Category: The Poe Museum Blog

The Divine Right of Kings

The only king by right divine
Is Ellen King, and were she mine
I’d strive for liberty no more,
But hug the glorious chains I wore.

 Her bosom is an ivory throne,
Where tyrant virtue reigns alone;
No subject vice dare interfere,
To check the power that governs here. 

O! would she deign to rule my fate,
I’d worship Kings and kingly state,
And hold this maxim all life long,
The King — my King — can do no wrong.

P.

---

Many scholars attribute this poem to Edgar Allan Poe.

Originally Published in 1845.

The Coliseum

Lone ampitheatre! Grey Coliseum!
Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length, at length — after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage, and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered, and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory. 

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence and Desolation! and dim Night!
Gaunt vestibules! and phantom-peopled aisles!
I feel ye now: I feel ye in your strength!
O spells more sure than e’er Judæan king
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars! 

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls:
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat:
Here, where the dames of Rome their yellow hair
Wav’d to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle:
Here, where on ivory couch the Cæsar sate,
On bed of moss lies gloating the foul adder:
Here, where on golden throne the monarch loll’d,
Glides spectre-like unto his marble home,
Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones. 

These crumbling walls; these tottering arcades;
These mouldering plinths; these sad, and blacken’d shafts;
These vague entablatures; this broken frieze;
These shattered cornices; this wreck; this ruin;
These stones, alas! — these grey stones — are they all;
All of the great and the colossal left
By the corrosive hours to Fate and me? 

“Not all,” — the echoes answer me; “not all:
Prophetic sounds, and loud, arise forever
From us, and from all ruin, unto the wise,
As in old days from Memnon to the sun.
We rule the hearts of mightiest men: — we rule
With a despotic sway all giant minds.
We are not desolate — we pallid stones;
Not all our power is gone; not all our Fame;
Not all the magic of our high renown;
Not all the wonder that encircles us;
Not all the mysteries that in us lie;
Not all the memories that hang upon,
And cling around about us now and ever,
And clothe us in a robe of more than glory.”

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1833

Image by W. Heath Robinson

Fairyland

Dim vales — and shadowy floods —
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can’t discover
For the tears that drip all over.
Huge moons there wax and wane —
Again — again — again —
Ev’ry moment of the night —
For ever changing places —
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces;
About twelve by the moon-dial
One, more filmy than the rest
[A sort which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best]
Comes down — still down —   and down
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain’s eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, and rich halls,
Wherever they may be —
O’er the strange woods — o’er the sea —
Over spirits on the wing
Over every drowsy thing —
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light —
And then, how deep! O! deep!
Is the passion of their sleep!
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like —— almost any thing —
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before —
Videlicet a tent —
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies,
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again,
(The unbelieving things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1829

Catholic Hymn

Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes
Upon the sinner’s sacrifice
Of fervent prayer and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.

At morn, at noon, at twilight dim
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn.
In joy and wo, in good and ill
Mother of God! be with me still.

When my hours flew gently by,
And no storms were in the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be
Thy love did guide to thine and thee.

Now, when clouds of Fate o’ercast
All my Present, and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally published in Poe’s story “Morella” in 1835.

Image by Harry Clarke

Beloved Physician

The pulse beats ten and intermits;
God nerve the soul that ne’er forgets
In calm or storm, by night or day,
Its steady toil, its loyalty.
[. . .]

 

[. . .]
The pulse beats ten and intermits;
God shield the soul that ne’er forgets.
[. . .]

 

[. . .]
The pulse beats ten and intermits;
God guide the soul that ne’er forgets.
[. . .]

 

[. . .] so tired, so weary,
The soft head bows, the sweet eyes close,
The faithful heart yields to repose.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

This poem was never published during Poe’s lifetime and only fragments remain of the original piece.

Bridal Ballad

The ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow —
Satins and jewels grand,
And many a rood of land,
Are all at my command,
And I am happy now!

 

He has loved me long and well,
And, when he breathed his vow,
I felt my bosom swell,
For — the words were his who fell
In the battle down the dell,
And who is happy now!

 

And he spoke to re-asure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow —
But a reverie came o’re me,
And to the church-yard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me,
“O, I am happy now!”

 

And thus they said I plighted
An irrevocable vow —
And my friends are all delighted
That his love I have requited —
And my mind is much benighted
If I am not happy now!

 

Lo! the ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow —
Satins and jewels grand,
And many a rood of land,
Are all at my command,
And I must be happy now!

 

I have spoken — I have spoken —
They have registered the vow —
And though my faith be broken,
And though my heart be broken,
Behold the golden token
That proves me happy now!

 

Would God I could awaken!
For I dream — I know not how!
And my soul is sorely shaken,
Lest an evil step be taken,
And the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now!

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published as “Ballad” in 1837

Image by Edmund Dulac

Al Aaraaf

Part I.

O! Nothing earthly save the ray
[Thrown back from flowers] of Beauty’s eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy —
O! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill —
Or [music of the passion-hearted]
Joy’s voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell —
With nothing of the dross of ours —
Yet all the beauty — all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers
Adorn yon world afar, afar —
The wandering star —
’Twas a sweet time for Nesace — for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns — a temporary rest —
A garden-spot in desert of the blest.

 

Away — away —’mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendor o’er th’ unchained soul —
The soul that scarce [the billows are so dense]
Can struggle to its destin’d eminence —
To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favour’d one of God —
But, now, the ruler of an anchor’d realm,
She throws aside the sceptre — leaves the helm,
And, amid incense, and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.

 

Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
Whence sprang the “Idea of Beauty” into birth.
[Falling in wreaths thro’ many a startled star,
Like woman’s hair ‘mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Archaian, and there dwelt]
She look’d into Infinity — and knelt.
Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled —
Fit emblems of the model of her world —
Seen but in beauty — not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering thro’ the light —
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opal’d air in colour bound.

 

All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers: of lilies such as rear the head
On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang
Upon the flying footsteps of —— deep pride —
Of her who lov’d a mortal — and so died —
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear’d its purple stem around her knees —
And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnamed —
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham’d
All other loveliness: its honied dew
[The fabled nectar that the heathen knew]
Deliriously sweet, was dropp’d from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
In Trebizond — and on a sunny flower
So like its own above that, to this hour,”
It still remaineth torturing the bee
With madness, and unwonted reverie —
In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger — grief that hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the balmy air
Like guilty beauty, chasten’d, and more fair —
Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light
She fears to perfume, perfuming the night
And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run —
And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth —
And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king —
And Valisnerian lotus thither flown
From struggling with the waters of the Rhone —
And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!
I sola d’oro! — Fior di Levante! —
And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever
With Indian Cupid down the holy river —
Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given
To bear the Goddess’ song, in odours, up to Heaven —

 

“Spirit! that dwellest where,
In the deep sky,
The terrible and fair,
In beauty vie!
Beyond the line of blue —
The boundary of the star
Which turneth at the view
Of thy barrier and thy bar —
Of the barrier overgone
By the comets who were cast
From their pride, and from their throne
To be drudges till the last —
To be carriers of fire
[The red fire of their heart]
With speed that may not tire
And with pain that shall not part —
Who livest — that we know —
In Eternity — we feel —
But the shadow of whose brow
What spirit shall reveal?
Tho’ the beings whom thy Nesace,
Thy messenger hath known
Have dream’d for thy Infinity
A model of their own —
Thy will is done, O! God!
The star hath ridden high
Thro’ many a tempest, but she rode
Beneath thy burning eye
And here, in thought, to thee —
In thought that can alone
Ascend thy empire and so be
A partner of thy throne
By winged Fantasy,
My embassy is given
Till secrecy shall knowledge be
In the environs of Heaven.”

