Phoenician Myths by Zeljko Prodanovic (great reads .txt) 📕

me now sing you something,’ he said, took the balalaika into his hands and started singing:

Has anyone, dear god, travelled such a long way
Wandering from bad to worse, like me!
Beside the roads, instead of birches
My spurs swing…

Has anyone else, mother, lost so many battles
Yet went into a fight with no fear, like me!
Beside the roads, instead of birches
My spears swing…

And who else, black earth, died so many times
But each time rose from the dead, like me!
Beside the roads, instead of birches
My graves swing…

Here he halted and smiled at us lightly, and Rocinante, moved by this sorrowful song, dropped a tear.
‘You see what hell I went through,’ don Quixote said, ‘and yet some peace and some space under the sun I did not find.’
The donkey dropped another tear and then, as slowly as they had arrived, along the dusty road they departed Alcala de Henares.
We watched them for long time and when they disappeared over the white Castilian fields, Cervantes shook his head.
‘I have no doubt, my friend,’ he said, ‘that your eyes saw the same as mine – that was don Quixote, the famous knight of la Mancha and my hero. But, tell me, please… Was this reallity or dream?‘
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I replied. ‘After all, what is the difference?’
‘You’re right,’ the writer said and smiled, ‘what’s the difference!’
He then raised the glass. ‘Well, my dear Phoenician, cheers!’ he said. ‘I wish you all the best on your journey through time, and I am going to occupy myself with my story. For the beginning, I have that wonderful sentence: ‘Then don Quixote arrived, the famous knight of la Mancha!’
We laughed with boyish innocence, finished our beers, then parted forever.

The Court Jester

One day, when he saw cranes flying over Stratford with tears in their eyes, Shakespeare took out a sheet of paper and a quill, and with perfect peace of mind, began to write. But then, to his big surprise, Harry Hoffman came along, the actor from London better known as ‘Hamlet’.
‘So,’ the actor said, ‘I see it is not true that Shakespeare has left the quill forever and is now breeding geese, as the London gossip would have us believe. May I ask what the old master is writing – tragedy or comedy?’
‘My will,’ the poet replied quietly. ‘But tell me, Hamlet, what trouble has brought you to Stratford?’
‘My dear friend,’ the actor said, ‘I bring you joyful news – we have decided to publish your collected works!’
Shakespeare laughed. ‘So,’ he said, ‘nothing less but collected works.’
‘Yes, Shakespeare, we want to preserve the fruits of a brilliant brain for the future generations to enjoy!’
Shakespeare laughed again. ‘You have put that very nicely, Hamlet,’ he said, ‘but I think it is a very bad idea. And right now I shall write a will that nothing I have written is ever to be published, and that even my published works are to be burnt.‘
‘But Shakespeare!’ the actor shouted.
‘My dear Hamlet,’ the poet said quietly. ‘I have written some nice verses, that is true, and yet all that was gathering water with a sieve. You know what happened? While you were only playing all those creatures, I took all of it too seriously. In this absurd game I fancied that I was a king!
‘I strolled through London like a peacock, convinced that I was Caesar and that Brutus was waiting for me around the corner, with a sword in his hand. I was Mark Antony, craving Caesar’s death, so that I could conquer Egypt, and then Cleopatra as well. I was Richard III, Henry IV and Lear. I was Hamlet and you only played me awkwardly.
‘When I realized, one day, that I was not a king but a court jester and that all those years I did nothing but gather water with a sieve, I left London and came back to Stratford, to breed geese.’ He smiled and looked at the actor. ‘Vanity, my dear Hamlet,’ he added, ‘that’s all.’
‘Oh, Shakespeare,’ whispered the confused actor.
‘Therefore,’ the poet went on, ‘if you really want to do something for me, then do this… Make a play about me and name it: Shakespeare, the court jester. And in order to understand me the right way, I suggest that you play Shakespeare. I also suggest that you place the action in Phoenicia.’
‘Why in Phoenicia?’ the actor asked.
‘Because I am from Phoenicia,’ the poet replied. ‘So, the plot goes like this…
‘One day, young Shakespeare arrives at the court of the Phoenician king in Tyre. Fascinated with the beauty of the purple castle, he realizes that this is his world and that he has to stay there. He manages to secure the position of court jester and, using his angelic beauty and brilliant gift for acting – for lying, that is – he soon wins the favour of the queen herself, whom we shall call ‘queen of Baalbek’, in imitation of the famous queen of Sheba.
‘And indeed, one day our Shakespeare succeeds to dethrone the king and thus achieves an incredible feat – he is the first court jester in history to become king! Of course, the dethroning itself is the fruit of an exceptionally well-prepared plot, which, on the other hand, is nothing else but the fruit of brilliant Shakespeare’s brain.
‘Having thus finally achieved what he had been longing for, Shakespeare thinks, and with reason, that this extraordinary achievement deserves to be celebrated. He prepares such a feast as has never been seen at the Phoenician court before.
‘But when he awakes the next morning, he gets a very big surprise. He finds himself lying in his golden bed – in chains. ‘What kind of joke is this?’ he thinks. But when he looks up, he is even more surprised – above his head hangs a shiny Syrian sword, suspended by a single horse-hair. Here we will make use of the exciting story of Damocles from Syracuse.
‘Now to the stage comes the queen of Baalbek. With her is Adonis, the king’s nephew and her lover. Shakespeare, of course, immediately realizes his tragic fate: the absurd and dangerous desire to be what he was not and what he could never be, has brought him to death’s bosom.
‘ ‘The play is over, Shakespeare,’ the queen says and kisses him, and a tear drops out of her eye. Shakespeare smiles softly and then Adonis cuts the horse-hair with his golden sabre.’
‘But she tricked you, Shakespeare!’ the actor cried.
‘No, Hamlet,’ the poet reassured him, ‘I tricked her. The queen of Baalbek was – my soul.’
‘Now I don’t understand anything,’ Hamlet said.
‘And why do you think, Hamlet,’ the poet said, ‘that you need to understand everything? The beauty of life is precisely in the fact that we don’t know who we are, what we want, or where we go. We only play, like court jesters, gather water with a sieve and burn in the flame of our own delusions. When we burn out, it is a secret in the universe that burns out, and that’s all.’
They looked at each other for a while and then the poet smiled. ‘So, Hamlet,’ he said. ‘I wish you a nice journey home and a lot of success in the role of Shakespeare. And now I have to water the geese.’

