Colossus

“ Age and the shocks of the elements, the wash of the tempest and the lightning-stroke, have ploughed its marble forehead with wrinkles; mosses hang from its brows, and the dust of its own ruin—dust animated only by insects and reptiles, the offspring of corruption—moulders over its buried feet! The virtues that once distinguished—that almost deified—the immortal Colossus, have fled from the old, to find their home in the New World. ”

“ In a word, we are about to speak of that moral rottenness which had eaten through the very vitals of the Roman Colossus, and which God, unable to bear it longer before his high heaven, infecting, as it was, the very universe with its pestilent stench, sent his messengers of wrath with flaming sword and fiery torch to cleanse away from the afflicted earth. ”

“ And to think that after long centuries that gala colossus had been the outcome of the fervour of primitive faith! You found there a blossoming of that ancient sap, peculiar to the soil of Rome, which in all ages has thrown up preposterous edifices, of exaggerated hugeness and dazzling and ruinous luxury. ”

“ Like a smile of scorn lies the moonlight down below there upon the green arena, where once stood the Colossus of the Sun-god. The star of the north [8] glimmers low through the windows, and the Serpent and the Bear crouch. What a world has gone by! ”

“ Imagine the greatest figure in the world—such a figure as this Rameses was in his day—with all might, all glory, all climbing power, all vigor, tenacity of purpose, and granite strength of will concentrated within it, struck suddenly down, and falling backward in a collapse of which the thunder might shake the vitals of the earth, and you have this prostrate colossus. ”

“ Maker and unmaker of reputations, as the Colossus secretly flattered himself that he was, it went to his heart that one to whom he was ready to offer a crown should cross over to the camp of a weak and insignificant enemy—an enemy who, in point of fact, was already broken. ”

“ Grown to the size of a colossus, which overshadows the earth without a second,—unless it be the new rival rising in the Western hemisphere,—it is now assailed with a fury and virulence never before displayed. ”

“ Let him lose himself in those marvels as astonishing in their smallness as the others are in their size, for who would not be astonished that our body, hardly perceptible in the universe which itself would be imperceptible in the grand totality, should now be a colossus, a world or rather a universe in comparison with the nothingness which we can never arrive at. ”

“ The extensive broken and sloping surface of the Colossus, wet with the dews of early morning—the tears of Eos over her child, according to the Greek myth—becomes suddenly warm at sunrise, and "the current of air produced by this rapid change of temperature passing over its rough and pebbly surface" produces the mystic sound. ”

“ Then, towards evening, men saw it from afar on the red rim of the sky, digging with its hands in the soft, loamy plain beside the river Isoile. There, in a monstrous and self-made grave, the colossus laid itself down, and did not rise again. The ten pupils of Nathaire, it was believed, unable to descend from their basket, were crushed beneath the mighty body ”

“ Bernard and Stephane, now somewhat recovered from their grievous beating, alone dared to watch the advance of the giant. Their horror was inexpressibly increased when they began to recognize in the colossal features a magnified likeness to the lineaments of that evil dwarf who had presided over the dark, unhallowed activities of Ylourgne; and the laughter of the colossus, as he came down the valley, was like a tempest-borne echo of the damnable cachinnation that had followed their ignominious flight from the haunted stronghold. ”

“ The Colossus boasted that it could meet every commercial demand; supply a sewing-machine needle or set up a saw-mill; receipt for gas bills and water rates or fit out a general store. Under one roof it held the resources of a city. Henry was startled by its immensity, and as he followed Witherspoon through labyrinths of bright gauzes and avenues of somber goods, he perceived that a change in the tone of the hum announced the approach of the master. ”

“ It is not unlikely that, in the future we are now preparing, a question of politics and intrigues may still arise, but the springs by which they work will be so carefully concealed that no one will be able to see aught but flowers and paintings, just as at a theater, where a Colossus appears upon the scene walking along moved by the small legs and slender arms of a child concealed within the framework. ”

“ THE NEW COLOSSUS.* Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. ”

