Thrace

Lines Written for the Opening of a Hall Devoted to Music, Oratory, Social Functions, and the Drama by Lewis V. F. Randolph.

Read for LibriVox.org. 'Tis many a league across the seas to Thrace, And many an age has run its reckless race Since at the sacred sweet Castalian spring On Mount Parnassus, mortals sought to bring Their votive offerings to the glorious Nine, The Muses, both by birth and deeds divine, Daughters of Zeus and fair Mnemosyne, Patrons of history and poesy— Clio, Euterpe, and their sisters seven, Who brought the thoughts of gods to earth from heaven.

At feasts of great immortals when they sang, Apollo played, and grand Olympus rang With wave on wave of high majestic song, And then with rapturous plaudits loud and long.

They sing the story of creation fair, And all the dreadful perils heroes dare; For Cadmus, at his nuptials, they rejoice, Or erst lament Achilles' death with voice So mournful and with tones of such distress That gods and men mixed tears of tenderness.

Okay.

So the Visigoths attacked Thrace, Macedonia...

Wait, I didn't finish reading.

On Oc- August 27, 410, Visigoths from Eastern Europe ended a three-day sack of the city of Rome, which is now the capital of, of Italy.

You can type in that long URL, and you'll get what I just put down there.

Okay.

The Visigoths attacked Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece in 396.

Then in 410, they crossed the Alps and conquered Rome.

Then the chase became more furious.

They came to Thrace, where Typhon fought with whole peaks of the Hamas mountains, and when these were hurled back on him by the Thunderer, his blood gushed out over them so that these are called the Bloody Mountains to this day.

End of chapter 1

The Legend of Don Juan Manuel by Thomas Albon Henver This is a Libby Box recording.

it is the custom nowadays for scientists and for other scholarly people to take hold of the old myths to take them to pieces and to find some deep hidden meaning in each part of the story so you will find that some will tell you that orpheus is the personification of the winds which tear up trees as they course along chanting their wild music and the eurydice is the morning with its short-lived beauty others say that orpheus is the mythological expression of the delight which music gives to the primitive races while yet others accept without hesitation the idea that Orpheus is the sun that, when day is done, plunges into the black abyss of night, in the vain hope of overtaking his lost bride, Eurydice, the rosy dawn.

And whether they be right or wrong, it would seem that the sadness that comes to us sometimes as the day dies and the last of the sun's rays vanish to leave the hills and valleys dark and cold, The sorrowful feeling that we cannot understand when in country places we hear music coming from far away, or listen to the plaintive song of the bird, are things that very specially belong to the story of Orpheus.

In the country of Thrace, surrounded by all the best gifts of the gods, Orpheus was born.

His father was Apollo, the god of music and of song, and his mother the muse Calliope.

And when the summer was well nigh come again, the work was finished, and the old man Anchises commanded that they should tarry no longer, whereupon they sailed, taking also their gods with them.

There was a certain land of Thrace, which the god Mars loved beyond all other lands, whereof in time past the fierce Lycurgus, who would have slain Bacchus, was king.

Here, therefore, for the men of the land were friendly, or at the least had been before evil days came upon Troy, Aeneas builded him a city, and called it after his own name.

But after a while, as he did sacrifice on a certain day to his mother, even Venus, that he might have a blessing on his work, slaying also a white bull to Jupiter, there befell a certain horrible thing.

Fly, for the land is cruel, and the shore greedy of gain.

I am Polydorus.

Here was I pierced through with spears, which have grown into these wands that thou seest.' But Aeneas when he heard the voice was sore dismayed, and he remembered him how King Priam, thinking that it might fare ill with him and the great city of Troy, had sent his son Polydorus by stealth, and much gold with him, to Polymestor, who was king of Thrace; and how the king, when Troy had now perished, slew the boy and took the gold to himself.

For of a truth the love of gold is the root of all evil.

This too they signified to Constantius, who also had ordered the council to be held.

But those who had been deposed at Ariminum went off to Constantius, and caused the others who had expressed their mind against them to be insulted, and to be threatened that they should not return to their diocese, and to suffer violence in Thrace in the same winter, so that they might submit to the new decisions made by them.

