Sailing to Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
An Extremely Brief History of Istanbul
We will try to keep this brief in WRC journalistic style, but 34 centuries of history don't always summarize well. Thanks to Witopia for most of the factoids.
First came the Thracians. Lygos was founded by Thracian tribes between the 13th and 11th centuries BC. Then came the Greeks in 695 BC to Byzantion (Βυζάντιον). Latinized as Byzantium, it was the next name of the city. Then came the Romans. The city was besieged by Rome and suffered extensive damage in AD 196. Byzantium was rebuilt by the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus and quickly regained its previous prosperity. 15 centuries of peace and prosperity and then the Romans show up...
Then came the Christians. The location of Byzantium attracted Constantine the Great in 324 after a prophetic dream was said to have identified the location of the city. (Over here! OVER HERE!!!) Byzantium became Constantinopolis, i.e. The City of Constantine. It was officially proclaimed the new capital of the Roman Empire in 330. Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
Constantine’s conversion to Christianity a few years earlier, in 312, had set the Roman Empire onto Christianization, and in 381, during the reign of Theodosius I, the official state religion of the Roman Empire became Christianity.
The most famous Byzantine emperor was Justinian (527-565). During his reign he extended the Byzantine Empire to its largest boundaries spreading from Palestine to the tip of Spain. Justinian is also credited for inventing the first recipe for baklava.
Then Came the Crusaders. Near 1204 Constantinople began to decline in power. Because of the failure of the Third Crusade, western Europeans decided to again try to capture the Holy City of Jerusalem in the Fourth Crusade. In 1204, western armies captured Constantinople and ransacked the city for treasures and baklava. At this point, the WRC staff feel they should point out the fact that the Crusaders were supposed to leave their fellow Christians in Constantinople alone and carry on to attack Jerusulem, but somehow the idea of Christians leaving Christians alone got lost in the mix.
Speros Vryonis in Byzantium and Europe gives a vivid account of the sack:
The Latin soldiery subjected the greatest city in Europe to an indescribable sack. For three days they murdered, raped, looted and destroyed on a scale which even the ancient Vandals and Goths would have found unbelievable. Constantinople had become a veritable museum of ancient and Byzantine art, an emporium of such incredible wealth that the Latins were astounded at the riches they found. Though the Venetians had an appreciation for the art which they discovered (they were themselves semi-Byzantines) and saved much of it, the French and others destroyed indiscriminately, halting to refresh themselves with wine, violation of nuns, and murder of Orthodox clerics. The Crusaders vented their hatred for the Greeks most spectacularly in the desecration of the greatest Church in Christendom. They smashed the silver iconostasis, the icons and the holy books of Hagia Sophia, and seated upon the patriarchal throne a whore who sang coarse songs as they drank wine from the Church's holy vessels. The estrangement of East and West, which had proceeded over the centuries, culminated in the horrible massacre that accompanied the conquest of Constantinople. The Greeks were convinced that even the Turks, had they taken the city, would not have been as cruel as the Latin Christians. The defeat of Byzantium, already in a state of decline, accelerated political degeneration so that the Byzantines eventually became an easy prey to the Turks. The Fourth Crusade and the crusading movement generally thus resulted, ultimately, in the victory of Islam, a result which was of course the exact opposite of its original intention.
Then Came the Turks. The city, known alternatively in Ottoman Turkish as Kostantiniyye (قسطنطينيه after the Arabic form al-Qusṭanṭiniyah القسطنطينية) or Istanbul (while its Christian minorities continued to name it Constantinople), was the capital of the Ottoman Empire from its conquest in 1453 until the empire's collapse in 1922. Istanbul became the third capital of the Ottoman Empire.
This final change is well documented by "They Might Be Giants"
Then Came the White River Chronicles. Now that you have the essential backround narrative, we can carry on. Next Week, the White River Chronicles FEARLESSLY narrate our invasion of the ancient town of ....of...well, Instanbul and the many adventures we had there. Stay tuned and see ya next week!
