"Poe, Edgar Allan - Four Beasts in One - The Homo Cameleopard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

Four Beasts In One - The Homo Cameleopard - Edgar Allan Poe

"Epimanes" May 4, 1833
"Four Beasts in One" The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, 1850
Four Beasts In One
The Homo Cameleopard
by Edgar Allan Poe
Chacun a ses vertus.
CREBILLON'S Xerxes.
ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the
prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable to
Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian
monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment.
His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of the sovereignty,
a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming of Christ; his attempt
to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his implacable hostility to the
Jews; his pollution of the Holy of Holies; and his miserable death at
Taba, after a tumultuous reign of eleven years, are circumstances of a
prominent kind, and therefore more generally noticed by the historians of
his time than the impious, dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical
achievements which make up the sum total of his private life and
reputation.
Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the world three
thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a few minutes, imagine
ourselves at that most grotesque habitation of man, the remarkable city of
Antioch. To be sure there were, in Syria and other countries, sixteen
cities of that appellation, besides the one to which I more particularly
allude. But ours is that which went by the name of Antiochia Epidaphne,
from its vicinity to the little village of Daphne, where stood a temple to
that divinity. It was built (although about this matter there is some
dispute) by Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of the country after
Alexander the Great, in memory of his father Antiochus, and became
immediately the residence of the Syrian monarchy. In the flourishing times
of the Roman Empire, it was the ordinary station of the prefect of the
eastern provinces; and many of the emperors of the queen city (among whom
may be mentioned, especially, Verus and Valens) spent here the greater
part of their time. But I perceive we have arrived at the city itself. Let
us ascend this battlement, and throw our eyes upon the town and
neighboring country.
"What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way, with innumerable
falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and finally through the
wilderness of buildings?"
That is the Orontes, and it is the only water in sight, with the exception
of the Mediterranean, which stretches, like a broad mirror, about twelve
miles off to the southward. Every one has seen the Mediterranean; but let
me tell you, there are few who have had a peep at Antioch. By few, I mean,
few who, like you and me, have had, at the same time, the advantages of a
modern education. Therefore cease to regard that sea, and give your whole
attention to the mass of houses that lie beneath us. You will remember
that it is now the year of the world three thousand eight hundred and