You are here
قراءة كتاب Thalaba the Destroyer
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Robert Southey
Thalaba
the destroyer
1801
Woodstock Books
Oxford and New York
| This edition first published 1991 by Woodstock Books Spelsbury House, Spelsbury, Oxford OX7 3JR and Woodstock Books Wordsworth Trust America Department of English, City College Convent Ave and 138th St, New York, N.Y. 10031 |
| New matter copyright © Woodstock Books 1991 |
| British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Thalba the destroyer 1801.—(Revolution and romanticism, 1789-1834) I. Title II. Series 821.6 ISBN 1854770802 |
| Printed and bound in Great Britain by Smith Settle |
Thalaba the Destroyer.
by
Robert Southey.
| Ποιηματων αϰρατης η ελευϑερια, ϰαι νομος εις, το δοξαν τω ϖοιητη. |
| Lucian, Quomodo Hist. scribenda. |
THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR T. N. LONGMAN AND O. REES, PATERNOSTER-ROW,
BY BIGGS AND COTTLE, BRISTOL.
1801.
CONTENTS
| Preface | vii. |
| The first Book | 1 |
| The second Book | 67 |
| The third Book | 107 |
| The fourth Book | 189 |
| The fifth Book | 257 |
PREFACE
In the continuation of the Arabian Tales, the Domdaniel is mentioned; a Seminary for evil Magicians under the Roots of the Sea. From this seed the present Romance has grown. Let me not be supposed to prefer the metre in which it is written, abstractedly considered, to the regular blank verse; the noblest measure, in my judgement, of which our admirable language is capable. For the following Poem I have preferred it, because it suits the varied subject; it is the Arabesque ornament of an Arabian tale.
The dramatic sketches of Dr. Sayer, a volume which no lover of poetry will recollect without pleasure, induced me when a young versifier, to practise in this metre. I felt that while it gave the poet a wider range of expression, it satisfied the ear of the reader. It were easy to make a parade of learning by enumerating the various feet which it admits; it is only needful to observe that no two lines are employed in sequence which can be read into one. Two six-syllable lines (it will perhaps be answered) compose an Alexandrine: the truth is that the Alexandrine, when harmonious, is composed of two six-syllable lines.
One advantage this metre assuredly possesses; the dullest reader cannot distort it into discord: he may read it with a prose mouth, but its flow and fall will still be perceptible. Verse is not enough favoured by the English reader: perhaps this is owing to the obtrusiveness, the regular Jews-harp twing-twang, of what has been foolishly called heroic measure. I do not wish the improvisatorè tune, but something that denotes the sense of harmony, something like the accent of feeling; like the tone which every Poet necessarily gives to Poetry.
The First Book.
THALABA THE DESTROYER.
THE FIRST BOOK.
A dewy freshness fills the silent air,
No mist obscures, no little cloud
Breaks the whole serene of heaven:
In full-orbed glory the majestic moon
Rolls thro the dark blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!
Wanders o’er the desert sands?
No station is in view,
No palm-grove islanded amid the waste.
The mother and her child,
The widow and the orphan at this hour
Wander o’er the desert sands.
Saw Zeinab in her bliss,
Hodeirah’s wife beloved.
Alas! the wife beloved,
The fruitful mother late,
Whom when the daughters of Arabia named
They wished their lot like her’s;
She wanders o’er the desert sands
A wretched widow now,
The fruitful mother of so fair a race,
With only one preserved,
She wanders o’er the wilderness.
Stunned with the heavy woe she felt like one
Half-wakened from a midnight dream of blood.
But sometimes when her boy
Would wet her hand with tears,
And looking up to her fixed countenance,
Amid his bursting sobs
Say the dear name of Mother, then would she
Utter a feeble groan.
At length collecting, Zeinab turned her eyes
To heaven, exclaiming, “praised be the