 

She ceas’d — and buried then her burning cheek
Abash’d, amid the lilies there, to seek
A shelter from the fervor of his eye
For the stars trembled at the Deity.
She stirr’d not — breath’d not — for a voice was there
How solemnly pervading the calm air
A sound of silence on the startled ear
Which dreamy poets name “the music of the sphere.”
Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call
“Silence” — which is the merest word of all —
Here Nature speaks, and ev’n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings —
But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high
The eternal voice of God is passing by,
And the red winds are withering in the sky!
“What tho’ in worlds which sightless Cycles run
Link’d to a little system, and one sun
Where all my love is folly and the crowd
Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud
The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath —
[Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?]
What tho’ in worlds which own a single sun
The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run
Yet thine is my resplendency, so given
To bear my secrets thro’ the upper Heaven:
Leave tenantless thy chrystal home, and fly,
With all thy train, athwart the moony sky —
Apart — like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
And wing to other worlds another light;
Divulge the secrets of thy embassy
To the proud orbs that twinkle — and so be
To ev’ry heart a barrier and a ban
Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man.”

 

Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
The single-mooned eve! on Earth we plight
Our faith to one love — and one moon adore —
The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
As sprang that yellow star from downy hours
Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
And bent o’er sheeny mountain and dim plain
Her way — but left not yet her Therasæan reign.

Part II.

High on a mountain of enamell’d head —
Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,
Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees
With many a mutter’d “hope to be forgiven”
What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven —
Of rosy head that, towering far away
Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray
Of sunken suns at eve — at noon of night,
While the moon danc’d with the fair stranger light —
Uprear’d upon such height arose a pile
Of gorgeous columns on th’ unburthen’d air,
Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile
Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
And nursled the young mountain in its lair:
Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
Thro’ the ebon air, besilvering the pall
Of their own dissolution, while they die —
Adorning then the dwellings of the sky:
A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,
Sat gently on these columns as a crown —
A window of one circular diamond, there,
Look’d out above into the purple air,
And rays from God shot down that meteor chain
And hallow’d all the beauty twice again,
Save when, between th’ Empyrean and that ring,
Some eager spirit flapp’d his dusky wing:
But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen
The dimness of this world: that greyish green
That Nature loves the best for Beauty’s grave
Lurk’d in each cornice, round each architrave —
And ev’ry sculptur’d cherub thereabout
That, from his marble dwelling ventur’d out
Seem’d earthly in the shallow of his niche —
Archaian statues in a world so rich?
Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis —
From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
Of beautiful Gomorrah! O! the wave
Is now upon thee — but too late to save! —

 

Sound loves to revel near a summer night:
Witness the murmur of the grey twilight
That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco,
Of many a wild star-gazer long ago —
That stealeth ever on the ear of him
Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim,
And sees the darkness coming as a cloud —
Is not its form — its voice — most palpable and loud?

 

But what is this? — it cometh — and it brings
A music with it — ’tis the rush of wings —
A pause — and then a sweeping, falling strain
And Nesace is in her halls again:
From the wild energy of wanton haste
Her cheek was flushing, and her lips apart;
And zone that clung around her gentle waist
Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart:
Within the centre of that hall to breathe
She paus’d and panted, Zanthe! all beneath —
The fairy light that kiss’d her golden hair
And long’d to rest, yet could but sparkle there!

 

Young flowers were whispering in melody
To happy flowers that night — and tree to tree;
Fountains were gushing music as they fell
In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell;
Yet silence came upon material things —
Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings —
And sound alone that from the spirit sprang
Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang.

 

“ ’Neath blue-bell or streamer —
Or tufted wild spray
That keeps, from the dreamer,
The moonbeam away —
Bright beings! that ponder,
With half closing eyes,
On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies,
Till they glance thro’ the shade, and
Come down to your brow
Like —— eyes of the maiden
Who calls on you now —
Arise! from your dreaming
In violet bowers,
To duty beseeming
These star-litten hours —
And shake from your tresses
Encumber’d with dew
The breath of those kisses
That cumber them too —
[O! how, without you, Love!
Could angels be blest]?
Those kisses of true love
That lull’d ye to rest:
Up! — shake from your wing
Each hindering thing: 
The dew of the night —
It would weigh down your flight;
And true love caresses —
O! leave them apart,
They are light on the tresses,
But hang on the heart.

 

Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one!
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
O! is it thy will
On the breezes to toss?
Or, capriciously still,
Like the lone Albatross,
Incumbent on night
[As she on the air]
To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there?

 

Ligeia! wherever
Thy image may be
No magic shall sever
Thy music from thee:
Thou hast bound many eyes
In a dreamy sleep —
But the strains still arise
Which thy vigilance keep —
The sound of the rain
Which leaps down to the flower,
And dances again
In the rhythm of the shower —
The murmur that springs
From the growing of grass
Are the music of things —
But are modell’d, alas! —
Away, then my dearest,
O! hie thee away
To springs that lie clearest
Beneath the moon ray —
To lone lake that smiles,
In its dream of deep rest,
At the many star-isles
That enjewel its breast —
Where wild flowers, creeping,
Have mingled their shade,
On its margin is sleeping
Full many a maid —
Some have left the cool glade, and
Have slept with the bee —
Arouse them my maiden,
On moorland and lea —
Go! breathe on their slumber,
All softly in ear,
The musical number
They slumber’d to hear —
For what can awaken
An angel so soon
Whose sleep hath been taken
Beneath the cold moon
As the spell which no slumber
Of witchery may test,
The rythmical number
Which lull’d him to rest?”

 

Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,
A thousand seraphs burst th’ Empyrean thro’,
Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight —
Seraphs in all but “Knowledge,” the keen light
That fell, refracted, thro’ thy bounds, afar
O! Death! from eye of God upon that star:
Sweet was that error — sweeter still that death —
Sweet was that error — ev’n with us the breath
Of science dims the mirror of our joy —
To them ’twere the Simoom, and would destroy —
For what [to them] availeth it to know
That Truth is Falsehood — or that Bliss is Woe?
Sweet was their death — with them to die was rife
With the last extacy of satiate life —
Beyond that death no immortality —
But sleep that pondereth and is not “to be” —
And there — oh! may my weary spirit dwell —
Apart from Heaven’s Eternity — and yet how far from Hell!
What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?
But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts
To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover —
O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
Unguided Love hath fallen — ‘mid “tears of perfect moan:”

 

He was a goodly spirit — he who fell:
A wanderer by mossy mantled well —
A gazer on the lights that shine above —
A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:
What wonder? for each star is eye-like there,
And looks so sweetly down on Beauty’s hair —
And they, and ev’ry mossy spring were holy
To his love haunted heart and melancholy.
The night had found (to him a night of wo)
Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo —
Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,
And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
Here sate he with his love — his dark eye bent
With eagle gaze along the firmament:
Now turn’d it upon her — but ever then
It trembled to one constant star again.
“Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!
How lovely ’tis to look so far away!
She seem’d not thus upon that autumn eve
I left her gorgeous halls — nor mourn’d to leave:
That eve — that eve — I should remember well —
The sun-ray dropp’d, in Lemnos, with a spell
On th’ ‘Arabesq’ carving of a gilded hall
Wherein I sate, and on the drapried wall —
And on my eye lids — O! the heavy light!
How drowsily it weigh’d them into night!
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:
But O! that light! — I slumber’d — Death, the while,
Stole o’er my senses in that lovely isle
So softly that no single silken hair
Awoke that slept — or knew that it was there.

