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[Assistant] He decided to try to find some material that could be quickly used and was inexpensive. He found it.


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[Assistant] I remember the terracotta figurines of Tanegra. True, but wait. Luca della Robbia used terracotta, but here comes in his secret. After he finished the clay statue, he put over it a coating of porcelain, which is something like glass.


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[Assistant] Then he baked the figure in an oven for just the right length of time.


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[Assistant] His secret was in mixing the porcelain, or glaze as it was called. When it was finished,


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[Assistant] It would last in the rain and bad weather just as well as marble.


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[Assistant] Whereas the terracotta without the glaze would soon crumble away. Other sculptors tried it.


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[Assistant] But none did as fine work in glazed terracotta as Luca della Robbia.


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[Assistant] His secret glazing process was very successful.


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[Assistant] Most of the sculpture Luca del Rovia did in glazed terracotta was in relief.


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[Assistant] Whom he had adopted as a son, the secret of the glazed terracotta.


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[Assistant] The nephew's name was Andrea della Robbia, and Andrea became almost as famous as Luca.


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[Assistant] Andrea did most of his work in glazed terracotta. And he added many more colors to his reliefs.


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[Assistant] Although he generally left the flesh part of his statues white.


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[Assistant] His best examples were reliefs of the Madonna and Child.


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[Assistant] For the outside of a children's hospital in Florence, Andrea did a series of terracotta high reliefs of babies in swaddling clothes. Each baby is on a separate round background. You may have seen plaster casts of these babies, but the plaster casts are white.


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[Assistant] Chapter 13 Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time


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[Assistant] When he'd been made to walk far further than he'd ever known that anybody could walk.


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[Assistant] The witch at last halted in a dark valley, all overshadowed with fir trees and yew trees.


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[Assistant] Edmund simply sank down and lay on his face doing nothing at all and not even caring what was going to happen next, provided they would let him lie still.


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[Assistant] He was too tired even to notice how hungry and thirsty he was.


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[Assistant] The witch and the dwarf were talking close beside him in low tones. Now! said the dwarf.


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[Assistant] It's no use now, old queen. They must have reached the stone table by now.


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[Assistant] Perhaps the wolf will smell us out and bring us news, said the witch.


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[Assistant] It cannot be good news if he does, said the dwarf.


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[Assistant] Four thrones in Kaer Paravell, said the witch. How if only three were filled? That would not fulfill the prophecy. What difference would that make now that he is here, said the dwarf.


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[Assistant] He did not dare even now to mention the name of Aslan to his mistress.


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[Assistant] He may not stay long, and then we would fall upon the three at care.


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[Assistant] Yet it might be better, said the dwarf, to keep this one, here he kicked Edmund, for bargaining with


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[Assistant] Yes, and have him rescued, said the witch scornfully. Then, said the dwarf, we had better do what we have to do at once.


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[Assistant] I would like to have it done on the stone table itself, said the witch.


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[Assistant] That is the proper place. That is where it has always been done before.


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[Assistant] It will be a long time now before the stone table can again be put to its proper use, said the dwarf. True, said the witch, and then, well, I will begin.


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[Assistant] They've killed my Captain Morgrim. I was hidden in the thicket and saw it all. One of the sons of Adam killed him. Fly! Fly! No, said the witch. Then he'd be no flying.


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[Assistant] So quickly, summon all our people to meet me here as speedily as they can.


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[Assistant] Call out the giants and the werewolves and the spirits of those trees who are on our side.


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[Assistant] Be off quickly, I have a little thing to finish here while you are away.


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[Assistant] The great brute bowed its head, turned, and galloped away. Now, said she.


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[Assistant] We have no table, let me see. We had better put it against the trunk of a tree.


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[Assistant] Edmund found himself being roughly forced to his feet.


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[Assistant] Then the dwarf set him with his back against a tree and bound him fast. He saw the witch take off her outer mantle.


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[Assistant] Her arms were bare underneath it and terribly white. Because they were so very white, he could see them.


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[Assistant] But he could not see much else, it was so dark in this valley under the dark trees. Prepare the victim, said the witch.


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[Assistant] And the dwarf undid Edmund's collar and folded back his shirt at the neck.


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[Assistant] Then he took Edmund's hair and pulled his head back so that he had to raise his chin.


