilded eggs and dolphins on the Spinacoruscate in versicoloured stars. Above the Emperor's balcony, the bronze horses move quietly forward,and the sun outlines the great muscles of their lifted legs. They have reached the Grand Stand again, and the chariots are shutand barred in their stalls. The multitude, rustling as though theywere paper being folded, settles down into their seats. ThePresident drops a napkin, the bars are unlocked, and the chariots ina double rush take the straight at top speed, Blue leading, Greensaving up for the turn at the curve. Round the three cones at theend, Blue on one wheel, Green undercutting him. Blue turns wide toright himself, takes the outside course and flashes up the long edgeso that you cannot count two till he curves again. Down to the GreenCorner, Blue's off horses slipping just before the cones, one hitsthe pole, loses balance and falls, drags a moment, catches his feetas the chariot slows for the circle, gathers, plunges, and lunges upand on, while the Greens on the benches groan and curse. But theblack team is worse off, the inside near colt has got his leg over atrace. Green checks his animals, the horse kicks free, but Bluelicks past him on the up way, and is ahead at the North turn by awheel length. Green goes round, flogging to make up time. Two eggsand dolphins gone, three more to go. The pace has been slow so far,now they must brace up. Bets run high, screamed out above the rumbleof the chariots. "Ten on the Green." "Odds fifty for the Blue.""Double mine; those greys have him." "The blacks, the blacks, layyou a hundred to one the blacks beat." Down, round, up, round, down,so fast they are only dust puffs, one can scarcely see which iswhich. The horses are badly blown now, and the drivers yell to them,and thrash their churning flanks. The course is wet with sweat andblood, the wheels slide over the wet course. Green negotiates theSouth curve with his chariot sideways; Blue skids over to the flaggedway and lames a horse on the stones. The Emperor is on his feet,staring through his emerald spy-glass. Once more round for the lastegg and dolphin. Down for the last time, Blue's lame horse delayshim, but he flays him with the whip and the Green Corner finds themabreast. The Greens on the seats burst upstanding. "Too far out!Well turned!" "The Green's got it!" "Well done, Hirpinus!" TheGreen driver disappears up the long side to the goal, waving hisright hand, but Blue's lame horse staggers, stumbles, and goes down,settling into the dust with a moan. Vortex of dust, strugglinghorses, golden glitter of the broken chariot. "Overthrown, by theHoly Moses! And hurt too! Well, well, he did his best, that beastalways looked skittish to me." "Is he dead, do you think? They'vegot the litter." "Most likely. Green! Green! See, they'recrowning him. Green and the people! Oh-hé! Green!" Cool and imperturbable, the four great gilt horses slowly pace abovethe marble columns of the Grand Stand. They gaze out upon thelupin-blue water beyond the Southern curve. Can they see the Islandof Corfu from up there, do you think? There are vessels at theIsland of Corfu waiting to continue a journey. The great horses trotforward without moving, and the dust of the race-track sifts overthem and blows away. Constantinople from the Abbey of San Stefano: bubbles of opal andamber thrust up in a distant sky, pigeon-coloured nebulæ closing theend of a long horizon. Tilting to the little waves of a harbour, thegood ships _Aquila_, _Paradiso_, _Pellegrina_, leaders of a fleet ofgalleys: _dromi_, _hippogogi_, vessels carrying timber for turrets,strong vessels holding mangonels. Proud vessels under an ancientDoge, keeping Saint John's Day at the Abbey of San Stefano, withinsight of Constantinople. Knights in blue and crimson inlaid armour clank up and down thegang-planks of the vessels. Flags and banners flap loosely at themast-heads. There is the banner of Baldwin of Flanders, the standardof Louis of Blois, the oriflamme of Boniface of Montferrat, thepennon of Hugh, Count of Saint Paul, and last, greatest, the gonfalonof Saint Mark, dripped so low it almost touches the deck, with thelion of Venice crumpled in its windless folds. Saint John's Day, and High Mass in the Abbey of San Stefano. Theyneed God's help who would pass over the double walls and the fourhundred towers of Constantinople. _Te Deum Laudamus!