                                      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
.