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[Assistant] After that Edmund heard a strange noise, whiz, whiz, whiz. For a moment he couldn't think what it was. Then he realized it was the sound of a knife being sharpened. At that very moment


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[Assistant] He heard loud shouts from every direction, a drumming of hoofs and a beating of wings, a scream from the witch, confusion all around him. And then he found that he was being untied.


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[Assistant] Strong arms were around him, and he heard big, kind voices saying things like, Let him lie down. Give him some wine.


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[Assistant] Drink this, steady now, you'll be alright in a minute.


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[Assistant] Then he heard the voices of people who were not talking to him, but to one another.


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[Assistant] But just at this point, Edmund went off in a dead faint.


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[Assistant] Presently the centaur's in unicorns and deer and birds.


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[Assistant] They were of course the rescue party which Aslan had sent in the last chapter.


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[Assistant] All set off to go back to the stone table, carrying Edmund with them.


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[Assistant] You would have seen the moonlight shining on an old tree stump and on a fair sized boulder. But if you had gone on looking...


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[Assistant] You would gradually have begun to think there was something odd about both the stump and the boulder.


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[Assistant] And next, you would have thought that the stump did look really remarkably like a little fat man crouching on the ground. And if you had watched long enough,


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[Assistant] You would have seen the stump walk across to the boulder and the boulder sit up and begin talking to the stump. For in reality, the stump and the boulder were simply the witch and the dwarf.


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[Assistant] For it was part of her magic that she could make things look like what they aren't.


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[Assistant] And she had the presence of mind to do so at the very moment when the knife was knocked out of her hand.


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[Assistant] The first thing they heard from Mrs. Beaver was that their brother had been rescued and brought into camp late last night, and was at that moment with Aslan. As soon as they had breakfasted, they all went out.


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[Assistant] And there they saw Aslan and Edmund walking together in the dewy grass apart from the rest of the court. There is no need to tell you, and no one ever heard, what Aslan was saying.


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[Assistant] But it was a conversation which Edmund never forgot. As the others drew nearer, Aslan turned to meet them, bringing Edmund with him. Here is your brother, he said.


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[Assistant] And there is no need to talk to him about what is pass.


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[Assistant] Edmund shook hands with each of the others and said to each of them in turn, I'm sorry. And everyone said, that's alright.


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[Assistant] And then everyone wanted very hard to say something which would make it quite clear that they were all friends with him again. Something ordinary and natural.


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[Assistant] And of course, no one could think of anything in the world to say. But before they had time to feel really awkward, one of the leopards approached Aslan and said, Sire?


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[Assistant] The leopard went away, and soon returned, leading the witch's dwarf.


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[Assistant] What is your message, son of earth? asked Aslan.


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[Assistant] The Queen of Narnia and Empress of the Lone Islands desires a safe conduct to come and speak with you, said the dwarf.


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[Assistant] On a matter which is as much to your advantage as to hers.


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[Assistant] Said Mr. Beaver. Of all the cheek! Peace, Beaver, said Aslan.


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[Assistant] All names will soon be restored to their proper owners. In the meantime, we will not dispute about them. Tell your mistress, son of earth, that I grant her safe conduct.


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[Assistant] On condition that she leaves her wand behind her at that great oak. This was agreed to.


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[Assistant] And two leopards went back with the dwarf to see that the conditions were properly carried out.


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[Assistant] I think the same idea had occurred to the leopards themselves.


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[Assistant] At any rate, as they walked off, their fur was all standing up on their backs and their tails were bristling, like a cat's when it sees a strange dog. It'll be all right, whispered Peter in reply. He wouldn't send them if it weren't. A few minutes later,


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[Assistant] The witch herself walked out onto the top of the hill.


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[Assistant] And came straight across and stood before Aslan.


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[Assistant] The three children who had not seen her before felt shudders running down their backs at the sight of her face.


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[Assistant] Who seemed to be quite at their ease were Aslan and the witch herself.


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[Assistant] It was the oddest thing to see those two faces.


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[Assistant] The golden face and the dead white face so close together.


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[Assistant] Not that the witch looked Aslan exactly in his eyes.


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[Assistant] Mrs Beaver particularly noticed this.


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[Assistant] You have a traitor there, Aslan," said the witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund.