If then any persons mention Ariminum, let them first bring forward the deposition of the above-named, and what the bishops wrote, saying that no one ought to seek for anything more than the decisions made by the fathers at Nicaea, nor mention any other council but that one.

But these things they conceal, which they put forward what was done by violence in Thrace, whereby they show that they undertake to represent the Arian heresy, and are alien from the sound faith.

And if anyone chooses to examine, side by side, that great council itself and those which they have originated, he will find how orthodox was the one, how senseless the others.

Those who met at Nicaea were not deposed before they met, but confessed the Son to be from the essence of the Father.

Being then thus disposed, since it happened that we all met, we have written also to our beloved Damasus, bishop of Great Rome, concerning Auxentius, who invaded the church of Milan, and have narrated his proceedings, that he is not only a sharer in the Arian heresy, but is also chargeable with many misdeeds, which he perpetrated in conjunction with Gregory, the partaker of his impiety.

And we have expressed our wonder that, up to this time, he has not been deposed and cast out of the church, and we have returned thanks to the piety of Damasus and of those who assembled in Great Rome, inasmuch as by casting out Ursacius and Valens and those who thought with them, they preserved the unanimity of the Catholic Church.

They had a child named Troar, whom we call Thor.

He was fostered in Thrace by a certain war duke called Loricus, but when he was ten winters old he took unto him the weapons of his father.

He was as goodly to look upon when he came among other men as the ivory that is inlaid in oak.

His hair was fairer than gold.

When he was twelve winters old he had his full measure of strength.

Then he lifted clear of the earth ten bearskins all at one time.

And then he slew Duke Loricus, his foster father, and with him his wife Lora or Glora, and took into his own hands the realm of Thrace, which we call Trudheim.

Then he went forth far and wide over the lands and sought out every quarter of the earth, overcoming alone all berserks and giants and one dragon, greatest of all dragons and many beasts.

pleased by the sight of his mother's favorite shrub he began to pluck the green shoots but the twigs were more than usually tough and seemed to resist his efforts like living things and when at last one was torn away he saw it dripping with a red fluid like blood he wrenched off another and the same crimson liquor was seen oozing from the wound determined to explore the meaning of this strange portent he grasped the trunk of the bleeding myrtle tree and tugged with all his might seeking to tear it up by the roots when a dismal voice struck upon his ears and he heard these words spoken from the centre of the mound forbear aeneas forbear rend not my heart and defile not thy pious hands with a kinsman's blood it is i polydorus whom thou art torturing here i lie murdered by the hand of my host here i fell pierced by a hundred javelins which have grown into a leafy tree fly fly from this accursed shore this land of cruelty and greed Aeneas stood motionless and speechless, appalled by that strange message from the tomb and the tale of treachery and crime which it revealed.

This Polydorus was Priam's youngest son, committed by his father with a great treasure to the charge of Polymester, king of Thrace.

The ruffian king, when he saw that Priam's star was on the wane, murdered his youthful guest and took possession of his gold.

Full of sad thoughts, Aeneas sought counsel of Anchiasus and other Trojan elders and told them that dark story of lawless outrage and broken faith.

Life of Aesop The life and history of Aesop is involved, like that of Homer, the most famous of Greek poets, in much obscurity.

Sardis, the capital of Lydia, Samos, a Greek island, Mesembria, an ancient colony in Thrace, and Cotium, the chief city of the province of Phrygia, contend for the distinction of being the birthplace of Aesop.

Although the honor thus claimed cannot be definitely assigned to any one of these places, yet there are few incidents now generally accepted by scholars as established facts relating to the birth, life, and death of Aesop.

He is, by an almost universal consent, allowed to have been born about the year 1620 B.C., and to have been by birth a slave.

Aeneas stood motionless and speechless, appalled by that strange message from the tomb and the tale of treachery and crime which it revealed.

This Polydorus was Priam's youngest son, committed by his father with a great treasure to the charge of Polymester, king of Thrace.

The ruffian king, when he saw that Priam's star was on the wane, murdered his youthful guest and took possession of his gold.

Full of sad thoughts, Aeneas sought counsel of Anchiasus and other Trojan elders and told them that dark story of lawless outrage and broken faith.