APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/poe/shadow/SHADOW

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                       1850

                SHADOW- A PARABLE

                by Edgar Allan Poe


    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the Shadow:
                                                     Psalm of David.


YE who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long
since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things
shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass
away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be
some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much
to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.

The year had been a year of terror, and of feelings more intense than
terror for which there is no name upon the earth. For many prodigies and
signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the black
wings of the Pestilence were spread abroad. To those, nevertheless,
cunning in the stars, it was not unknown that the heavens wore an aspect
of ill; and to me, the Greek Oinos, among others, it was evident that
now had arrived the alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth
year when, at the entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is conjoined
with the red ring of the terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the
skies, if I mistake not greatly, made itself manifest, not only in the
physical orb of the earth, but in the souls, imaginations, and
meditations of mankind.

Over some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the walls of a noble
hall, in a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at night, a company of
seven. And to our chamber there was no entrance save by a lofty door of
brass: and the door was fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and, being of
rare workmanship, was fastened from within. Black draperies, likewise,
in the gloomy room, shut out from our view the moon, the lurid stars,
and the peopleless streets- but the boding and the memory of Evil they
would not be so excluded. There were things around us and about of which
I can render no distinct account- things material and spiritual-
heaviness in the atmosphere- a sense of suffocation- anxiety- and, above
all, that terrible state of existence which the nervous experience when
the senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of
thought lie dormant. A dead weight hung upon us. It hung upon our limbs-
upon the household furniture- upon the goblets from which we drank; and
all things were depressed, and borne down thereby- all things save only
the flames of the seven lamps which illumined our revel. Uprearing
themselves in tall slender lines of light, they thus remained burning
all pallid and motionless; and in the mirror which their lustre formed
upon the round table of ebony at which we sat, each of us there
assembled beheld the pallor of his own countenance, and the unquiet
glare in the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we laughed and were
merry in our proper way- which was hysterical; and sang the songs of
Anacreon- which are madness; and drank deeply- although the purple wine
reminded us of blood. For there was yet another tenant of our chamber in
the person of young Zoilus. Dead, and at full length he lay, enshrouded;
the genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our
mirth, save that his countenance, distorted with the plague, and his
eyes, in which Death had but half extinguished the fire of the
pestilence, seemed to take such interest in our merriment as the dead
may haply take in the merriment of those who are to die. But although I,
Oinos, felt that the eyes of the departed were upon me, still I forced
myself not to perceive the bitterness of their expression, and gazing
down steadily into the depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a loud and
sonorous voice the songs of the son of Teios. But gradually my songs
they ceased, and their echoes, rolling afar off among the sable
draperies of the chamber, became weak, and undistinguishable, and so
faded away. And lo! from among those sable draperies where the sounds of
the song departed, there came forth a dark and undefined shadow- a
shadow such as the moon, when low in heaven, might fashion from the
figure of a man: but it was the shadow neither of man nor of God, nor of
any familiar thing. And quivering awhile among the draperies of the
room, it at length rested in full view upon the surface of the door of
brass. But the shadow was vague, and formless, and indefinite, and was
the shadow neither of man nor of God- neither God of Greece, nor God of
Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian God. And the shadow rested upon the brazen
doorway, and under the arch of the entablature of the door, and moved
not, nor spoke any word, but there became stationary and remained. And
the door whereupon the shadow rested was, if I remember aright, over
against the feet of the young Zoilus enshrouded. But we, the seven there
assembled, having seen the shadow as it came out from among the
draperies, dared not steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes, and
gazed continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at length
I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling
and its appellation. And the shadow answered, "I am SHADOW, and my
dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim
plains of Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal." And then
did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling,
and shuddering, and aghast, for the tones in the voice of the shadow
were not the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and,
varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable fell duskly upon our
ears in the well-remembered and familiar accents of many thousand
departed friends.



                            THE END