And hollow pamper’d jades of Asia,
Which cannot go but thirty miles a day,
Compare with Cæsars, and with Cannibals,
And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus.
England’s opinion was the same as Pistol’s, and the grandeur of Tamerlane was forgotten. Yet in two successive years he conquered India and Eastern Russia. He wore what was traditionally held to be the armour of King David. And, to-day, who so poor as to do him reverence? Only the beautiful name of Timour and the ruins of his tombs and mosques remain, giving a strange atmosphere of mystery and melancholy to the youngest of Russian colonies.
It is possible now to linger in the romantic idea of all the splendour that has passed away, and to feel a strange beauty in Samarkand. I remember reading some years ago a beautiful prose poem in modern “impressionist” style, written by Zoe Pavlovska, who is, I suppose, a Russian—perhaps a Cossack. It was the story of pilgrimage to the tomb of Tamerlane’s most loved princess:
I shall go to the tomb of the Emperor’s daughter. It will be night, but a night when the moon is full; its clear light will guide me through the mazes of the streets of the city. These will be narrow. At dark corners I shall be afraid—muffled forms will glide past me in the deep shadows of the walls.
Now and then a light will shine from some open window. I shall stop and hear the chanting of poems, and will wait to listen, swaying in time with the rhythm.
I shall hear——