 

The last spot of Earth’s orb I trod upon
Was a proud temple call’d the Parthenon —
More beauty clung around her column’d wall
Than ev’n thy glowing bosom beats withal,
And when old Time my wing did disenthral
Thence sprang I — as the eagle from his tower,
And years I left behind me in an hour.
What time upon her airy bounds I hung
One half the garden of her globe was flung
Unrolling as a chart unto my view —
Tenantless cities of the desert too!
Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
And half I wish’d to be again of men.

 

“My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee —
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And women’s loveliness — and passionate love.

 

“But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
Fail’d, as my pennon’d spirit leapt aloft,
Perhaps my brain grew dizzy — but the world
I left so late was into chaos hurl’d —
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
And roll’d, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceas’d to soar
And fell — not swiftly as I rose before,
But with a downward, tremulous motion thro’
Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
Nor long the measure of my falling hours,
For nearest of all stars was thine to ours —
Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
A red Dædalion on the timid Earth!
“We came — and to thy Earth — but not to us
Be given our lady’s bidding to discuss:
We came, my love; around, above, below,
Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,
Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod
She grants to us, as granted by her God —
But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl’d
Never his fairy wing o’er fairier world!
Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes
Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
Headlong thitherward o’er the starry sea —
But when its glory swell’d upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty’s bust beneath man’s eye,
We paus’d before the heritage of men,
And thy star trembled — as doth Beauty then!”
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
The night that waned and waned and brought no day
They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts
Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1829

Image by Edmund Dulac

To M —

1

O! I care not that my earthly lot
Hath — little of Earth in it —
That years of love have been forgot
In the fever of a minute — 

2

I heed not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I —
But that you meddle with my fate
Who am a passer-by. 

3

It is not that my founts of bliss
Are gushing — strange! with tears —
Or that the thrill of a single kiss
Hath palsied many years — 

4

‘Tis not that the flowers of twenty springs
Which have wither’d as they rose
Lie dead on my heart-strings
With the weight of an age of snows.

5 

Nor that the grass — O! may it thrive!
On my grave is growing or grown —
But that, while I am dead yet alive
I cannot be, lady, alone.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published 1829

An Acrostic

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not” — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.
Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breathe it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His folly — pride — and passion — for he died.

---

Edgar Allan Poe

Manuscript written around 1829. First published posthumously in 1911.

X-ing a Paragrab

As it is well known that the ‘wise men’ came ‘from the East,’ and as Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows that Mr. Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of the matter be needed, here we have it — Mr. B. was an editor. Irascibility was his sole foible; for in fact the obstinacy of which men accused him was anything but his foible, since he justly considered it his forte. It was his strong point — his virtue; and it would have required all the logic of a Brownson to convince him that it was ‘anything else.’

I have shown that Touch-and-go Bullet-head was a wise man; and the only occasion on which he did not prove infallible, was when, abandoning that legitimate home for all wise men, the East, he migrated to the city of Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, or some place of a similar title, out West.

I must do him the justice to say, however, that when he made up his mind finally to settle in that town, it was under the impression that no newspaper, and consequently no editor, existed in that particular section of the country. In establishing ‘The Tea-Pot,’ he expected to have the field all to himself. I feel confident he never would have dreamed of taking up his residence in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, had he been aware that, in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, there lived a gentleman named John Smith (if I rightly remember), who, for many years, had there quietly grown fat in editing and publishing the ‘Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis Gazette.’ It was solely, therefore, on account of having been misinformed, that Mr. Bullet-head found himself in Alex —— suppose we call it Nopolis, ‘for short’ — but, as he did find himself there, he determined to keep up his character for obst — for firmness, and remain. So remain he did; and he did more; he unpacked his press, type, etc., etc., rented an office exactly opposite to that of the ‘Gazette,’ and, on the third morning after his arrival, issued the first number of ‘The Alexan’ — that is to say, of ‘The Nopolis Tea-Pot:’ — as nearly as I can recollect, this was the name of the new paper.

The leading article, I must admit, was brilliant — not to say severe. It was especially bitter about things in general — and as for the editor of ‘The Gazette,’ he was torn all to pieces in particular. Some of Bullet-head’s remarks were really so fiery that I have always, since that time, been forced to look upon John Smith, who is still alive, in the light of a salamander. I cannot pretend to give all the ‘Tea-pot’s’ paragraphs verbatim, but one of them runs thus:

‘Oh, yes! — Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! The editor over the way is a genius — Oh, my! Oh, goodness, gracious! — what is this world coming to? Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!’

A philippic at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups of excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets. Every one awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the dignified Smith. Next morning it appeared, as follows:

‘We quote from “The Tea-Pot” of yesterday the subjoined paragraph: — “Oh, yes! Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! Oh, my! Oh, goodness! Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!” Why, the fellow is all O! That accounts for his reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is neither beginning nor end to him, nor to anything that he says. We really do not believe the vagabond can write a word that hasn’t an O in it. Wonder if this O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he came away from Down-East in a great hurry. Wonder if he O’s as much there as he does here? “O! it is pitiful?!” ’

The indignation of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous insinuations, I shall not attempt to describe. On the eel-skinning principle, however, he did not seem to be so much incensed at the attack upon his integrity as one might have imagined. It was the sneer at his style that drove him to desperation. What! — he, Touch-and-go Bullet-head! — not able to write a word without an O in it! He would soon let the jackanapes see that he was mistaken. Yes! he would let him see how much he was mistaken, the puppy! He, Touch-and-go Bullet-head, of Frogpondium, would let Mr. John Smith perceive that he, Bullet-head, could indite, if it so pleased him, a whole paragraph — ay! a whole article — in which that contemptible vowel should not once — not even once — make its appearance. But no; — that would be yielding a point to the said John Smith. He, Bullet-head, would make no alteration in his style, to suit the caprices of any Mr. Smith in Christendom. Perish so vile a thought! The O forever! He would persist in the O. He would be as O-wy as O-wy could be.