“ In this picture we see one hundred and seventy-two men arranged in pairs and, to use a military term, in four columns, dragging the sledge of a huge seated colossus by four ropes. [71] This colossus must have been about twenty-six feet high, if the pictured proportions between the statue and its convoy may be taken as approaching the truth. Upon the pedestal stands a man, who pours water upon the planks so that they shall not catch fire from the friction of so great a mass. ”

“ CŎLOSSUS (κολοσσός) is used both by the Greeks and Romans to signify a statue larger than life; but as such statues were very common, the word was more frequently applied to designate figures of gigantic dimensions. Such figures were first executed in Egypt, and were afterwards made by the Greeks and Romans. Among the colossal statues of Greece, the most celebrated was the bronze colossus at Rhodes, dedicated to the sun, the height of which was about 90 feet. ”

“ The names alone remain to haunt the memory: the spirits of the mighty dead mock us, as we pass. The genius of Antiquity bestrides the place like a Colossus. Ruin here sits on her pedestal of pride, and reads a mortifying lecture to human vanity. We see all that ages, nations, a subjected world conspired to build up to magnificence, overthrown 374or hastening fast into decay; empire, religion, freedom, Gods and men trampled in the dust or consigned to the regions of lasting oblivion or of shadowy renown ”

“ This Colossus was reckoned among the seven wonders of the world, the six others being, as is well known, the hanging gardens of Babylon, devised by Nitocris, wife of Nebuchadnezzar; the pyramids of Egypt; the statue of Jupiter Olympus; the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus; the temple of Diana at Ephesus; and the Pharos of Alexandria, completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1303. Nowhere has any authority been found for the assertion that the Colossus of Rhodes spanned the entrance to the harbour of the island and admitted the passage of vessels in full sail between its wide-stretched limbs. ... ”

“ No, down, Colossus, author of my sin,
And bear the burthen mingled with thine own,
To finish thy damnation.
[88]
Enter the King, Aurelia, Evadne, Old Tailor.
King. Accursed villain! thou hast murther'd him,
That holds not one small drop of royal blood,
But what is worth thy life.
Evad. O my brother!
Gio. Give him some air, the wound cannot be mortal.
Aur. Alas! he faints: O my Antonio!
Curs'd Machi'vel, may thy soul——
Ant. ”

“ The men sprang to the pumps and worked with a will—as men will work for their lives—but their efforts were vain. The water increased in the hold, and it soon became evident that the Colossus would hardly keep afloat until morning. ”

“ Many of them went away in terror; others, more incredulous, came to observe the phenomenon, and when they were unable to deny the flashing of the statue’s eyes, they too declared their credence in a spirit—not guessing that there was a spirit there, and sound young flesh to boot.
Note 1. This was what he called the Colossus above, p. 310. He meant it for the fountain of Fontainebleau. See p. ”

“ Heliogabalus rebuilt this temple of Egyptian granite, of which the columns are still lying about [22] on the edges of the great platform, in the centre of which now stands the church and monastery of S. Francesca Romana, the campanile of which is of about the same height as the Colossus of Nero, and stands near the same place. ”

“ He looks across the world from the Apennines to the Pillars of Hercules, from the pyramids of Egypt to the snows of Russia. Kings tremble, pallid, and half-lifeless; thrones crack and crumble; the nations look up and regard him and are afraid, and bend the knee before the giant. ”

“ The Colosseum
is the elephant among the ruins of the old city. This stupendous structure is eliptical in form, measuring 615 feet through the longer diameter and 510 feet through the shorter, covering more than 5-1/2 acres of ground. In the height of its glory 87,000 spectators could he accommodated within its walls! It is 156 feet high, but has no roof. The sailors of the imperial fleet used to stretch sail-cloth over it to exclude the burning rays of the sun. ”

