srijeda, 1. srpnja 2026.
Let us praise Woman-Mother, the inexhaustible source of all-conquering life! Here we shall tell of the Iron Timur-Lenk, the Lame Lynx—of Sahib-Kiran, the lucky conqueror—of Tamerlane, as the Infidels have named him—of the man who sought to destroy the whole world. For fifty years he scoured the earth, his iron heel crushing towns and states as an elephant's foot crushes ant-hills. Red rivers of blood flowed in his tracks wherever he went. He built high towers of the bones of conquered peoples; he destroyed Life, vying with the might of Death, on whom he took revenge for having robbed him of his son Jihangir. He was a terrible man, for he wanted to deprive Death of all his victims; to leave Death to die of hunger and ennui! From the day on which his son Jihangir died and the people of Samarcand, clothed in black and light blue, their heads covered with dust and ashes, met the conqueror of the cruel Getes, from that day until the hour when Death met him in Otrar, and overcame him—for thirty years Timur did not smile. He lived with lips compressed, bowing his head to no one, and his heart was closed to compassion for thirty years. Let us praise Woman-Mother, the only power to which Death humbly submits. Here we shall tell the true tale of a mother, how Iron Tamerlane, the servant and slave of Death, and the bloody scourge of the earth, bowed down before her. This is how it came to pass. Timur-Bek
was feasting in the beautiful valley of Canigula which is covered with clouds of roses and jasmine, in the valley called "Love of Flowers" by the poets of Samarcand, from which one can see the light blue minarets of the great town, and the blue cupolas of the mosques.
Fifteen hundred round tents were spread out fan-wise in the valley, looking like so many tulips. Above them hundreds of silk flags were gently swaying, like living flowers.
In their midst, like a queen among her subjects, was the tent of Gurgan-Timur. The tent had four sides, each measuring one hundred paces, three spears' length in height; its roof rested on twelve golden columns as thick as the body of a man. The tent was made of silk, striped in black, yellow and light blue; five hundred red cords fastened it to the ground. There was a silver eagle at each of the four corners, and under the blue cupola, on a dais in the middle of the tent, was seated a fifth eagle—the all-conquering Timur-Gurgan himself, the King of Kings.
He wore a loose robe of light blue silk covered with no fewer than five thousand large pearls. On his grey head, which was terrible to look upon, was a white cap with a ruby on the sharp point. The ruby swayed backwards and forwards; it glistened like a fiery eye surveying the world.
The face of the Lame One was like a broad knife covered with rust from the blood into which it had been plunged thousands of times. His eyes were narrow and small but they saw everything; their gleam resembled the cold gleam of "Tsaramut," the favourite stone of the Arabs, which the infidels call emerald, and by means of which epilepsy can be cured.
The king wore earrings of rubies from Ceylon which resembled in colour a pretty girl's lips.
On the ground, on carpets that could not be matched, were three hundred golden pitchers of wine and everything needed for the royal banquet. Behind Timur stood the musicians; at his feet were his kindred: kings and princes and the commanders of his troops; by his side was no one. Nearest of all to him was the tipsy poet Kermani, he who once to the question of the destroyer of the world, "Kermani, how much would you give for me if I were to be sold?" replied to the sower of death and terror:
"Twenty-five askers."
"But that is the value of my belt alone!" exclaimed Timur, surprised.
"I was only thinking of the belt," replied Kermani, "only of the belt; because you yourself are not worth a farthing!"
Thus spake the poet Kermani to the King of Kings, to the man of evil and terror. Let us therefore value the fame of the poet, the friend of truth, always higher than the fame of Timur. Let us praise poets who have only one God—the beautifully spoken, fearless word of truth—that which is their god for ever!
It was an hour of mirth, carousal and proud reminiscences of battles and victories. Amid the sounds of music and popular games, warriors were fencing before the tent of the king, and endeavouring to show their prowess in killing. A number of motley-coloured clowns were tumbling about, strong men were wrestling, acrobats were performing as though they had no bones in their bodies. A performance of elephants was also in progress; they were painted red and green, which made some of them look ludicrous, others terrible. At this hour of joy, when Timur's men were intoxicated with fear before him, with pride in his fame, with the fatigue of battles, with wine and koumiss—at this mad hour, suddenly through the noise, like lightning through a cloud, the cry of a woman reached the ears of the conqueror of the Sultan Bayazet, the cry of a proud eagle, a sound familiar and attuned to his afflicted soul—afflicted by Death, and therefore so cruel to mankind and to life.