Burning with the chivalry of this determination, the great Touch-and-go, in the next ‘Tea-pot,’ came out merely with this simple but resolute paragraph, in reference to this unhappy affair:

‘The editor of the “Tea-pot” has the honor of advising the editor of “The Gazette” that he, (the “Tea-pot,”) will take an opportunity, in to-morrow morning’s paper, of convincing him, (the “Gazette,”) that he, (the “Tea-pot,”) both can and will be his own master as regards style: — he, (the “Tea-pot,”) intending to show him, (the “Gazette,”) the supreme, and indeed the withering contempt with which the criticism of him, (the “Gazette,”) inspires the independent bosom of him, (the “Tea-pot,”) by composing for the especial gratification (?) of him, (the “Gazette,”) a leading article, of some extent, in which the beautiful vowel — the emblem of Eternity — yet so offensive to the hyper-exquisite delicacy of him, (the “Gazette,”) shall most certainly not be avoided by his (the “Gazette’s”) most obedient, humble servant, the “Tea-pot.” “So much for Buckingham!” ’

In fulfilment of the awful threat thus darkly intimated rather than decidedly enunciated, the great Bullet-head, turning a deaf ear to all entreaties for ‘copy,’ and simply requesting his foreman to ‘go to the d——l,’ when he (the foreman) assured him (the ‘Tea-pot’) that it was high time to ‘go to press:’ turning a deaf ear to everything, I say, the great Bullet-head sat up until day-break, consuming the midnight oil, and absorbed in the composition of the really unparalleled paragraph, which follows:

‘So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don’t crow, another time, before you’re out of the woods! Does your mother know you’re out? Oh, no, no! — so go home at once, now, John, to your odious old woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl, — go! You wont? Oh, poh, poh, John, don’t do so! You’ve got to go, you know! So go at once, and don’t go slow; for nobody owns you here, you know. Oh, John, John, if you don’t go you’re no homo — no! You’re only a fowl, an owl; a cow, a sow; a doll, a Poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, NOW — cool! Do be cool, you fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don’t frown so — don’t! Don’t hollo, nor howl, nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how you do look! Told you so, you know — but stop rolling your goose of an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!’

Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly, composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS. to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home, retired, with ineffable dignity, to bed.

Meantime the devil to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs to his ‘case,’ in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a commencement at ‘setting’ the MS. ‘up.’

In the first place, of course, — as the opening word was ‘so’ — he made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph with a capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw himself upon the little-o box with a blind-fold impetuosity — but who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles, that he had been only thumping them, to no purpose, against the bottom of an empty box. Not a single little-o was in the little-o hole; and, glancing fearfully at the capital-O partition, he found that, to his extreme terror, in a precisely similar predicament. Awe-stricken, his first impulse was to rush to the foreman.

‘Sir!’ said he, gasping for breath, ‘I can’t never set up nothing without no o‘s.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ growled the foreman, who was in a very ill humor at being kept up so late.

‘Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a little un!’

‘What — what the d—l has become of all that were in the case?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said the boy, ‘but one of them ere G’zette devils is bin prowling bout here all night, and I spect he’s gone and cabbaged em every one.’

‘Dod rot him! I haven’t a doubt of it,’ replied the foreman, getting purple with rage — ‘but I tell you what you do, Bob, that’s a good boy — you go over the first chance you get and hook every one of their i’s and (d—n them!) their izzards.’

‘Jist so,’ replied Bob, with a wink and a frown — ‘I’ll be into em, I’ll let em know a thing or two; but in de meantime, that ere paragrab? Mus go in to-night, you know — else there’ll be the d—l to pay, and —’

‘And not a bit of pitch hot,’ interrupted the foreman, with a deep sigh and an emphasis on the ‘bit.’ ‘Is it a very long paragraph, Bob?’

‘Shouldn’t call it a wery long paragrab,’ said Bob.

‘Ah, well, then! do the best you can with it! we must get to press,’ said the foreman, who was over head and ears in work; ‘just stick in some other letter for o, nobody’s going to read the fellow’s trash, any how.’

‘Wery well,’ replied Bob, ‘here goes it!’ and off he hurried to his case; muttering as he went — ‘Considdeble vell, them ere expressions, perticcler for a man as doesn’t swar. So I’s to gouge out all their eyes, eh? and d——n all their gizzards! Vell! this here’s the chap as is jist able for to do it.’ The fact is, that although Bob was but twelve years old and four feet high, he was equal to any amount of fight, in a small way.

The exigency here described is by no means of rare occurrence in printing-offices; and I cannot tell how to account for it, but the fact is indisputable, that when the exigency does occur, it almost always happens that x is adopted as a substitute for the letter deficient. The true reason, perhaps, is that x is rather the most superabundant letter in the cases, or at least was so in the old times —— long enough to render the substitution in question an habitual thing with printers. As for Bob, he would have considered it heretical to employ any other character, in a case of this kind, than the x to which he had been accustomed.

‘I shell have to x this ere paragrab,’ said he to himself, as he read it over in astonishment, ‘but it’s jest about the awfulest o-wy paragrab I ever did see:’ so x it he did, unflinchingly, and to press it went x-ed.

Next morning, the population of Nopolis were taken all aback by reading, in ‘The Tea-pot,’ the following extraordinary leader:

‘Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw? Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn’t crxw, anxther time, befxre yxu’re xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther knxw yxu’re xut? Xh, nx, nx! sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur xdixus xld wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl, —— gx! Yxu wxnt? Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxn’t dx sx! Yxu’ve gxt tx gx, yxu knxw! sx gx at xnce and dxn’t gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here, yxu knxw. Xh, Jxhn, Jxhn, if yxu dxn’t gx yxu’re nx hxmx —— nx! Yxu’re xnly a fxwl, an xwl; a cxw, a sxw; a dxll, a Pxll; a pxxr xld gxxd-fxr-nxthing-tx-nxbxdy lxg, dxg, hxg, xr frxg, cxme xut xf a Cxncxrd bxg. Cxxl, nxw —— cxxl! Dx be cxxl, yxu fxxl! Nxne xf yxur crxwing, xld cxck! Dxn’t frxwn sx — dxn’t! Dxn’t hxllx, nxr hxwl, nxr grxwl, nxr bxw-wxw-wxw! Gxxd Lxrd, Jxhn, hxw yxu dx lxxk! Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw, but stxp rxlling yxur gxxse xf an xld pxll abxut sx, and gx and drxwn yxur sxrrxws in a bxwl!’

The uproar occasioned by this mystical and cabalistical article, is not to be conceived. The first definite idea entertained by the populace was, that some diabolical treason lay concealed in the hieroglyphics; and there was a general rush to Bullet-head’s residence, for the purpose of riding him on a rail; but that gentleman was nowhere to be found. He had vanished, no one could tell how; and not even the ghost of him has ever been seen since.

Unable to discover its legitimate object, the popular fury at length subsided; leaving behind it, by way of sediment, quite a medley of opinion about this unhappy affair.

One gentleman thought the whole an X-ellent joke.

Another said that, indeed, Bullet-head had shown much X-uberance of fancy.

‘ A third admitted him X-entric, but no more.

A fourth could only suppose it the Yankee’s design to X-press, in a general way, his X-asperation.

‘Say, rather, to set an X-ample to posterity,’ suggested a fifth.

That Bullet-head had been driven to an X-tremity, was clear to all; and in fact, since that editor could not be found, there was some talk about lynching the other one.

The more common conclusion, however, was that the affair was, simply, X-traordinary and in-X-plicable. Even the town mathematician confessed that he could make nothing of so dark a problem. X, everybody knew, was an unknown quantity; but in this case (as he properly observed), there was an unknown quantity of X.

The opinion of Bob, the devil (who kept dark ‘about his having ‘X-ed the paragrab’), did not meet with so much attention as I think it deserved, although it was very openly and very fearlessly expressed. He said that, for his part, he had no doubt about the matter at all, that it was a clear case, that ‘Mr. Bullet-head never vould be persvaded fur to drink like other folks, but vas continually a-svigging o’ that ere blessed XXX ale, and, as a naiteral consekvence, it jist puffed him up savage, and made him X (cross) in the X-treme.’

