I.
"…and at Rome didst proffer my allurements, whereby I might be drawn thither, by men in love with a dying life…"
They have taken everything, but they leave me Augustine. I shall not touch the Josephus, the translation is poor. My friend, you came a Jew, and wept a Jew, and they would make you a Roman. A Roman, and what would you say of Domitian? Of the wars he waged with your kind, of the histories you wrote thereafter? Nothing, you would say nothing, you have sold yourself to the Flavian Imperators, Titus Flavius Josephus, my dear Josephus, what have you done?
And what am I doing? Marius, you weep for old scrolls.
But I shall leave no tears to this City.
It is not Byzantium, it is not of blood and gold and luxury and softness. I find instead Rome of Old, or Ravenna in the North - some rawness, a quality to the steps. Immense culture and art would not have stopped the blade before it fell; I cannot bear softness, the Eastern enthusiasm for lethargy, for decorum. I cannot bear the droning days, the heat and the dust, I could not bear to wait on the natives to finish their ceremonies, or their incense. No, I could not have born another East.
Such as it is, the place is pleasant.
I cannot speak for the people, they’re exotic and everywhere.
There is word that the native populace has scattered, or diminished to merely some hundred thousands souls; that their virtue is inspiring, though they suffer the oppression of crude invaders. And they point around, as if the infestation has grown beyond their dreams. Soon, they will point to me, but this is not the night, and I have barely stolen them the hour.
I would not think this persecution, if their place for ritual, or feast, or festival or worship - that Clock, that ticking thing - has gone unharmed. And they have the tradition, as all religions will, and endure with its weight - the tale of an “end,” an apocalypse, a seasonal due. And for better or worse, a civilization will thrive off its threats, gain speed, agility, momentum.
Thus the Clock is. Thus the Clock will stay.
They will not speak of the architect. I do not think they hold the name, or dear.
And their books? What of their books? Constantinople, but you had books and you burned them. You had tomes and inks and gold and paintings, and you burned them! Would that this City shared your fate, its books make sport of me. They are of language old, or new, or unintended; I do not know some of their pictures, the maps, the paints. There is no pigment of soil on the one, of yolk on the other, of the chemicals and tempera of modernity. I would not know of what they are made.
My Queen, you would laugh at this, at your servant, who for once knows nothing. Who would give you even this nothing.
I cannot give you this City, but you will have its people.
- Marius de Romanus
I would greet you as they have greeted kings, or the Maegi, but you find me poor. I come before you poor. I have no veils, or gold, or sweet incense for you, no paintings, no masks of ivory.
You will forgive me, I am not fit to see kings on this night.
I would greet you as friends instead, and I would hear your tale. We are the nomads here, let us find comfort.