"Tale of Jerusalem" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

1850
TALE OF JERUSALEM
by Edgar Allan Poe

Intensos rigidam in frontem ascendere canos
Passus erat
Lucan

--a bristly bore.
Translation

"LET us hurry to the walls," said Abel-Phittim to Buzi-Ben-Levi and
Simeon the Pharisee, on the tenth day of the month Thammuz, in the
year of the world three thousand nine hundred and forty-one- "let us
hasten to the ramparts adjoining the gate of Benjamin, which is in the
city of David, and overlooking the camp of the uncircumcised; for it
is the last hour of the fourth watch, being sunrise; and the
idolaters, in fulfilment of the promise of Pompey, should be
awaiting us with the lambs for the sacrifices."
Simeon, Abel-Phittim, and Buzi-Ben-Levi, were the Gizbarim, or
sub-collectors of the offering, in the holy city of Jerusalem.
"Verily," replied the Pharisee, "let us hasten: for this
generosity in the heathen is unwonted; and fickle-mindedness has
ever been an attribute of the worshippers of Baal."
"That they are fickle-minded and treacherous is as true as the
Pentateuch," said Buzi-Ben-Levi, "but that is only towards the
people of Adonai. When was it ever known that the Ammonites proved
wanting to their own interests? Methinks it is no great stretch of
generosity to allow us lambs for the altar of the Lord, receiving in
lieu thereof thirty silver shekels per head!"
"Thou forgettest, however, Ben-Levi," replied Abel-Phittim, "that
the Roman Pompey, who is now impiously besieging the city of the Most
High, has no assurity that we apply not the lambs thus purchased for
the altar, to the sustenance of the body, rather than of the spirit."
"Now, by the five corners of my beard!" shouted the Pharisee, who
belonged to the sect called The Dashers (that little knot of saints
whose manner of dashing and lacerating the feet against the pavement
was long a thorn and a reproach to less zealous devotees- a
stumbling-block to less gifted perambulators)- "by the five corners
of that beard which, as a priest, I am forbidden to shave!- have we
lived to see the day when a blaspheming and idolatrous upstart of Rome
shall accuse us of appropriating to the appetites of the flesh the
most holy and consecrated elements? Have we lived to see the day
when-"
"Let us not question the motives of the Philistine," interrupted
Abel-Phittim, "for to-day we profit for the first time by his
avarice or by his generosity, but rather let us hurry to the ramparts,
lest offerings should be wanting for that altar whose fire the rains
of heaven cannot extinguish, and whose pillars of smoke no tempest can
turn aside."