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Edgar Allan Poe

Originally published in 1849

Von Kempelen and his Discovery

After the very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of the summary in ‘Silliman’s Journal,’ with the detailed statement just published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course, that in offering a few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen’s discovery, I have any design to look at the subject in a scientific point of view. My object is simply, in the first place, to say a few words of Von Kempelen himself (with whom, some years ago, I had the honor of a slight personal acquaintance), since everything which concerns him must necessarily, at this moment, be of interest; and, in the second place, to look in a general way, and speculatively, at the results of the discovery.

It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from the newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it unquestionably is, is unanticipated.

By reference to the ‘Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy’ (Cottle and Munroe, London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question, but had actually made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in the very identical analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue by Von Kempelen, who, although he makes not the slightest allusion to it, is, without doubt (I say it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required), indebted to the ‘Diary’ for at least the first hint of his own undertaking. Although a little technical, I cannot refrain from appending two passages from the ‘Diary,’ with one of Sir Humphrey’s equations. [As we have not the algebraic signs necessary, and as the ‘Diary’ is to be found at the Athenæum Library, we omit here a small portion of Mr. Poe’s manuscript. — ED.]

The paragraph from the ‘Courier and Enquirer,’ which is now going the rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the invention for a Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I confess, a little apocryphal, for several reasons; although there is nothing either impossible or very improbable in the statement made. I need not go into details. My opinion of the paragraph is founded principally upon its manner. It does not look true. People who are narrating facts, are seldom so particular as Mr. Kissam seems to be, about day and date and precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come upon the discovery he says he did, at the period designated — nearly eight years ago — how happens it that he took no steps, on the instant, to reap the immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must have known would have resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large, from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man, of common understanding, could have discovered what Mr. Kissam says he did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby — so like an owl — as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the ‘Courier and Enquirer’ a fabrication got up to ‘make a talk?’ It must be confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoax-y air. Very little dependence is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if I were not well aware, from experience, how very easily men of science are mystified, on points out of their usual range of inquiry, I should be profoundly astonished at finding so eminent a chemist as Professor Draper, discussing Mr. Kissam’s (or is it Mr. Quizzem’s?) pretensions to the discovery, in so serious a tone.

But to return to the ‘Diary’ of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet was not designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the writer, as any person at all conversant with authorship may satisfy himself at once by the slightest inspection of the style. At page 13, for example, near the middle, we read, in reference to his researches about the protoxide of azote: ‘In less than half a minute the respiration being continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.’ That the respiration was not ‘diminished,’ is not only clear by the subsequent context, but by the use of the plural, ‘were.’ The sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: ‘In less than half a minute, the respiration [being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually and were succeeded by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.’ A hundred similar instances go to show that the MS. so inconsiderately published, was merely a rough note-book, meant only for the writer’s own eye; but an inspection of the pamphlet will convince almost any thinking person of the truth of my suggestion. The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last man in the world to commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had he a more than ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly afraid of appearing empirical; so that, however fully he might have been convinced that he was on the right track in the matter now in question, he would never have spoken out, until he had everything ready for the most practical demonstration. I verily believe that his last moments would have been rendered wretched, could he have suspected that his wishes in regard to burning this ‘Diary’ (full of crude speculations) would have been unattended to; as, it seems, they were. I say ‘his wishes,’ for that he meant to include this note-book among the miscellaneous papers directed ‘to be burnt,’ I think there can be no manner of doubt. Whether it escaped the flames by good fortune or by bad, yet remains to be seen. That the passages quoted above, with the other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the hint, I do not in the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet remains to be seen whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous under any circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind at large. That Von Kempelen and his immediate friends will reap a rich harvest, it would be folly to doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so weak as not to ‘realize,’ in time, by large purchases of houses and land, with other property of intrinsic value.

In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the ‘Home Journal,’ and has since been extensively copied, several misapprehensions of the German original seem to have been made by the translator, who professes to have taken the passages from a late number of the Presburg ‘Schnellpost.’ — ‘Viele’ has evidently been misconceived (as it often is), and what the translator renders by ‘sorrows,’ is probably ‘lieden,’ which, in its true version, ‘sufferings,’ would give a totally different complexion to the whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely guess, on my part.

Von Kempelen, however, is by no means ‘a misanthrope,’ in appearance, at least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance with him was casual altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in saying that I know him at all; but to have seen and conversed with a man of so prodigious a notoriety as he has attained, or will attain in a few days, is not a small matter, as times go.

‘The Literary World’ speaks of him, confidently, as a native of Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in the ‘Home Journal,’) but I am pleased in being able to state positively, since I have it from his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the State of New York, although both his parents, I believe, are of Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way, with Mäelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. [If we are not mistaken, the name of the inventor of the chess-player was either Kempelen, Von Kempelen, or something like it. — ED.] In person, he is short and stout, with large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner noticeable for bonhommie. Altogether, he looks, speaks and acts as little like ‘a misanthrope’ as any man I ever saw. We were fellow-sojouners for a week, about six years ago, at Earl’s Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I presume that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or four hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the day; and nothing that fell from him led me to suspect his scientific attainments. He left the hotel before me, intending to go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was in the latter city that his great discovery was first made public; or, rather, it was there that he was first suspected of having made it. — This is about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von Kempelen; but I have thought that even these few details would have interest for the public.

There can be little question that most of the marvellous rumors afloat about this affair are pure inventions, entitled to about as much credit as the story of Aladdin’s lamp; and yet, in a case of this kind, as in the case of the discoveries in California, it is clear that the truth may be stranger than fiction. The following anecdote, at least, is so well authenticated, that we may receive it implicitly.

Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well off during his residence at Bremen; and often, it was well known, he had been put to extreme shifts, in order to raise trifling sums. When the great excitement occurred about the forgery on the house of Gutsmuth & Co., suspicion was directed towards Von Kempelen, on account of his having purchased a considerable property in Gasperitch Lane, and his refusing, when questioned, to explain how he became possessed of the purchase money. He was at length arrested, but nothing decisive appearing against him, was in the end set at liberty. The police, however, kept a strict watch upon his movements, and thus discovered that he left home frequently, taking always the same road, and invariably giving his watchers the slip in the neighborhood of that labyrinth of narrow and crooked passages known by the flash-name of the ‘Dondergat.’ Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced him to a garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called Flätzplatz; and, coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they imagined, in the midst of his counterfeiting operations. His agitation is represented as so excessive that the officers had not the slightest doubt of his guilt. After hand-cuffing him, they searched his room, or rather rooms; for it appears he occupied all the mansarde.

Opening into the garret where they caught him was a closet, ten feet by eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which the object has not yet been ascertained. In one corner of the closet was a very small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of duplicate crucible — two crucibles connected by a tube. One of these crucibles was nearly full of lead in a state of fusion, but not reaching up to the aperture of the tube, which was close to the brim. The other crucible had some liquid in it, which, as the officers entered, seemed to be furiously dissipating in vapor. They relate that, on finding himself taken, Von Kempelen seized the crucibles with both hands (which were encased in gloves that afterwards turned out to be asbestic), and threw the contents on the tiled floor. It was now that they hand-cuffed him; and, before proceeding to ransack the premises, they searched his person, but nothing unusual was found about him, excepting a paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing what was afterwards ascertained to be a mixture of antimony and some unknown substance, in nearly, but not quite, equal proportions. All attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so far, failed, but that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be doubted.

Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went through a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was found, to the chemist’s sleeping-room. They here rummaged some drawers and boxes, but discovered only a few papers, of no importance, and some good coin, silver and gold. At length, looking under the bed, they saw a large, common hair trunk, without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying carelessly across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw this trunk out from under the bed, they found that, with their united strength (there were three of them, all powerful men), they ‘could not stir it one inch.’ Much astonished at this, one of them crawled under the bed, and looking into the trunk, said:

‘No wonder we couldn’t move it — why, it’s full to the brim of old bits of brass!’

Putting his feet, now, against the wall, so as to get a good purchase, and pushing with all his force, while his companions pulled with all theirs, the trunk, with much difficulty, was slid out from under the bed, and its contents examined. The supposed brass with which it was filled was all in small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a pea to that of a dollar; but the pieces were irregular in shape, although more or less flat — looking, upon the whole, ‘very much as lead looks when thrown upon the ground in a molten state and there suffered to grow cool.’ Now, not one of these officers for a moment suspected this metal to be anything but brass. The idea of its being gold never entered their brains, of course; how could such a wild fancy have entered it? And their astonishment may be well conceived, when the next day it became known, all over Bremen, that the ‘lot of brass’ which they had carted so contemptuously to the police office, without putting themselves to the trouble of pocketing the smallest scrap, was not only gold — real gold — but gold far finer than any employed in coinage — gold, in fact, absolutely pure, virgin, without the slightest appreciable alloy!

I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen’s confession (as far as it went) and release, for these are familiar to the public. — That he has actually realized, in spirit and in effect, if not to the letter, the old chimæra of the philosopher’s stone, no sane person is at liberty to doubt. The opinions of Arago are, of course, entitled to the greatest consideration; but he is by no means infallible; and what he says of bismuth, in his report to the academy, must be taken cum grano salis. The simple truth is, that up to this period, all analysis has failed; and until Von Kempelen chooses to let us have the key to his own published enigma, it is more than probable that the matter will remain, for years, in statu quo. All that as yet can fairly be said to be known, is, that ‘pure gold can be made at will, and very readily, from lead, in connection with certain other substances, in kind and in proportions, unknown.’

Speculation, of course, is busy as to the immediate and ultimate results of this discovery — a discovery which few thinking persons will hesitate in referring to an increased interest in the matter of gold generally, by the late developments in California; and this reflection brings us inevitably to another — the exceeding inopportuneness of Von Kempelen’s analysis. If many were prevented from adventuring to California, by the mere apprehension that gold would so materially diminish in value, on account of its plentifulness in the mines there, as to render the speculation of going so far in search of it a doubtful one — what impression will be wrought now, upon the minds of those about to emigrate, and especially upon the minds of those actually in the mineral region, by the announcement of this astounding discovery of Von Kempelen? a discovery which declares, in so many words, that beyond its intrinsic worth for manufacturing purposes (whatever that worth may be), gold now is, or at least soon will be (for it cannot be supposed that Von Kempelen can long retain his secret) of no greater value than lead, and of far inferior value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to speculate prospectively upon the consequences of the discovery; but one thing may be positively maintained — that the announcement of the discovery six months ago would have had material influence in regard to the settlement of California.

In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results have been a rise of two hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and nearly twenty-five per cent. in that of silver.

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Edgar Allan Poe

Originally Published in 1849

The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade

Truth is stranger than fiction

— Old Saying

Havingx had occasion, lately, in the course of some oriental investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsöornot, a work which (like the Zohar of Simeon Ischaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe, and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American — if we except, perhaps, the author of the “Curiosities of American Literature;” — having had occasion, I say, to turn over some pages of the first-mentioned very remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to discover that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error respecting the fate of the vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, as that fate is depicted in the “Arabian Nights,” and that the denouement there given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very much farther.

For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the inquisitive reader to the “Isitsöornot” itself: but, in the mean time, I shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I there discovered.

It will be remembered that, in the usual version of the tales, a certain monarch, having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not only put her immediately to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the prophet, to espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his dominions, and the next morning to deliver her up to the executioner.

Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with a religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon him as a man of devout feelings and excellent sense, he was interrupted one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand vizier, to whose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea.

Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was that she would either redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty or perish, after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt.

Accordingly, and although we do not find it stated to be Leap-year, (which makes the sacrifice more meritorious,) she deputes her father, the grand vizier, to make an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the king eagerly accepts — (he had intended to take it at all events, and had put off the matter from day to day only through fear of the vizier) — but, in accepting it now, he gives all parties very distinctly to understand that, grand vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest design of giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When, therefore, the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king, and did actually marry him despite her father’s excellent advice not to do any thing of the kind — when she would and did marry him, I say, will I nill I, it was with her beautiful black eyes as thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.

It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been reading Machiavelli, beyond doubt,) had a very ingenious little plot in her mind. On the night of the wedding she contrived, upon I forget what specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently near that of the royal pair to admit of easy conversation from bed to bed; and, a little before cock-crowing, she took care to awaken the good monarch, her husband, (who bore her none the worse will because he intended to wring her neck on the morrow,) — she managed to awake him, I say, (although, on account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion, he slept well,) by the profound interest of a story (about a rat and a black cat, I think,) which she was narrating (all in an under-tone, of course,) to her sister. When the day broke, it so happened that this history was not altogether finished, and that Scheherazade, in the nature of things, could not finish it just then, since it was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung — a thing very little more pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more genteel.

The king’s curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say, even over his sound religious principles, induced him for this once to postpone the fulfilment of his vow until next morning, for the purpose and with the hope of hearing that night how it fared in the end with the black cat (a black cat I think it was) and the rat.

The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only put the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat, (the rat was blue,) but before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings) that went, in a violent manner, by clockwork, and was wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was even more profoundly interested than with the other, and, as the day broke before its conclusion, (notwithstanding all the queen’s endeavors to get through with it in time for the bowstringing,) there was again no resource but to postpone that ceremony, as before, for twenty-four hours. The next night there happened a similar accident with a similar result; and then the next night — and then again the next; so that, in the end, the good monarch, having been unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to keep his vow during a period of no less than one thousand and one nights, either forgets it altogether by the expiration of this time or gets himself absolved of it in the regular way, or (what is more probable) breaks it outright with the head of his father confessor. At all events, Scheherazade, who, being lineally descended from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the whole seven baskets of talk which the latter lady, we all know, picked up from under the trees in the garden of Eden — Scheherazade, I say, finally triumphed, and the tariff upon beauty was repealed.

Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as we have it upon record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant — but, alas! like a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than true; and I am indebted altogether to the “Isitsöornot” for the means of correcting the error. “Le mieux,” says a French proverb, “est l’ennemi du bien,” and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had inherited the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she put them out at compound interest until they amounted to seventeen.

“My dear sister,” said she, on the thousand and second night, [I quote the language of the “Isitsöornot” at this point, verbatim,] “my dear sister,” said she, “now that all this little difficulty about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in withholding from you and the king (who, I am sorry to say, snores — a thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion of the history of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through numerous other and more interesting adventures than those which I related; but the truth is, I felt sleepy on the particular night of their narration, and so was seduced into cutting them short — a grievous piece of misconduct, for which I only trust that Allah will forgive me. But even yet it is not too late to remedy my great neglect, and as soon as I have given the king a pinch or two in order to wake him up so far that he may stop making that horrible noise, I will forthwith entertain you (and him, if he pleases,) with the sequel of this very remarkable story.”