He gave orders to inquire who had cried out in this voice devoid of joy. He was told that a woman had come, all in rags and covered with dust; she seemed crazy, and speaking Arabic demanded—she demanded—to see the master of three parts of the world.
"Lead her in!" said the king.
Before him stood a woman, barefooted, in rags faded by the sun. Her black hair hung loose, covering her naked breast, and her face was of the colour of bronze. Her eyes expressed command and her tawny hand did not shake as she pointed it at the "Lame One."
"Are you he that defeated Sultan Bayazet?" she asked.
"Yes, I am he. I have conquered many and am not yet tired of victories. What have you to tell me about yourself, woman?"
"Listen," she said. "Whatever you may have done, you are only a man, but I am a mother. You serve Death—I serve Life. You are guilty before me and I am come to demand that you atone for your guilt. They tell me that your watchword is 'Justice is Power.' I do not believe it, but you must be just to me because I am a mother."
The king was wise enough to overlook the insult and felt the force of the words behind it. He said:
"Sit down and speak. I will listen to you."
She settled herself comfortably on a carpet in the narrow circle of kings and related as follows:—
"I have come from near Salerno. It is in far-off Italy—you would not know it. My father was a fisherman, my husband also; he was as handsome as he was happy. It was I who made him happy. I also had a son who was the finest boy in the world——"
"Like my Jihangir," said the old warrior quietly.
"My son was the finest and cleverest boy. He was six years old when Saracen pirates came to our shore. They killed my father and my husband, and many others. They kidnapped my son and for four years I have searched for him all over the earth. He must be with you now; I know it, because Bayazet's warriors captured the pirates; you defeated Bayazet and took away all he had; therefore you must know where my son is, you must give him back to me!"
"She is insane," said the kings and friends of Timur, his princes and marshals; and they all laughed, for kings always account themselves wise.
But Kermani looked seriously at the woman, and Tamerlane seemed greatly astonished.
"She is as insane as a mother," quietly said the poet Kermani; but the king—the enemy of the world—replied:
"Woman, how came you from that unknown country, across the seas, across rivers and mountains, through the forests? How is it that wild beasts, and men, who are often more ferocious than the wildest of beasts, did not harm you? You came even without a weapon, the only friend of the defenceless that does not betray them as long as they have strength in their arms. I must know it all in order that I may believe you and in order that my astonishment may not prevent me from understanding you."
Let us praise Woman-Mother, whose love knows no bounds, by whose breast the whole world has been nourished. Everything that is beautiful in man comes from the rays of the sun and from mother's milk; these are the sources of our love of life.
The woman replied to Timur-Lenk:
"I came across one sea only, a sea with many islands, where I found fishermen's boats. When one is seeking what one loves the wind is always favourable. For one who has been born and bred by the seashore it is easy to swim across rivers. Mountains? I saw no mountains."
"A mountain becomes a valley when one loves!" interjected smilingly the poet Kermani.
"True, there were forests on the way. There were wild boars, bears, lynxes and terrible-looking bulls that lowered their heads threateningly; twice lynxes stared at me with eyes like yours. But every beast has a heart. I talked to them as I talk to you. They believed me that I was a mother and went away sighing. They pitied me. Know you not that beasts also love their young, and will fight for the life and freedom of those they love as valiantly as men?"
"That is true, woman," said Timur. "Very often, I know, their love is stronger and they fight harder than men."
"Men," she continued like a child, for every mother is a hundred times a child in her soul, "men are always children of their mothers, for everyone has a mother, everyone is somebody's son, even you, old man; a woman bore you. You may renounce God, but that you cannot renounce, old man."
"That is true, woman," exclaimed Kermani, the fearless poet. "You can have no calves from a herd of bulls, no flowers bloom without the sun, there is no happiness without love. There is no love without woman. There is no poet or hero without a mother."
And the woman said:
"Give me back my child, because I am a mother and I love him!"
Let us bow down before Woman—she gave birth to Moses, Mahomet, and the Great Prophet Jesus who was murdered by the wicked, but who, as Sherif-eddin said, "will rise and come to judge the living and the dead. It will happen in Damascus."