“ And so, though one may curse the dusting and repairing of the ruins and the stripping of all the wild flora from the Colosseum, though one may wax indignant at sight of the hideous fortress like ramparts which imprison the Tiber, and bewail the old romantic banks with their greenery and their antique dwellings dipping into the stream, one must at the same time acknowledge that life springs from death, and that to-morrow must perforce blossom in the dust of the past. ”

“ Thus recently on our own Earth shone the life of Babylon, of Thebes, of Memphis, of Nineveh, of Carthage, the glory of Semiramis, Sesostris, Solomon, Alexander, Cambyses, and Cæsar; and to-day the silence of funeral solitude reigns supreme over the ruins of the palaces and temples, in the slumber of the invading night. In the history of the universe it is not only peoples, kingdoms, and empires which have disappeared, but it is whole worlds, groups of worlds, archipelagoes of planets, visible universes! ”

“ To behold the Colosseum by moonlight is something never to be forgotten, as the partial shadows lend themselves to the conjuration of specters from the dark passage-ways which one sees all around him. ”

“ A giant as tall as a mountain; so vast a giant, that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle, and hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge eyes, so that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which he was voyaging. And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his great hands and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules could discern through the clouds, was resting upon his head! ”

“ In that sublime ruin our conspirators gather. A stranger chooses, for the most part, a fine moonlight night on which to visit the Colosseum; but it is in darkness and storm that it should be rather seen, illuminated terribly by the torches of lightning, whilst the awful thunder of heaven reverberates through every ragged arch. ”

“ What grander glory ever fell on human eyes than this Colosseum of oceans, continents, kingdoms, islands and seas spread upon the vast interior vault surrounding us, and all lit up by the internal sun! ”

“ And if past loves and hopes seem thus to give their life to the lasting walls, how fearful is the breath of terror that clings round every stone of the Colosseum. One single mangled death there made ten thousand fiends of men who sat on those benches ”

“ Colossal spires 200 feet in height waved like supple goldenrods chanting and bowing low as if in worship, while the whole mass of their long, tremulous foliage was kindled into one continuous blaze of white sun-fire. The force of the gale was such that the most steadfast monarch of them all rocked down to its roots with a motion plainly perceptible when one leaned against it. Nature was holding high festival, and every fiber of the most rigid giants thrilled with glad excitement. ”

“ You walk down to the Colosseum on one of those soft sunny mornings common in Rome in the early months of the year, and you find it kept by two or three French sentries, and untenanted save by as many dilapidated ciceroni, who crawl out of their secret recesses as you enter the arena, and vie with each other for the honour of conducting you over the mighty remains, in which, as Mr Story happily expresses it, “Nature has healed over the wounds of time with delicate grasses and weeds.” ”

“ Such power defends the mansions of the just: But, like a city without walls, The grandeur of the mortal falls Who glories in his strength, and makes not God his trust. The proud blasphemers thought all earth their own; They deemed that soon the whirlwind of their ire Would sweep down tower and palace, dome and spire, The Christian altars and the Augustan throne. ”

“ Colossal are those floating islands of ice, which, outrivalling the puny architecture of man, his temples, palaces, and pyramids, drift away into the wide waste of waters, as if abandoned by the Hand that called them into existence. Colossal is that vast sheet of frozen, frosty snow, shimmering with a crystalline lustre, which covers the icy plains for countless leagues, and stretches away, perhaps, to the very border of the sea that is supposed to encircle the unattained Pole. ”

“ Chaos was generated first, and then the wide-bosomed Earth—the ever stable seat of all the Immortals that inhabit the snowy peaks of Olympus and the dark dim Tartarus in the depths of the broad-wayed earth, and Eros—the fairest of the immortal gods, that relaxes the strength of all, both gods and men, and subjugates the mind and the sage will in their breasts. ”

“ On the same night I bent my steps towards the Colosseum; and, full of my adventure of the morning, found myself, not without apprehension, involved within its labyrinthine passages. Accompanied by a monk, who, with a small horn lantern in his hand, acted as my guide, I fancied that, by its uncertain light, I could discover stealthy figures lurking within the shades of the ruin. ”