_ The armouredknights make the sign of the cross, lightly touching the crimson andazure devices on their breasts with mailed forefingers. South wind to the rescue; that was a good mass. "Boatswain, what'sthe direction of that cat's-paw, veering round a bit? Good." Fifty vessels making silver paths in the Summer-blue Sea of Marmora.Fifty vessels passing the Sweet Waters, blowing up the Bosphorus. Strike your raucous gongs, City of Byzantium. Run about like antsbetween your golden palaces. These vessels are the chalices of God'swrath. The spirit of Christ walking upon the waters. Or is itanti-Christ? This is the true Church. Have we not the stone onwhich Jacob slept, the rod which Moses turned into a serpent, aportion of the bread of the Last Supper? We are the Virgin's chosenabiding place; why, the picture which Saint Luke painted of her is inour keeping. We have pulled the sun's rays from the statue ofConstantine and put up the Cross instead. Will that bring usnothing? Cluster round the pink and white striped churches, throngthe alabaster churches, fill the naves with a sound of chanting.Strike the terror-gongs and call out the soldiers, for even now theplumed knights are disembarking, and the snarling of their trumpetsmingles with the beating of the gongs. The bronze horses on the Hippodrome, harnessed to the gilded_quadriga_, step forward slowly. They proceed in a measured cadence.They advance without moving. There are lights and agitation in thecity, but the air about the horses has the violet touch of night. Now, now, you crossbowmen and archers, you go first. Stand along thegunwales and be ready to jump. Keep those horses still there, don'tlet them get out of order. Lucky we thought of the hides. Theirdamnable Greek fire can't hurt us now. Up to the bridge, knights.Three of you abreast, on a level with the towers. What's a shower ofarrows against armour! An honourable dint blotting out the head of aheron, half a plume sheared off a helmet so that it leers cock-eyedthrough the press. Tut! Tut! Little things, the way of war. Jar,jolt, mud--the knights clash together like jumbled chess-men, thenleap over the bridges.Confusion--contusion--raps--bangs--lurches--blows--battle-axesthumping on tin shields; bolts bumping against leathern bucklers. "ABoniface to the Rescue!" "Baldwin forever!" "Viva San Marco!" Sucha pounding, pummelling, pitching, pointing, piercing, pushing,pelting, poking, panting, punching, parrying, pulling, prodding,puking, piling, passing, you never did see. Stones pour out of themangonels; arrows fly thick as mist. Swords twist against swords,bill-hooks batter bill-hooks, staves rattle upon staves. One, two,five men up a scaling ladder. Chop down on the first, and he rollsoff the ladder with his skull in two halves; rip up the bowels of thesecond, he drips off the ladder like an overturned pail. But thethird catches his adversary between the legs with a pike and pitcheshim over as one would toss a truss of hay. Way for the three laddermen! Their feet are on the tower, their plumes flower, argent andgold, above the muck of slaughter. From the main truck of the shipsthere is a constant seeping of Venetians over the walls ofConstantinople. They flow into the city, they throw themselves uponthe beleaguered city. They smash her defenders, and crash hersoldiers to mere bits of broken metal. Byzantines, Copts, Russians, Persians, Armenians, Moslems, the greatarmy of the Franks is knocking at the gates of your towers. Open thegates. Open, open, or we will tear down your doors, and breach thetriple thickness of your walls. Seventeen burning boats indeed, andhave the Venetians no boat-hooks? They make pretty fireworks topleasure our knights of an evening when they come to sup with DogeDandolo. At night we will sleep, but in the morning we will killagain. Under your tents, helmeted knights; into your cabin, oldDoge. The stars glitter in the Sea of Marmora, and above the city,black in the brilliance of the stars, the great horses of Constantineadvance, pausing, blotting their shadows against the sprinkled sky. From June until September, the fracas goes on. The chanting ofmasses, the shouting of battle songs, sweep antiphonally overConstantinople. They blend and blur, but what is that lighttinkling? Tambourines? What is that snapping? Castanets? What