Let us bow down before her who through the centuries gives birth to great men. Aristotle was her son, and Firdousi, and honey-sweet Saadi, and Omar Khayyam that is like wine mixed with poison, Iscander and blind Homer. All these are her children, they all have drunk her milk and every one of them was led into the world by her hand—when they were no taller than a tulip. All the pride of the world is due to mothers.
And the grey destroyer of towns, the lame tiger Timur-Gurgan, grew thoughtful and for a long time was silent. Then to all present he said:
"Men Tangri Kuli, Timur (I, Timur, a servant of God) say what I must say. I have lived for many years and the earth groans under me. For thirty years, with this hand of mine, I have been destroying the harvest of Death, I have been taking revenge upon Death because Death put out the sun of my heart—robbed me of my Jihangir. Others have struggled for cities and for kingdoms, but none has so striven for a man. Men had no value in my eyes; I cared not who they were nor why they were in my way. It was I, Timur, who said to Bayazet when I had defeated him: 'O Bayazet, it seems that kingdoms are nothing before God; you see that He gives them into the hands of people like us—you who are a cripple and me who am lame!' I said this to him when he was led up to me in chains, groaning under their weight. I looked upon his misfortune and felt that love was bitter as wormwood, the weed that grows on ruins.
"A servant of God, I say what I must. A woman sits before me, her number is legion and she has awakened in my soul feelings hitherto unknown to me. As an equal she speaks to me and she does not ask, she demands. I see and understand why this woman is so powerful: she loves and love helped her to recognise that her child is the spark of life from which a flame may spring that will burn for many centuries. Have not all prophets been children, and all heroes been weak? O Jihangir, the light of my eyes, perhaps it was thy lot to warm the earth, to sow happiness on it: I have covered it well with blood and made it fertile."
Again the Scourge of Nations pondered long. At last he said:
"I, Timur, slave of God, say what I must. Let three hundred horsemen go to all the four corners of my kingdom and let them find this woman's son. She shall wait here and I will wait with her. Happy shall he be who returns with the child on his saddle. Woman, is that right?"
She tossed her black hair from her face, smiled at him and, nodding, answered:
"Quite right, O king!"
Then the terrible old man rose and bowed to her in silence, but the merry poet Kermani sang joyfully like a child:
"What is more delightful than a song of flowers and stars?
Everyone will say: a song of love.
What is more enchanting than the midday sun in May?
A lover will reply: she whom I love.
Ah, I know the stars are splendid in the sky at depth of night,
And I know the sun is gorgeous on a dazzling summer's day,
But the eyes of my beloved out-rival all the flowers,
And her smile is more entrancing than the sun in May.
But no one yet has sung the best, most charming song of all;
Tis the song of all beginnings, of the heart of all the world,
Of the magic heart of women, and the mother of us all!"
Timur-Lenk said to his poet:
"Quite right, Kermani! God did not err when He selected your lips to announce his wisdom!"
"Well, God himself is a good poet!" said the drunken Kermani.
And the woman smiled, and all the kings and princes and warriors smiled too, like children, as they looked at her—the Woman-Mother.
All this is true. What is said here is the truth, all mothers know it, ask them and they will say:
"Yes, all this is everlasting truth. We are more powerful than Death, we who ceaselessly present sages, poets and heroes to the world, we who sow in it everything that is glorious!"
utorak, 30. lipnja 2026.
It is a quiet sultry day, and life seems to have come to a standstill in the serene calm; the sky looks affably down at the earth, with a limpid eye of which the sun is the fiery iris. The sea has been hammered smooth out of some blue metal, the coloured boats of the fishermen are as motionless as if they were soldered into the semicircle of the bay, which is as clear as the sky overhead. A seagull flies past, lazily flapping its wings; out of the water comes another bird, whiter yet and more beautiful than the one in the air. In the distant mist floats, as if melting in the sun, a violet isle, a solitary rock in the sea, like a precious stone in the ring formed by the Neapolitan bay. The rocky isle, with its rugged promontories sloping down to the sea, is covered with gorgeous clusters of the dark foliage of the vine, of orange, lemon and fig trees, and the dull silver of the tiny olive leaves. Out of this mass of green, which falls abruptly to the sea, red, white and golden flowers smile pleasantly, while the yellow and orange-coloured fruits remind one of the stars on a hot moonlight night, when the sky is dark and the air moist. There is quiet in the sky, on the sea and in one's soul; one stops and listens to all the living things singing a wordless prayer to their God—the Sun.
