Edessa

“ Will the cleverness of the priest Fulcher, who, while our men were suffering from starvation at Antioch, was feasting at ease in Edessa, prevail over the inspired work of the wise men who died at the time that it was found? Baldwin, who ruled this Edessa after the previous Baldwin, in his letter to Archbishop Manassa said that it was found by means of the revelation of Saint Andrew, and that it instilled bravery and faithful confidence in our men to battle the attacking Turks. ”

“ The district name Osroēnē for Ὀρροηνή, is Greek, perhaps due to analogy of Chosroes. It occurs but rarely in Syriac (Uzroina) ; e.g. Chronicle of Edessa. § 35; [10] elsewhere Bēth-Urhāyē (e.g. Cureton, Spicileg. Syr. 20) . In the time of Tiglath-pileser I. (c. 1100 B.C.) the name seems to have been “District of (not Edessa, but) Ḥarrān” (Annals, vi. 71) . The Arabs pronounced the name er-Ruhā (see above) , and that form prevailed till it gave place to Urfa in the 15th century.
The Greek name Edessa appears in the Jerusalem Targum to Gen. x. 10 as Hădas (הדס‎, myrtle) ”

“ Lead me, Edessa, to some peaceful gloom,
Some silent shade far from the walks of men,
There shall the hop'd revenge my thoughts employ,
And sooth my sorrows with the coming joy.
Scene 4.
Evanthe and Cleone.
Evanthe. No, I 'll not meet him now, for love delights
In the soft pleasures of the secret shade,
And shuns the noise and tumult of the croud.
How tedious are the hours which bring him
To my fond, panting heart! for oh! to those
Who live in expectation of the bliss,
Time slowly creeps, and ev'ry tardy minute
Seems mocking of their wishes. ”

“ EDESSA, the Greek name of an ancient city of N.W. Mesopotamia (in 37° 21′ N. lat. and 39° 6′ E. long.) , suggested perhaps by a comparison of its site, or its water supply, [1] with that of its Macedonian namesake. It still bears its earlier name, modified since the 15th century (by the Turks?) to Urfa.
The oldest certain form is the Aramaic Urhāi (“Western” pronunciation Urhōi) , which appears in Greek as an adjective as Ὀρροηνή [2] , -νοί [3] (perhaps also as a fortress with spring, as Ὀρρά) , [4] and in Latin as Orr (h) ei, [5] and (in the inscription on Abgar’s grave) Orrhenoru (m) . ”

“ When the Bagdād caliphs lost control of their dominions, Edessa shared the fortunes of western Mesopotamia, changing with the rise and fall of Egyptian dynasties and Arab chieftains. In the 10th century al-Masʽūdī, writing in the very year in which it happened, tells how the Mahommedan ruler of Edessa, with the permission of the caliph, purchased peace of the emperor Romanus Lecapenus by surrendering to him the napkin of Jesus of Nazareth, wherewith he had dried himself after his baptism. ”

“ Duval, Hist. d’Édesse, 23) to derive Edessa from Aram. הדת, as though = Carthage, New Town; but Syriac writers, when they occasionally [11] use the name (Edessa, אדסא‎; so Yāqūt, Adāsā) , show no suspicion of its being Semitic. According to Pliny, v. 86, Edessa was also called Antioch, and coins of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes with the legend “Antioch on the Callirrhoe” may imply that he rebuilt and renamed the place (so Ed. Meyer in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, col. 1933, 66; otherwise Duval, Hist. 23; cf. art. Osroene) . ”

“ Therefore, most mighty King, while busying thyself with murders and battles and the enslavement of cities it will perhaps be possible for thee to win the other names, but thou wilt never by any means have the reputation of being 'good.' And yet least of all cities should Edessa suffer any adversity at thy hand. ”

“ Now, when the command arrived at the town of Edessa of the Parthians, there was a great festival, on the eighth of Nisan, on the third day of the week: the whole city was gathered together by the great altar [7] which was in the middle of the town, opposite the Record office, [8] all the gods having been brought together, and decorated, and sitting in honour, both Nebu and Bel together with their fellows. ”

