United States or United Kingdom ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We ascended the Araxes to its head, and beyond the mountains, where it rises, is the good city of Arsorum , which belongs to the Soldan of Turkey . When we departed from Bacchu, my guide went to Tauris to speak with Argon, and took my interpreter with him; but Bacchu caused me to be carried to Naxuam , formerly the capital of a great kingdom, and the greatest and fairest city in those parts, but the Tartars have now made it a wilderness.
The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles from Tauris to Arzeroum, and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet. Yet the arms of Togrul did not make any deep or lasting impression on the Greek empire.
Its principal city, in the same situation perhaps as the modern Tauris, was frequently honored by the residence of Tiridates; and as it sometimes bore the name of Ecbatana, he imitated, in the buildings and fortifications, the splendid capital of the Medes. IV. The country of Iberia was barren, its inhabitants rude and savage.
I sent this man by way of Alapia, where he at length arrived in good health, after having escaped many dangers. Although I remained in Tauris till the 22d of September, I was not able to acquire any exact knowledge of the city, having been forced to conceal myself the whole time.
This result was the more conspicuous from the fact that Iphigenia in Tauris which is a far superior work, and in which Devrient's interpretation of the title-role was admirable had been performed to empty houses, I had to live upon this reputation for a long time, as it often happened that I was compelled to give inferior performances of repertoire pieces, including Mozart's operas.
The authors of the revolution, eager to display their merits in the court or camp of Tauris, preceded the ambassadors of Siroes, who delivered the letters of their master to his brother the emperor of the Romans.
At length, in answer to a second appeal to the oracle, he was directed to go to Tauris in Scythia, and to bring thence a statue of Diana which was believed to have fallen from heaven. Accordingly Orestes and Pylades went to Tauris, where the barbarous people were accustomed to sacrifice to the goddess all strangers who fell into their hands.
This can only happen when the latter has neither elicited our contempt nor our hatred, but when he has been brought against his inclination to become the cause of this misfortune. It is a singular beauty of the German play of "Iphigenia" that the King of Tauris, the only obstacle who thwarts the wishes of Orestes and of his sister, never loses our esteem, and that we love him to the end.
Bound hand and foot, I lie on the Moriah of fashionable life; but the grim fact stares me in the face, that no ram will be forthcoming when the slaughter begins! No relenting hand will stay the uplifted knife. Diana will not snatch me into Tauris, and mamma cannot sail prosperously from the Aulis of Erle Palma's charity until I am sacrificed. Ah! the pitying tenderness of maternal love!"
In helpless grief the king consented to offer her up as a victim, and the maiden was brought ready for sacrifice. But at the last moment Diana caught her away in a cloud, leaving a white hind in her place, and carried her to Tauris in Scythia, there to serve as a priestess in the temple. In the mean time, her kinsfolk, who were at a loss to understand how she had disappeared, mourned her as dead.
Word Of The Day