Between the gardens winds a narrow path, and along it a tall woman in black descends slowly to the sea, stepping from stone to stone. Her dress has faded in the sun: brown spots and even patches can be seen on it from afar. Her head is bare; her grey hair glistens like silver, framing in crisp curls her high forehead, her temples and the tawny skin of her cheeks; it is of the kind that no combing could render smooth.
Her face is sharp, severe, once seen to be remembered for ever; there is something profoundly ancient in its withered aspect; and when one encounters the direct look of her dark eyes one involuntarily thinks of the burning wilderness of the East, of Deborah and Judith.
Her head is bent over some red garment which she is knitting; the steel of her hook glistens. A ball of wool is hidden somewhere in her dress, but the red thread appears to come from her bosom. The path is steep and treacherous, the pebbles fall and rattle as she steps, but this greyhaired woman descends as confidently as if her feet themselves could find the way. This tale is told of her in the village: She is a widow; her husband, a fisherman, soon after their wedding went out fishing and never returned, leaving her with a child under her heart.
When the child was born she hid it; she did not take her son out into the street and sunshine to show him off, as mothers are wont to do, but kept him in a dark corner of her hut, swaddling him in rags. Not one of the neighbours knew how the new-born baby was shaped—they saw only the large head and big, motionless eyes in a yellow face. Previously she had been healthy, alert and cheerful and able not only to struggle persistently with necessity herself but knowing also how to say a word of encouragement to others. But now it was noticed that she had become silent, that she was always musing, and knitting her brows, and looked at everything as through a mist of sorrow, with a strange, wistful, searching expression.
Little time was needed for everyone to learn about her misfortune: the child born to her was a freak, that is why she hid it, that is what depressed her.
The neighbours told her, of course, how shameful it is for a woman to be the mother of a freak; no one except the Madonna knows whether this cruel insult is a punishment justly deserved or not; but that the child was guiltless, and she was wrong to deprive it of sunshine.
She listened to them and showed them her son. His arms and legs were short, like the fins of a fish, his head, which was puffed out like a huge ball, was weakly supported by a thin, skinny neck, and his face was wrinkled like that of an old man; he had a pair of dull eyes and a large mouth drawn into a set smile.
The women cried when they beheld him, men frowned, expressed loathing and went gloomily away; the freak's mother sat on the ground, now bowing her head, now raising it and looking at the others, as if silently inquiring about something which no one could grasp.
The neighbours made a box like a coffin for the freak, and filled it with rags and combings of wool; they put the little child into this soft warm nest and placed the box out in the yard in the shade, entertaining a secret hope that the sunlight which performs miracles every day might work yet one miracle more.
Time passed, but he remained unchanged, with a large head, a thin body, and four helpless limbs; only his smile assumed a more definite expression of ravenous greed, and his mouth was becoming filled with two rows of sharp, crooked teeth. The short paws learnt to catch chunks of bread and to carry them, with rarely a mistake, to the large warm mouth.
He was dumb, but when food was being consumed near him and he could smell it he made a mumbling sound, working his jaws and shaking his large head, and the dull whites of his eyes became covered with a red network of bloody veins.
The freak's appetite was enormous, and waxed greater as time went on; his mumbling never ceased. The mother worked untiringly, but very often her earnings were small and sometimes she earned nothing at all. She did not complain, and accepted help from the neighbours rather unwillingly, and always without a word. When she was away from home the neighbours, irritated by the mumbling of the child, ran into the yard and shoved crusts of bread, vegetables, fruit, anything that could be eaten, into the ever-hungry jaws.
"Soon he will devour everything you have," they said to her. "Why don't you send him to some orphanage or hospital?"
She answered gloomily:
"Leave him alone! I am his mother, I gave him life and I must feed him."
She was fair to look upon, and more than one man sought her love, but unsuccessfully. To one whom she liked more than the rest she said:
"I cannot be your wife; I am afraid of giving birth to another freak; you would be ashamed. No, go away!"
