Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) ๐
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The young king spoke warmly and bitterly; and, in the irritation of his thoughts, strode, while he spoke, with rapid and irregular strides along the chamber. Almamen marked his emotion with an eye and lip of rigid composure.
โLight of the faithful,โ said he, when Boabdil had concluded, โthe powers above never doom man to perpetual sorrow, nor perpetual joy: the cloud and the sunshine are alike essential to the heaven of our destinies; and if thou hast suffered in thy youth, thou hast exhausted the calamities of fate, and thy manhood will be glorious, and thine age serene.โ
โThou speakest as if the armies of Ferdinand were not already around my walls,โ said Boabdil, impatiently.
โThe armies of Sennacherib were as mighty,โ answered Almamen.
โWise seer,โ returned the king, in a tone half sarcastic and half solemn, โwe, the Mussulmans of Spain, are not the blind fanatics of the Eastern world. On us have fallen the lights of philosophy and science; and if the more clear-sighted among us yet outwardly reverence the forms and fables worshipped by the multitude, it is from the wisdom of policy, not the folly of belief. Talk not to me, then, of thine examples of the ancient and elder creeds: the agents of God for this world are now, at least, in men, not angels; and if I wait till Ferdinand share the destiny of Sennacherib, I wait only till the Standard of the Cross wave above the Vermilion Towers.โ
โYet,โ said Almamen, โwhile my lord the king rejects the fanaticism of belief, doth he reject the fanaticism of persecution? You disbelieve the stories of the Hebrews; yet you suffer the Hebrews themselves, that ancient and kindred Arabian race, to be ground to the dust, condemned and tortured by your judges, your informers, your soldiers, and your subjects.โ
โThe base misers! they deserve their fate,โ answered Boabdil, loftily. โGold is their god, and the market-place their country; amidst the tears and groans of nations, they sympathise only with the rise and fall of trade; and, the thieves of the universe! while their hand is against every manโs coffer, why wonder that they provoke the hand of every man against their throats? Worse than the tribe of Hanifa, who eat their god only in time of famine;โ[The tribe of Hanifa worshipped a lump of dough]โthe race of Moisaโ[Moses]โwould sell the Seven Heavens for the dent on the back of the date-stone.โโ[A proverb used in the Koran, signifying the smallest possible trifle].
โYour laws leave them no ambition but that of avarice,โ replied Almamen; โand as the plant will crook and distort its trunk, to raise its head through every obstacle to the sun, so the mind of man twists and perverts itself, if legitimate openings are denied it, to find its natural element in the gale of power, or the sunshine of esteem. These Hebrews were not traffickers and misers in their own sacred land when they routed your ancestors, the Arab armies of old; and gnawed the flesh from their bones in famine, rather than yield a weaker city than Granada to a mightier force than the holiday lords of Spain. Let this pass. My lord rejects the belief in the agencies of the angels; doth he still retain belief in the wisdom of mortal men?โ
โYes!โ returned Boabdil, quickly; โfor of the one I know nought; of the other, mine own senses can be the judge. Almamen, my fiery kinsman, Muza, hath this evening been with me. He hath urged me to reject the fears of my people, which chain my panting spirit within these walls; he hath urged me to gird on yonder shield and cimiter, and to appear in the Vivarrambla, at the head of the nobles of Granada. My heart leaps high at the thought! and if I cannot live, at least I will dieโa king!โ
โIt is nobly spoken,โ said Almamen, coldly.
โYou approve, then, my design?โ
โThe friends of the king cannot approve the ambition of the king to die.โ
โHa!โ said Boabdil, in an altered voice, โthou thinkest, then, that I am doomed to perish in this struggle?โ
โAs the hour shall be chosen, wilt thou fall or triumph.โ
โAnd that hour?โ
โIs not yet come.โ
โDost thou read the hour in the stars?โ
โLet Moorish seers cultivate that frantic credulity: thy servant sees but in the stars worlds mightier than this little earth, whose light would neither wane nor wink, if earth itself were swept from the infinities of space.โ
โMysterious man!โ said Boabdil; โwhence, then, is thy power?โwhence thy knowledge of the future?โ
Almamen approached the king, as he now stood by the open balcony.
โBehold!โ said he, pointing to the waters of the Darroโโyonder stream is of an element in which man cannot live nor breathe: above, in the thin and impalpable air, our steps cannot find a footing, the armies of all earth cannot build an empire. And yet, by the exercise of a little art, the fishes and the birds, the inhabitants of the air and the water, minister to our most humble wants, the most common of our enjoyments; so it is with the true science of enchantment. Thinkest thou that, while the petty surface of the world is crowded with living things, there is no life in the vast centre within the earth, and the immense ether that surrounds it? As the fisherman snares his prey, as the fowler entraps the bird, so, by the art and genius of our human mind, we may thrall and command the subtler beings of realms and elements which our material bodies cannot enterโour gross senses cannot survey. This, then, is my lore. Of other worlds know I nought; but of the things of this world, whether men, or, as your legends term them, ghouls and genii, I have learned something. To the future, I myself am blind; but I can invoke and conjure up those whose eyes are more piercing, whose natures are more gifted.โ
โProve to me thy power,โ said Boabdil, awed less by the words than by the thrilling voice and the impressive aspect of the enchanter.
โIs not the kingโs will my law?โ answered Almamen; โbe his will obeyed. To-morrow night I await thee.โ
โWhere?โ
Almamen paused a moment, and then whispered a sentence in the kingโs ear: Boabdil started, and turned pale.
โA fearful spot!โ
โSo is the Alhambra itself, great Boabdil; while Ferdinand is without the walls and Muza within the city.โ
โMuza! Darest thou mistrust my bravest warrior?โ
โWhat wise king will trust the idol of the kingโs army? Did Boabdil fall to-morrow by a chance javelin, in the field, whom would the nobles and the warriors place upon his throne? Doth it require an enchanterโs lore to whisper to thy heart the answer in the name of โMuzaโ?โ
โOh, wretched state! oh, miserable king!โ exclaimed Boabdil, in a tone of great anguish. โI never had a father. I have now no people; a little while, and I shall have no country. Am I
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