- end_line
- 11093
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:55:03.883Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 11051
- text
- scent, did, at the Azem’s bidding, drop them into a delicate vase of
amber; and so cunningly, withal, that they fell as of themselves into
the attitude of young damsels leaning over the balustrade of a dome and
gazing downward; so that the vase itself was all but hidden from view,
at least, much of the upper part thereof, where I noted that certain
_relievos_ were, though truly I could get but a peep thereof at that
time.
On the next day but one repairing to the same villa where the Azem made
abode for that month, and there waiting to convey a reply to a missive
from My Lord; I saw by chance on a marble buffet the same vase then
empty; and going up to it, curiously observed the _relievos_, before
hidden by the flowers. They were of a mystical type, methought,
something like certain pictures in the great Dutch Bible in a library at
Oxon, setting forth the enigmas of the Song of the Wise Man, to wit,
King Solomon. I hardly knew what to make of them; and so would as lief
have seen the roses in their stead. Yet for the grace of it, if not the
import, whatever that might be, was I pleased with a round device of
sculpture on one side, about the bigness of My Lord’s seal to a
parchment, showing the figure of an angel with a spade under arm like a
gardener, and bearing roses in a pot; and a like angel-figure, clad like
a cellarer, and with a wine-jar on his shoulder; and these two angels,
side by side, pacing toward a meagre wight, very doleful and Job-like,
squatted hard by a sepulchre, as meditating thereon; and all done very
lively in small.
But the thing that meseems was most strange was the amber wherein this
device and sundry other inventions were cut; for in parts it held
marvellously congealed within its substance certain little relics of
perished insects, as of the members of flies on frozen syrup or
marmalade. Never had I seen the like thereof before; and My Lord, to
whom that night I spoke of it, as he was drinking his posset, about the
time of his retiring, he instructed me that that sort of amber was of
the rarest, and esteemed exceeding precious, and spoke of a famous piece
in the Great Duke’s museum at Florence; and much wished that the Azem
had given him that vase in place of the jewelled scimetar you wot of.
‘And Geoffry,’ quoth My Lord somewhat eagerly, ‘didst thou note that the
vessel was of one whole piece or in two parts, the bowl part and the
standard?’ But verily I could not answer to purpose here, for I did in
no wise handle the vase; and I doubt had the jealousy of the attendants
permitted it; so that, were there any junction of two or more parts,
right deftly was the same hidden by the craft of the artificer.
- title
- Chunk 6