- end_line
- 11127
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 11069
- text
- 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.
It befell that at the next coming together of My Lord and the Azem,
which was about that stale affair of the two factors at Aleppo; My Lord
after that business, and when their black drink, coffee, had been
offered us in little cups of filigree, fine as My Lady’s Flanders lace,
and great jasmine-stemmed pipes, two yards long, likewise, as is their
ceremonious custom; My Lord, I say, holding the amber mouthpiece before
him, shaped somewhat like a lemon, and of a wondrous clear tint much the
same, and of a diameter not behind, for among these people the higher
the rank or the longer the purse, the greater the costly mouthpiece, the
same being but gently pressed against the lips at the orifice of the
inhaled vapour; My Lord, I say, holding this fair oval of clear amber
before him, turned, through the interpreter, the discourse to
considerations of the occult nature of that substance whereof it was
fashioned; declaring, among other items, his incredulity touching the
strange allegement that amber was sometimes found with bees glued up
therein as in their own crystallised honey, or, if not bees, then fleas
and flies. With the wondrous sedate courtesy of all the grandees in
these parts, the Azem with his silvery spade-beard, sitting cross-legged
on the green silken cushions; he, though never understanding a word of
My Lord’s English, yet very gravely and attentively, as before, heard
him out; him, My Lord, first, I mean, leaning over toward him, his hand
to his ear, for, certes, he was somewhat deaf, being in years; leaning
over toward him, I say, and thereafter relaxing and falling back
somewhat on the cushions, and so giving another sort of heed to the
interpreter; who, having delivered his burden, the Azem did nothing but
give a little clap with his hands, and, as it were one of the painted
manikins in the great clock at Strasbourg, a pretty little page issued
from a sort of draped closet near by; to whom his master made a sign;
whereat the page brought to My Lord the aforesaid amber vase, empty, and
put it into his two hands; who made as if surprised; and after
scrutinising it, and turning it round and round, and discovering the
imbedded relics, affected great admiration at being so promptly and in
that tacit manner confuted in his misbelief; and much did he laud the
beauty of the vase as well; insomuch that the interpreter, a precise
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- Chunk 13