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[Assistant] But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he'd been through and after the talk he'd had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn't seem to matter what the witch said.


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[Assistant] Let us say I have forgotten it, answered Aslan gravely. Tell us of this deep magic. Tell you? said the witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller.


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[Assistant] Tell you what is written on that very


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[Assistant] So that's how you came to imagine yourself a queen. Because you were the Emperor's hangman, I see.


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[Assistant] Peace beaver, said Aslan with a very low growl.


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[Assistant] And so, continued the witch, that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property. Come and take it then, said the bull with a man's head in a great bellowing voice. Fool!


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[Assistant] Said the witch with a savage smile that was almost a snarl.


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[Assistant] Do you really think your master can rob me of my rights by mere force?


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[Assistant] He knows the deep magic better than that. He knows that unless I have blood,


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[Assistant] Work? Against the Emperor's magic?


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[Assistant] said Aslan, turning to her with something like a frown on his face.


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[Assistant] And nobody ever made that suggestion to him again.


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[Assistant] Edmund was on the other side of Aslan, looking all the time at Aslan's face.


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[Assistant] He felt a choking feeling and wondered if he ought to say something.


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[Assistant] But a moment later, he felt that he was not expected to do anything except to wait and do what he was told.


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[Assistant] All back, all of you, said Aslan.


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[Assistant] And I will talk to the witch alone. They all obeyed. It was a terrible time this, waiting and wondering.


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[Assistant] While the lion and the witch talked earnestly together in low voices


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[Assistant] And began to cry. Peter stood with his back to the others, looking out at the distant sea.


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[Assistant] The beavers stood holding each other's paws with their heads bowed.


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[Assistant] The centaurs stamped uneasily with their hoofs.


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[Assistant] But everyone became perfectly still in the end, so that you noticed even small sounds like a bumblebee flying past, or the birds in the forest down below them, or the wind rustling the leaves.


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[Assistant] And still the talk between Aslan and the White Witch went on.


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[Assistant] At last, they heard Aslan's voice. You can all come back, he said. I have settled the matter.


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[Assistant] She has renounced the claim on your brother's blood.


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[Assistant] And all over the hill there was a noise as if everyone had been holding their breath, and had now begun breathing again, and then a murmur of talk.


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[Assistant] The witch was just turning away with a look of fierce joy on her face when she stopped and said,


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[Assistant] But how do I know this promise will be kept?


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[Assistant] And his great mouth opened wider and wider, and the roar grew louder and louder, and the witch, after staring for a moment with her lips wide apart,


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[Assistant] Picked up her skirts and fairly ran for her life.


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[Assistant] It's a nose which forms a straight line from the forehead as seen from the side.


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[Assistant] Look at the people around you, and see if any have Greek noses.


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[Assistant] Very few do have them nowadays, and not all of the old Greeks had them either.


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[Assistant] But the Greek sculptors thought this kind of nose the most beautiful. And so they made Greek noses on their statues. Here is a statue that shows a perfect Greek nose.


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[Assistant] It is a statue of the messenger of the gods, whose name was Hermes.


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[Assistant] This statue is of a strong and athletic youth.


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[Assistant] He is holding in his arms a little boy whom Zeus had given him to take care of.


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[Assistant] Hermes looks thoughtful as he tenderly holds the baby.


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[Assistant] And you can almost imagine the baby is reaching up to pull Hermes's curly hair.


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[Assistant] What he really was reaching for was a bunch of grapes which Hermes held in his hand as a father nowadays might dangle his watch.


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[Assistant] This statue has lost parts of its arms and legs, but the head and body are still perfect, and probably no broken piece of sculpture in the world is more charming or more beautiful than this.


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[Assistant] It was made by a Greek sculptor named Praxiteles.


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[Assistant] And if he had made nothing else, or done nothing else in his life, this one statue was great enough to make him famous through the ages.


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[Assistant] Praxiteles is supposed to have made several other statues. One.


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[Assistant] A fawn which gave the title to a book by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Marble Fawn.


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[Assistant] Perhaps the best known of all statues in the world is one of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty.


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[Assistant] We do not know who the sculptor was, but some people now think that one of the pupils of Praxiteles must have made it. This Venus has no arms.


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[Assistant] But a great many people have tried to imagine what the arms were doing when she did have them.