The Advisor with the Hoof

‘Herr Mozart,’ the stranger said, ‘I apologize for troubling you at this time of the night. I will tell you straight away why I have come. I want to ask you to compose a requiem for our great friend, who will, in a few days time, pass his beautiful soul over to the cranes.’
‘I apologize if I am too curious,’ Mozart said, ‘but who is this ‘great friend’ of ours?’
‘Phoenix,’ the stranger replied, ‘the one who is always reborn and the only living Phoenician.’
For a moment Mozart was absorbed in his thoughts, trying to recall who that could be.
‘If you would allow me,’ the stranger said, ‘I can remind you of who Phoenix is.’
‘Certainly,’ the composer muttered.
‘If I am not mistaken, you are a Freemason,’ the stranger began. ‘And you must surely remember the day when you, in the Great Lodge of Salzburg, entered this holy order. You remember that you were then Hiram, the great master from Tyre, who had built Solomon’s temple. And you were certainly proud of being in the role of the great mason from Phoenicia, at least for a little while.
‘I don‘t doubt, either, that you know that the first ‘great master’ and teacher of all Freemasons was the Phoenician god Baal, the oldest of all gods.
‘When he saw how diligently the Phoenicians worked and how bravely they sailed the seas, Baal’s gentle heart swelled and a tear dropped out of his eye. From this tear Byblos was created, the first town ever to be built.
‘When the grateful Phoenicians built a temple on the other side of Lebanon and gave it the name Baalbek – the temple of god’s tear – Baal’s gentle heart swelled up again and he decided to give them an extraordinary gift. ‘The first child to be born in Byblos,’ he said, ‘shall always be reborn!’ As you may have guessed, it was our friend Phoenix, the only living Phoenician.’
‘How exciting!’ Mozart said and smiled innocently. ‘I apologize if I am curious again,’ he added, ‘but, who are you?’
‘That‘s a very interesting question,’ the stranger replied, ‘but a very complex one as well. I am, if you don’t mind – a satyr.
‘I was born in Phoenicia,’ he went on, ‘before the Flood, which, by the way, never happened. I am the illegitimate son of Alleluia, the one who brings the light, and his mistress Astarta, the beauty with a tear in her bosom. When I was born they named me Baalzebub, which in Phoenician means ‘the lord of the shades’, and some malicious folks changed it later into Beelzebub, ‘the lord of the frogs’.
‘Although my parents were of exceptional stature and beauty, the great shining eye trifled with me in a very awkward manner. As you can see, I have horns. My right eye is black and the other one green. And on my left leg, which is shorter than the right, I have a hoof.
‘I left Phoenicia a long time ago and for some centuries drifted over Europe. A few years ago I started working for the great alchemist from Weimar, Goethe. He is writing a play about a certain doctor Faust, who allegedly sold his soul to the devil.
‘As I said, I met Goethe in a tavern in Heidelberg while I was gambling with some crooks. When