Hereupon, the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the “Isitsöornot,” expressed no very particular intensity of gratification; but the king having been sufficiently pinched, at length ceased snoring, and finally said “hum!” and then “hoo!” when the queen, understanding these words (which are no doubt Arabic) to signify that he was all attention, and would do his best not to snore any more, — the queen, I say, having arranged these matters to her satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once, into the history of Sinbad the sailor.

“ ‘At length, in my old age,’ [these are the words of Sinbad himself, as retailed by Scheherazade,] — ‘at length, in my old age, and after enjoying many years of tranquillity at home, I became once more possessed with a desire of visiting foreign countries; and one day, without acquainting any of my family with my design, I packed up some bundles of such merchandize as was most precious and least bulky, and engaging a porter to carry them, went with him down to the seashore to await the arrival of any chance vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom into some region which I had not as yet explored.

“ ‘Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down beneath some trees and looked out into the ocean in the hope of perceiving a ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever. At length I fancied that I could hear a singular buzzing or humming sound, and the porter, after listening awhile, declared that he also could distinguish it. Presently it grew louder, and then still louder, so that we could have no doubt that the object which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the edge of the horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly increased in size until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming with a great part of its body above the surface of the sea. It came towards us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foam around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea through which it passed with a long line of fire that extended far off into the distance.

“ ‘As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length was equal to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and it was as wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, O most sublime and munificent of the caliphs. Its body, which was unlike that of ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a jetty blackness throughout all that portion of it which floated above the water, with the exception of a narrow blood-red streak that completely begirdled it. The belly, which floated beneath the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now and then as the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely covered with metallic scales, of a colour like that of the moon in misty weather. The back was flat and nearly white, and from it there extended upwards four spines, about half the length of the whole body.

“ ‘This horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive; but, as if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with at least four score of eyes, that protruded from their sockets like those of the green dragon-fly, and were arranged all around the body in two rows, one above the other, and parallel to the blood-red streak, which seemed to answer the purpose of an eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes were much larger than the others, and had the appearance of solid gold.

“ ‘Although this beast approached us, as I have before said, with the greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by necromancy — for it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like a duck, nor wings like the sea-shell which is blown along in the manner of a vessel; nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head and its tail were shaped precisely alike, only, not far from the latter, were two small holes that served for nostrils, and through which the monster puffed out its thick breath with prodigious violence, and with a shrieking, disagreeable noise.

“ ‘Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great; but it was even surpassed by our astonishment when, upon getting a nearer look, we perceived upon the creature’s back a vast number of animals about the size and shape of men, and altogether much resembling them, except that they wore no garments (as men do), being supplied (by nature, no doubt) with an ugly, uncomfortable covering, a good deal like cloth, but fitting so tight to the skin as to render the poor wretches laughably awkward and put them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their heads were certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I thought might have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon discovered that they were excessively heavy and solid, and I, therefore, concluded they were contrivances designed, by their great weight, to keep the heads of the animals steady and safe upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were fastened black collars, (badges of servitude, no doubt,) such as we keep on our dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer, so that it was quite impossible for these poor victims to move their heads in any direction without moving the body at the same time; and thus they were doomed to perpetual contemplation of their noses — a view puggish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positively in an awful degree.

“ ‘When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood, it suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and emitted from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense cloud of smoke and a noise that I can compare to nothing but thunder. As the smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd man-animals standing near the head of the large beast with a trumpet in his hand, through which (putting it to his mouth) he presently addressed us in loud, harsh and disagreeable accents, that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for language had they not come altogether through the nose.

“ ‘Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply, as I could in no manner understand what was said; and in this difficulty I turned to the porter, who was near swooning through affright, and demanded of him his opinion as to what species of monster it was, what it wanted, and what kind of creatures those were that so swarmed upon its back. To this the porter replied, as well as he could for trepidation, that he had once before heard of this sea-beast; that it was a cruel demon, with bowels of sulphur and blood of fire, created by evil genii as the means of inflicting misery upon mankind; that the things upon its back were vermin, such as sometimes infest cats and dogs, only a little larger and more savage; and that these vermin had their uses, however evil — for, through the torture they caused the beast by their nibbling and stingings, it was goaded into that degree of wrath which was requisite to make it roar and commit ill, and so fulfil the vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.

“ ‘This account determined me to take to my heels, and, without once even looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the hills, while the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite direction, so that, by these means, he finally made his escape with my bundles, of which I have no doubt he took excellent care — although this is a point I cannot determine, as I do not remember that I ever beheld him again.

“ ‘For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin (who had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon overtaken, bound hand and foot and conveyed to the beast, which immediately swam out again into the middle of the sea.

“ ‘I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home to peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being useless, I made the best of my condition and exerted myself to secure the good-will of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared to exercise authority over its fellows. I succeeded so well in this endeavour that, in a few days, the creature bestowed upon me various tokens of its favour, and, in the end, even went to the trouble of teaching me the rudiments of what it was vain enough to denominate its language; so that, at length, I was enabled to converse with it readily, and came to make it comprehend the ardent desire I had of seeing the world.

“ ‘Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,’ said he to me, one day after dinner — but I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is not conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs, (so the man-animals were called; I presume because their language formed the connecting link between that of the horse and that of the rooster.) With your permission, I will translate. ‘Washish squashish,’ and so forth, that is to say, ‘I am happy to find, my dear Sinbad, that you are really a very excellent fellow; we are now about doing a thing which is called circumnavigating the globe; and since you are so desirous of seeing the world, I will strain a point and give you a free passage upon the back of the beast.’ ”

When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the “Isitsöornot,” the king turned over from his left side to his right, and said —

“It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you omitted, hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know I think them exceedingly entertaining and strange?”

The king having thus expressed himself, we are told, the fair Scheherazade resumed her history in the following words: —

“Sinbad went on, in this manner, with his narrative to the caliph — ‘I thanked the man-animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very much at home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through the ocean; although the surface of the latter is, in that part of the world, by no means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we went — so to say — either up hill or down hill all the time.’ ”

“That, I think, was very singular,” interrupted the king.

“Nevertheless, it is quite true,” replied Scheherazade.

“I have my doubts,” rejoined the king; “but, pray, be so good as to go on with the story.”

“I will,” said the queen. ‘The beast,’ continued Sinbad to the caliph, ‘swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill, until, at length, we arrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in circumference, but which, nevertheless, had been built in the middle of the sea by a colony of little things like caterpillars.’ ”*

“Hum!” said the king.

“ ‘Leaving this island,’ said Sinbad — (for Scheherazade, it must be understood, took no notice of her husband’s ill-mannered ejaculation) — ‘leaving this island, we came to another where the forests were of solid stone, and so hard that they shivered to pieces the finest-tempered axes with which we endeavoured to cut them down.’ ”†

“Hum!” said the king, again; but Scheherazade, paying him no attention, continued in the language of Sinbad.

“ ‘Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where there was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty miles within the bowels of the earth, and that contained a greater number of far more spacious and more magnificent palaces than are to be found in all Damascus and Bagdad. From the roofs of these palaces there hung myriads of gems, like diamonds, but larger than men; and in among the streets of towers and pyramids and temples, there flowed immense rivers as black as ebony and swarming with fish that had no eyes.’ ”‡

“Hum!” said the king.

“ ‘We then swam into a region of the sea where we found a lofty mountain, down whose sides there streamed torrents of melted metal, some of which were twelve miles wide and sixty miles long; * while, from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the heavens, and it became darker than the darkest midnight; so that, when we were even at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles from the mountain, it was impossible to see the whitest object however close we held it to our eyes.’ ”†

“Hum!” said the king.