isthat yellow light in the direction of the Saracen mosque? My God!Fire! Gold of metals, you have met your king. Ringed and crowned,he takes his place in the jewelled city. Gold of fire mounted uponall the lesser golds. The twin tongues of flame flaunt above thehousetops. Banners of scarlet, spears of saffron, spikes of rose andmelted orange. What are the little flags of the Crusaders to these!They clamoured for pay and won the elements. Over the Peninsula ofMarmora it comes. The whips of its fire-thongs lash the golden city.A conflagration half a league wide. Magnificent churches, splendidpalaces, great commercial streets, are burning. Golden domes meltand liquefy, and people flee from the dripping of them. Lakes ofgold lie upon the pavements; pillars crack and tumble, making damsand bridges over the hot gold. Two days, two nights, the fire rages,and through the roar of it the little cries of frightened birds comethin and pitiful. Earth pleading with fire. Earth begging quarterof the awful majesty of fire. The birds wheel over Constantinople;they perch upon the cool bronze horses standing above the Hippodrome.The quiet horses who wait and advance. This is not their fire, theytrample on the luminousness of flames, their strong hind legs plantthem firmly on the marble coping. They watch the falling of thefire, they gaze upon the ruins spread about them, and the pungence ofcharred wood brushes along their tarnished sides like wind. The Franks have made an Emperor and now the Greeks have murdered him.The Doge asks for fifty _centenaria_ in gold to pay his sailors. Whowill pay, now that the Emperor is dead? Declare a siege and payyourselves, Count, and Marquis, and Doge. Set your ships bow tostern, a half a league of them. Sail up the Golden Horn, and attackthe walls in a hundred places. You fail to-day, but you will winto-morrow. Bring up your battering-rams and ballistæ; hurl stonesfrom your mangonels; run up your scaling ladders and across your skinbridges. Winter is over and Spring is in your veins. Your bloodmounts like sap, mount up the ladder after it. Two ships to a tower,and four towers taken. Three gates battered in. The city falls.Cruel saints, you have betrayed your votaries. Even the relic of theVirgin's dress in the Panhagia of Blachernæ has been useless. Theknights enter Byzantium, and their flickering pennants are theflamelets of a new conflagration. Fire of flesh burning in the bloodof the populace. They would make the sign of the cross, would they,so that the Franks may spare them? But the sap is up in the Frankishveins, the fire calls for fuel. Blood burns to who will ignite it.The swords itch for the taste of entrails, the lances twitch at sightof a Byzantine. Feed, Fire! Here are men, and women, and children,full of blood for the relish of your weapons. Spring sap, how manywomen! Good Frankish seed for the women of Byzantium. Blood andlust, you shall empty yourselves upon the city. Your swords shallexhaust themselves upon these Greeks. Your hands shall satisfythemselves with gold. Spit at the priests. This is the Greekchurch, not ours. Grab the sacred furniture of the churches,fornicate upon the high altar of Saint Sophia, and load the jewelsupon the donkeys you have driven into the church to receive them.Old pagan Crusaders, this is the Orgy of Spring! Lust and blood, thebirthright of the world. The bright, shining horses tread upon the clean coping of theHippodrome, and the Sea of Marmora lies before them like a lupinfield run over by a breeze. What are you now, Constantinople? A sacked city; and the tale ofyour plundering shall outdo the tale of your splendours for wonder.Three days they pillage you. Burmese rubies rattle in the pockets ofcommon soldiers. The golden tree is hacked to bits and carried offby crossbowmen. An infantry sergeant hiccoughs over the wine hedrinks from an altar cup. The knights live in palaces and dip theirplumes under the arch of the Emperor's bed-chamber. In the Sea of Marmora, the good ships _Aquila_, _Paradiso_,_Pellegrina_ swing at anchor. The _dromi_ and _hippogogi_ ride freeand empty. They bob to the horses high above them on the Hippodrome.They dance to the rhythmic beat of hammers floating out to them fromthe city of Constantinople. Throb--throb--a dying pulse counts its vibrations. Throb--throb--andeach stroke means a gobbet of