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Even in the very narrative of Ctesias, Ninus has but one wife, Semiramis; and Sardanapalus, notwithstanding his many concubines, has but five children, three sons and two daughters. It is not intended to press these arguments to an extreme, or to assume, on the strength of them, that the Assyrian monarchs were really faithful to one woman.
This man, with lanthorn, dog and bush of thorn, Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know, By Moonshine did these lovers think no scorn To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo. This grisly beast, which by name Lion hight. The trusty Thisby, coming first by night, Did scare away, or rather did affright; And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall, Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
The Censor has been dodged, just as he was dodged many years ago, when Verdi's opera Nebuchadonozor was called Ninus or when Ben Hur was presented or The Daughters of Babylon. That official has already permitted the performance of Everyman and Hannele. Consequently, it is not easy to see that the suggested broadening of the basis has taken place.
Ninus is the reputed founder of the Assyrian empire, and to him the magnificence of the capital is chiefly attributed. He is the Sesostris of Assyrian history, and is supposed to have flourished about twelve centuries before our era.
Semiramis was a lofty queen, but I fancy that Ninus had more than one bad quarter-of-an-hour with her: and in "the spacious times of great Elizabeth" there was many a milkmaid whom the wise man would have chosen for his friend, before the royal red-haired virgin. "I confess," says the poet Cowley, "I love littleness almost in all things.
The religious spirit displayed is, as might have been expected, in the highest degree exclusive and intolerant; but it is earnest, constant, and all-pervading. In the next place, we cannot fail to be struck with the energetic character of the monarch, so different from the temper which Ctesias ascribes, in the broadest and most sweeping terms, to all the successors of Ninus.
Time, at present, does not permit me to describe them; but I may mention as among the most interesting of the recent discoveries, a succession of slabs carved with a representation of the original transportation of the great winged bulls which adorned the stately entrances of the palaces of Ninus and Sardanapalus.
The current fables told of a first King Ninus and his wonderful queen Semiramis; of Sennacherib the conqueror; of the effeminate Sardanapalus, who neglected the warlike ways of his ancestors but perished gloriously at the last, with Nineveh itself, in a self-imposed holocaust. And that was all.
The Mausoleum of Ninus too, which stood at first in an open place before the palace, and opposite to the temple of the Magi, has also found means to steal to the side of the throne in the centre of this hall.
If I could have the bow of Ninus, and the earth full of wild bulls and lions, to hunt them down, there would be rest in that. To shoot with a gun is nothing; a mere touch discharges it. Give me a bow, that I may enjoy the delight of feeling myself draw the string and the strong wood bending, that I may see the rush of the arrow, and the broad head bury itself deep in shaggy hide.
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