“ ‘After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until we met with a land in which the nature of things was altogether reversed — for we here saw a great lake, at the bottom of which, more than a hundred feet beneath the surface of the water, there flourished in full leaf a forest of tall and luxuriant trees.’ ”‡

“Hoo!” said the king.

“ ‘Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at the most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there meandered a glorious river for several thousands of miles. This river was of unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than that of amber. It was from three to six miles in width; and its banks, which arose on either side to twelve hundred feet in perpendicular height, were crowned with ever-blossoming trees and perpetual sweet-scented flowers that made the whole territory one gorgeous garden; but the name of this luxuriant land was the kingdom of horror, and to enter it was inevitable death.’ ”§

“Humph!” said the king.

“ ‘We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came to another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of monstrous animals with horns resembling scythes upon their heads. These hideous beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil, of a funnel shape, and line the sides of them with rocks, so disposed one upon the other that they fall instantly when trodden upon by other animals, thus precipitating them into the monsters’ dens, where their blood is immediately sucked, and their carcasses afterwards hurled contemptuously out to an immense distance from the caverns of death.’ ”*

“Pish!” said the king.

“ ‘Continuing our progress, we perceived a district abounding with vegetables that grew not upon any soil but in the air.† There were others that sprang from the substance of other vegetables;‡ others that derived their sustenance from the bodies of living animals;§ and then, again, there were others that glowed all over with intense fire;|| and what is still more wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and breathed and moved their limbs at will, and had, moreover, the detestable passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures, and confining them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment of appointed tasks.’ ”¶

“Pshaw!” said the king.

“ ‘Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the bees and the birds are mathematicians of such genius and erudition, that they give daily instructions in the science of geometry to the wise men of the empire. The king of the place having offered a reward for the solution of two very difficult problems, they were solved upon the spot — the one by the bees, and the other by the birds; but the king, keeping their solutions a secret, it was only after the most profound researches and labour, and the writing of an infinity of big books, during a long series of years, that the men-mathematicians at length arrived at the identical solutions which had been given upon the spot by the bees and by the birds.’ ”*

“Oh my!” said the king.

“ ‘We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found ourselves close upon another, from whose shores there flew over our heads a flock of fowls a mile in breadth and two hundred and forty miles long; so that, although they flew a mile during every minute, it required no less than four hours for the whole flock to pass over us — in which there were several millions of millions of fowls.’ ”‡

“Oh fy!” said the king.

“ ‘No sooner had we got rid of these birds which occasioned us great annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl of another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs which I met in my former voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the domes upon your seraglio, oh, most munificent of caliphs. This terrible fowl had no head that we could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of belly, which was of a prodigious fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking substance, smooth, shining and striped with various colours. In its talons, the monster was bearing away to his eyrie in the heavens, a house from which it had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of which we distinctly saw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in a state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which awaited them. We shouted with all our might, in the hope of frightening the bird into letting go of its prey; but it merely gave a snort or puff, as if of rage, and then let fall upon our heads a heavy sack which proved to be filled with sand!’ ”

“Stuff!” said the king.

“ ‘It was just after this adventure that we encountered a continent of immense extent and of prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless, was supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had no fewer than four hundred horns.’ ”*

“That, now, I believe,” said the king, “because I have read something of the kind before, in a book.”

“ ‘We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in between the legs of the cow,) and, after some hours, found ourselves in a wonderful country indeed, which, I was informed by the man-animal, was his own native land, inhabited by things of his own species. This elevated the man-animal very much in my esteem; and in fact, I now began to feel ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him; for I found that the man-animals in general were a nation of the most powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their brains,† which, no doubt served to stimulate them by their painful writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of imagination.’ ”

“Nonsense!” said the king.

“ ‘Among these magicians, were domesticated several animals of very singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones were iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had black stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a diet he was so strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty than the grandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing that of the flight of most birds.’ ”

“Twattle!” said the king.

“ ‘I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but bigger than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and brick; her blood, like that of the horse, (to whom in fact she was nearly related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood or black stones. This hen brought forth very frequently, a hundred chickens in the day; and, after birth, they took up their residence for several weeks within the stomach of their mother.’ ”‡

“Fal lal!” said the king.

“ ‘One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of brass and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid.* Another of these magi constructed (of like material) a creature that put to shame even the genius of him who made it; for so great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it performed calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required the united labour of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year.† But a still more wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a mighty thing that was neither man nor beast, but which had brains of lead intermixed with a black matter like pitch, and fingers that it employed with such incredible speed and dexterity that it would have had no trouble in writing out twenty thousand copies of the Koran in an hour; and this with so exquisite a precision, that in all the copies there should not be found one to vary from another by the breadth of the finest hair. This thing was of prodigious strength, so that it erected or overthrew the mightiest empires at a breath; but its power was exercised equally for evil and for good.’ ”

“Ridiculous!” said the king.

“ ‘Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in his veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of sitting down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his dinner was thoroughly roasted upon its floor.‡ Another had the faculty of converting the common metals into gold, without even looking at them during the process.§ Another had such delicacy of touch that he made a wire so fine as to be invisible.|| Another had such quickness of perception that he counted all the separate motions of an elastic body, while it was springing backwards and forwards at the rate of nine hundred millions of times in a second.’ ”¶

“Absurd!” said the king.

“ ‘Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody ever yet saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish their arms, kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his will.** Another had cultivated his voice to so great an extent that he could have made himself heard from one end of the earth to the other.†† Another commanded the lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it came at his call; and served him for a plaything when it came. Another took two loud sounds and out of them made a silence. Another constructed a deep darkness out of two brilliant lights.* Another directed the sun to paint his portrait, and the sun did.† Another took this luminary with the moon and the planets, and having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their depths and found out the solidity of the substance of which they were made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising a necromantic ability, that not even their infants, nor their commonest cats and dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist at all, or that for twenty thousand years before the birth of the nation itself, had been blotted out from the face of creation.’ ”‡

“Preposterous!” said the king.

“ ‘The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise magi,’ ” continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner disturbed by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on the part of her husband — “ ‘the wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers are every thing that is accomplished and refined; and would be every thing that is interesting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them, and from which not even the miraculous power of their husbands and fathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some fatalities come in certain shapes, and some in others — but this of which I speak, has come in the shape of a horrible crotchet.’ ”

“A what?” said the king.

“ ‘A crotchet,’ ” said Scheherazade. “ ‘One of the evil genii who are perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we describe as personal beauty, consists altogether in the protuberance of the region which lies not very far below the small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they say, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this hump. Having been long possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country, the days have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a woman from a dromedary —’ ”

“Stop!” said the king — “I can’t stand that, and I won’t. You have already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day, too, I perceive, is beginning to break. How long have we been married? Besides my conscience is getting to be troublesome again. And then that dromedary touch — do you take me for a fool? Upon the whole you might as well get up and be throttled.”

These words, as I learn from the “Isitsöornot,” both grieved and astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however, great consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from the reflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that the petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for him a most righteous reward, in depriving him of many inconceivable adventures.

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Edgar Allan Poe

Published in 1845

All the marvels mentioned by Scheherazade are real places and things. Click the hyperlinks within the text to see what they really are.