The man tried to persuade her, reminded her of the Madonna, who is just to mothers and looks upon them as her sisters, but the freak's mother replied to him:
"I don't know what I am guilty of, but I have been cruelly punished."
He implored, wept, raged; and finally she said:
"One cannot do what one does not believe to be right. Go away!"
He went away to a far-off place and she never saw him again.
And so for many years she filled the insatiable jaws, which chewed incessantly. He devoured the fruits of her toil, her blood, her life; his head grew and became more terrible, until it seemed ready to break away from the thin weak neck and to rise in the air like a balloon; one could imagine it in its course knocking against the corners of houses, and swaying lazily from side to side.
All who looked into the yard stopped involuntarily and shuddered, unable to understand what they saw. Near the vine-covered wall, propped up on stones, as on an altar, was a box, out of which rose a head, showing up clearly against the background of foliage. The yellow, freckled, wrinkled face, with its high cheekbones, and vacant eyes starting out of their sockets, impressed itself on the memory of all who saw it; the broad flat nostrils quivered, the abnormally developed cheek-bones and jaws worked monotonously, the fleshy lips hung loose, disclosing two rows of ravenous teeth; the large projecting ears, like those of an animal, seemed to lead a separate existence. And this awful visage was crowned by a mass of black hair growing in small, close curls, like the wool of a negro.
Holding in his little hands, which were short and small like the paws of a lizard, a chunk of something to eat, the freak would bend his head forward like a bird pecking, and, wrenching off bits of food with his teeth, would munch noisily and snuffle. When he was satisfied he grinned; his eyes shifted towards the bridge of his nose, forming one dull, expressionless spot on the half-dead face, the movements of which recalled to mind the twitchings of a person in agony. When he was hungry he would crane his neck forward, open his red maw and mumble clamorously, moving a thin, snake-like tongue.
Crossing themselves and muttering a prayer people stepped aside, reminded of everything evil that they had lived through, of all the misfortunes they had experienced in their lives.
The blacksmith, an old man of a gloomy disposition, said more than once:
"When I see the all-devouring mouth of this creature I feel that somebody like him has devoured my strength; it seems to me that we all live and die for the sake of such parasites."
This dumb head called forth in everyone sombre thoughts and feelings that oppressed the heart.
The freak's mother listened to what people said, and was silent; but her hair turned quickly grey, wrinkles appeared on her face and she had long since forgotten how to laugh. It was known that sometimes she would spend the whole night standing in the doorway, and looking up at the sky as if waiting for something. Shrugging their shoulders they said to one another:
"Whatever is she waiting for?"
"Put him on the square near the old church," her neighbours advised her. "Foreigners pass there; they will be sure to throw him a few coppers."
The mother shuddered as if in horror, saying:
"It would be terrible if he were seen by strangers, by people from other countries—what would they think of us?"
They replied:
"There is misfortune everywhere, and they all know it."
Disparagingly she shook her head.
But foreigners, driven by the desire for change, wander everywhere, and naturally enough as they passed her house looked in. She was at home, she saw the ugly looks, expressing aversion and loathing, on the repleted faces of these idle people, heard how they spoke about her son, making wry mouths and screwing up their eyes. Her heart was especially wounded by a few words uttered contemptuously, with animosity, and obvious triumph.
Many times she repeated to herself the stranger's words, committing them to memory; her heart, the heart of an Italian woman and a mother, divined their insulting meaning.
That same day she went to an interpreter whom she knew and asked what the words meant.
"It depends upon who uttered them!" he replied, knitting his brows. "They mean: 'Italy is the first of the Latin races to degenerate.' ... Where did you hear this lie?"
She went away without answering.
The next day her son died in convulsions from over-eating.
She sat in the yard near the box, her hand on the head of her dead son; still seeming to be calmly waiting, waiting. She looked questioningly into the eyes of everybody who came to the house to look upon the deceased.
All were silent, no one spoke to her, though perhaps many wished to congratulate her—she had been freed from slavery—to say a word of consolation to her—she had lost a son—but everyone was mute. Sometimes people understand that there is a time for silence.
For some time after this she continued to gaze long into people's faces, as if questioning them about something; then she became as ordinary as everybody else.
ponedjeljak, 29. lipnja 2026.
A Boy and His Dog – Harlan Ellison - https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/boy-and-dog/
It’d been made in 1948, seventy-six years ago