gold. They tear it down from the wallsand doors, they rip it from ceilings and pry it up from floors. Theychip it off altars, they rip it out of panels, they hew it fromobelisks, they gouge it from enamels. This is a death dance, awhirligig, a skeleton city footing a jig, a tarantella quirked tohammer-stroke time; a corpse in motley ogling a crime.Tap--tap--tap--goes the pantomime. Grinning devils watch church cutting the throat of church. Chucklinggargoyles in France, in Britain, rub their stomachs and squeezethemselves together in an ecstasy of delight. Ho! Ho! MarquisBoniface, Count Hugh, Sieur Louis. What plunder do you carry home?What relics do you bring to your Gothic cathedrals? The head ofSaint Clement? The arm of John the Baptist? A bit of the wood ofthe True Cross? Statues are only so much metal, but these aretreasures worth fighting for. Fighting, quotha! Murdering,stealing. The Pope will absolve you, only bring him home a tear ofChrist, and you will see. A tear of Christ! _Eli, Eli, lamasabachthani!_ Oh, pitiful world! Pitiful knights in your inlaidarmour! Pitiful Doge, preening himself in the Palace of Blachernæ! Above the despoiled city, the Corinthian horses trot calmly forward,without moving, and the _quadriga_ behind them glitters in the sun. People have blood, but statues have gold, and silver, and bronze.Melt them! Melt them! "Gee! Haw!" Guide the oxen carefully. Fouroxen to drag the head of Juno to the furnace. White oxen totransport Minerva; fawn-coloured oxen for the colossal Hercules ofLysippus. Pour them into the furnaces so that they run out mere softmetal ripe for coining. Two foot-sergeants get as much as ahorse-sergeant, and two horse-sergeants as much as a knight. Flattenout Constantinople. Raze her many standing statues, shave theAugustaion to a stark stretch of paving-stones. Melt the bones ofbeauty, indomitable Crusaders, and pay the Venetians fifty thousandsilver marks as befits an honest company of dedicated gentlemen. "The Doge wants those horses, does he? Just as they are, unmelted?Holy Saint Christopher, what for? Pity he didn't speak sooner, Isent Walter the Smith to cut the gold off them this morning, but itsticks like the very devil and he hasn't done much. Well, well, theDoge can have them. A man with a whim must be given way to,particularly when he owns all the ships. How about that gildedchariot?" "Oh, he can't manage that. Just the horses. You were ina mighty hurry with that cutting, it seems to me. You've made themlook like zebras, and he'll not like that. He's a bit of aconnoisseur in horse-flesh, even if he does live in the water. Wantsto mate them to the dolphins probably, and go a-campaigning astrideof fishes. Ha! Ha! Ha!" "Steady there, lower the horses carefully, they are for the Doge."One--one--one--one--down from the top of the Hippodrome.One--one--one--one--on ox-carts rumbling toward the water's edge, inboats rowing over the lupin-coloured sea. Great horses, trot calmlyon your sides, roll quietly to the heaving of the bright sea. Aboveyou, sails go up, anchors are weighed. The gonfalon of Saint Markflings its extended lion to the freshening wind. To Venice,_Aquila_, _Paradiso_, _Pellegrina_, with your attendant _dromi_! ToVenice! Over the running waves of the Spring-blue sea. _BENEATH A CROOKED RAINBOW_ _As the seasons of Earth are Fire, so are the seasons of men. Thedeparture of Fire is a change, and the coming of Fire is a greaterchange. Demand not that which is over, but acclaim what is still tocome. So the Earth builds up her cities, and falls upon them withweeds and nettles; and Water flows over the orchards of pastcenturies. On the sand-hills shall apple trees flourish, and in thewater-courses shall be gathered a harvest of plums. Earth, Air, andWater abide in fluctuation. But man, in the days between his birthand dying, fashions metals to himself, and they are without heat orcold. In the Winter solstice, they are not altered like the Air, norhardened like the Water, nor shrivelled like the Earth, and the heatsof Summer bring them no burgeoning. Therefore are metals outside theelements. Between melting and melting they are beyond the Water, andapart from the Earth, and severed from the Air. Fire alone is ofthem, and master. Withdrawn from Fire, they dwell in isolation._
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