“ He mentioned the fall of Edessa, and also “he stated that a few years ago a certain King and Priest called John, who lives on the farther side of Persia and Armenia, in the remote East, and who, with all his people, were Christians, though belonging to the Nestorian Church, had overcome the royal brothers Samiardi, kings of the Medes and Persians, and had captured Ecbatana, their capital and residence. The said kings had met with their Persian, Median, and Assyrian troops, and had fought for three consecutive days, each side having determined to die rather than take to flight. ”

“ On the death of Diogenes, bishop of Edessa, in the year 411–412, Rabbūlā was chosen his successor, and at once accepted the position offered him, without any of the customary show of reluctance. As a bishop he was marked by extraordinary energy, by the continued asceticism of his personal life, by his magnificent provision for all the poor and suffering in his diocese, by his care for discipline among the clergy and monks who were under his authority, and latterly by the fierce determination with which he combated all heresies and especially the growing school of the followers of Nestorius. ”

“ Edessa (40) , an ancient city in Mesopotamia; figures in early Church history, and is reputed to have contained at one time 300 monasteries; it fell into the hands of the Turks in 1515; is regarded as the sacred city of Abraham by Orientals.
Edfu, a town in Upper Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile; has unique ruins of two temples, the larger founded by Ptolemy IV. Philopater before 200 B.C.
Edgar, a king of Saxon England from 959 to 975, surnamed the Peaceful ”

“ Tatian and Bardaisan were the two men of brains in the early Syrian Church. It is unfortunate for the history of that Church that they both lie under suspicions of heresy, the one having been condemned in the West, the other in his own country. Had there been vigour of intellect enough at Edessa to have won over Bardaisan to the views of his fellow-Christians, or charity enough to have found room for him in spite of his peculiarities, he would have been a brilliant light in the Church. ”

“ Lo! tortures on thy body are set like gems of beryl,
And the sword on thy neck like a chain of choice gold.
Thy blood upon thy form is a robe of glory full of beauty,
And the scourging of thy back a vesture with which the sun may not compare.
Radiant thou art and comely by virtue of these thy sufferings, so abounding;
And resplendent are thy beauties, because of the pains which are so severe upon thee.
Shamuna, our riches, richer art thou than the rich:
For lo! the rich stand at thy door, that thou mayest relieve them. ”

“ Then seeing the crimson overspread Edith's cheek, she added, "perhaps your warm tears have revived it." But, as if ashamed of having said something not perfectly true, she took Edith's hand, looked earnestly in her face, as if asking an explanation of this sudden change.
Edith was wholly overcome. She threw herself into the arms of the faithful slave, and longed to hide herself there. None but a mother could understand her feelings, or one who had been to her in the place of a mother, and knew every beating of her innocent heart. ”

“ Music had no charms for her, nor books, nor young company. Life was lifeless to her. The mansion was a dreary castle. Her days were spent in wishing for night, and nights in wishing for morning. All her mother's endearments, all her father's love, all of Star's sweet companionship, were alike to her—unconsoling. The mother was in despair, the father grief stricken, but Star, of all of them, had hope.
"Edith," said Star, this day, while standing by the pond watching the leaping fountain and playful golden fish, and noting how quiet Edith was. "I wrote to Mr. Winthrope yesterday." ”

“ So you see, instead of being my maid, you have been my faithful companion—and nurse. Dear Star, I love you, and if you will always remain with me, I shall be the happiest person on earth."
"Dear Edith," said Star, with tears of gratitude in her eyes, "I knew you were good when first I beheld you; but I never knew that such goodness could be in any kinsman of mine. I never told you of the life I lived; I never told you how we lived at home; I never told you of my father or my mother. For it always gave me grief to think of it. Poor father is dead!"
"Dead!" said Edith. ”

“ It is one of the tragic facts of this life, that a relation so unequal as that which existed between Halfdan and Edith, is at all possible. As for Edith, I must admit that she was well aware that her teacher was in love with her. Women have wonderfully keen senses for phenomena of that kind, and it is an illusion if any one imagines, as our Norseman did, that he has locked his secret securely in the hidden chamber of his heart. ”

“ Thy breasts are better to me than wine: for the fragrance of Thy sweetness is life for evermore. With Thy milk shall I be nourished; with Thy fragrance shall I grow sweet from the smoke of idols, which with its rank odour did make me fetid. ”

“ Are we not man and wife? Have we not ever been faithful to each other?”
“But this dreadful Church, my Edwy, which crushes men’s affections and rules their intellects with a giant’s strength more fearful than the fabled hammer of Thor. It crushed the sweet mythology of old, with all that ministered to love, and substituted the shaveling, the nun, the monk; it has no sympathy with poor hearts like ours; it is remorseless, as though it never knew pity or fear. You must yield, my Edwy! we must yield!”
“I cannot,” he said; “we will fly the throne together.” ”

“ Edith was shocked; and the tears she tried in vain to suppress forced themselves down her cheeks.
"Poor child!" said the old woman; "you can weep for others, but yours is the fate of all the daughters of Eve: you will soon weep for yourself. With all your proud beauty and your feeling heart, you cannot keep your idols: they will crumble away, and you will come at last to what I am."
Edith tried to direct her attention to something else. ”

“ He tries to cry for help, but he cannot,—can only stretch out his hands to her, and feel very unhappy that he cannot follow her. But now she pauses in her flight, turns about, and he sees that she wears a myrtle garland in her hair like a bride. She comes toward him, her countenance all radiant with love and happiness, and she stoops down over him and speaks:
“Come; they are waiting for us. I will follow thee in life and in death, wherever thou goest. Come,” repeats Edith, “they have long been waiting. They are all here.” ”

“ In the Valkyrie-brides, Brynhild and Sigrun, with their double attributes of fighting and wisdom, there is an evident connexion with the Germanic type of woman preserved in the allusions of Cæsar and Tacitus, which reaches its highest development in the heroines of the Edda. Any mythical or ideal conception of womanhood combines the two primitive instincts, love and fighting, even though the woman may be only the innocent cause of strife, or its passive prize. The peculiarity of the Germanic representation is that the woman is never passive, but is herself the incarnation of both instincts. ”

“ While the mother smoothed the soft brown hair from the forehead.
“ See, mamma, what flowers!” she said, and show’d, in her basket.
Gems, the hill top loves: and Edith smiled, to behold them,
As one will, who finds some lost thing, wholly forgotten:—
“ Yellow mountain pansies! You have been to the beacon!
“ These I know so well! they only grow by the beacon. ”

“ He looked at her steadily. "Edith! What are you made of?"
She returned his look. "I think—of stone. Up till to-day I've been a woman of flesh and blood; but I'm not sure that I am any longer. You can't kill the heart in a woman's body—and still expect her to feel."
"But, Edith—Edith darling—there's no reason why I should have killed the heart in your body when I never dreamed of doing you a wrong—that is, an intentional wrong," he corrected. ”

“ Edith, when consciousness returned, had not a doubt that the letters, which she had been reading, had been penned by the hand of her own mother; that she was that little baby who had been born in Rome—that child of shame whose father had so heartlessly deserted it; whose mother, her brain turned by her suffering and wrongs, had planned to take her own life, rather than [37] live to taint her little one's future with the shadow of her own disgrace.
The knowledge of this seemed to blight, as with a lightning flash, every hope of her life. ”

“ Edith blushed slightly. "Father," she said, "I want no companion but you. Let me bring your slippers. Ah! I see Dinah has brought them while I have been gazing idly at the river. It shall not happen again. What book shall be our evening reading? Shall I take up Cicero again, or will you laugh at the Knight of the rueful Countenance."
How soon is ingenuous nature veiled or denied by woman. Edith thus tried to efface the impression of her sigh and blush, by assuming a gayety of manner which was foreign to her usual demeanor, and which did not deceive her father. ”

“ As she stood beside Edith, she shook with age and terror; and Edith, touched with pity, though she trembled herself, and was deadly pale, tried to give her a smile of hope and encouragement. The poor old wretch did not need it: she not only confessed to every thing of which she was accused, but added such circumstances of time and place, and of the various forms the devil had taken in her person, that Edith almost sickened with disgust. She could not understand how an old person, on the very verge of the grave, could wish to lengthen out her few years by such base and wicked lies. ”

“ Many of them she kept within her own breast, for she felt that it would distress her mother to know how little charm remained to her in life, and how often she looked up into the blue depths of heaven, and wished that she had 'the wings of a dove, and could flee away' from this cold world, 'and be at rest' where Henrich and Ludovico dwelt.
And yet Edith was not unhappy. As she grew up, and became a more equal and rational companion to her parents, the cares and business of life necessarily occupied more of her time and thoughts, and gave her less leisure for solitary meditation ”