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[Assistant] Some say that she was holding a bronze shield on her knee and looking into its brightly polished surface to see herself. People had no glass mirrors at that time. Their mirrors were made of shiny metal.


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[Assistant] Others say she held a lance or something else or nothing at all. But no one is sure.


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[Assistant] The Venus was discovered not so many years ago. Just by accident.


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[Assistant] A man happened to pass by a lime kiln on the island one day, and the Venus was lying on the ground near the lime kiln.


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[Assistant] A lime kiln is a kind of furnace where stone is burned to turn it into lime.


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[Assistant] The Greek owner of the lime kiln, like a good many people nowadays, saw no beauty in the broken old statue and was about to break it up and put it in the furnace to make it into lime. The man who happened by just in the nick of time did know how valuable the statue was.


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[Assistant] And he bought it for just so much broken marble. After some time, France bought it and placed it in the Louvre in Paris.


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[Assistant] It is one of that great museum's chief treasures and could not be bought for a fortune. Not for any sum of money, whatever. Praxiteles had a friend named Scopas.


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[Assistant] Who also was a sculptor, but he liked to make statues that showed people suffering.


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[Assistant] There are several statues showing Naomi and her children, which Scopus may have done. For the statues are the kind he did. They show suffering. But some believe Praxiteles did them.


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[Assistant] Others think they were done by the pupils of one of these two sculptors. The Greek story of Naomi is this. Naomi was the mother of 14 children.


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[Assistant] Seven boys and seven girls. Of whom she was very proud.


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[Assistant] But she made the mistake of boasting of them to a goddess who had only two children.


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[Assistant] That was considered sacrilege, and the goddess was jealous. So, as a punishment, all of Naomi's children were killed before her eyes. Naomi, with her arms about her youngest child, is shown trying to shield her from the arrows of the gods.


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[Assistant] As her last child was killed, the gods, as a great favor, turned Niobe into stone so that she wouldn't suffer anymore.


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[Assistant] One of the pupils of Scopus is supposed to have made another very famous statue we call the Winged Victory, or the Victory of Samothrace, because it was found on the Greek island of Samothrace.


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[Assistant] The statue was made to celebrate a victory of the Greeks on the water.


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[Assistant] The statue shows the goddess of victory standing on the prow of a boat. The wind blowing back her robe.


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[Assistant] Though she has neither a head nor arms, you can, without half trying, see in your mind's eye how she must have looked as she stood triumphantly erect, blowing a trumpet and facing the sea breeze.


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[Assistant] You may ask or wonder why someone has not repaired this Greek statue and others. That is...


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[Assistant] Put on a new head or arms. As a matter of fact, many sculptors have tried to do so.


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[Assistant] Of course they were not allowed to experiment on the original statue, but they made copies and added the missing parts as they supposed those parts must have been.


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[Assistant] It may seem strange, but every such restoration, as it is called, has been so unsatisfactory, so ugly even.


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[Assistant] But everyone prefers the broken statue instead of a restored one.


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[Assistant] I know a little girl who always puts her hand over the illustrations in a book she loves to read. Because, says she,


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[Assistant] The picture I see in my mind is so much better than the picture in the book.


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[Assistant] That I don't want the picture I have in my mind spoiled.


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[Assistant] Can you picture in your mind how the victory or the venus ones


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[Assistant] Chapter 44. The Gates of Paradise. This story begins with a competition. Not a competition to see who could run fastest. Not a competition to see who could whistle loudest. But a much harder one.


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[Assistant] It was such a hard competition that each man in it was given a year in which to try to win. It was a competition in sculpture. It began this way. In Florence, Italy, there is a little eight-sided building called the Baptistery.


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[Assistant] A baptistry is a place where babies, or even grown-ups, are baptized.


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[Assistant] This building has four doorways in it and one of these doorways at the time of the competition had a very beautiful pair of bronze doors with reliefs on them made by the sculptor Andrea Pisano.


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[Assistant] Long after Andrea Pisano's death, the men of Florence decided there should be another pair of bronze doors for one of the other doorways.


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[Assistant] There were several good sculptors living then, and the men of Florence could not decide who was the best one to make the new doors. And so they had the competition. These were the rules.


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[Assistant] Each sculptor had to make a relief in bronze to go on a door. The relief had to be about Abraham and Isaac.


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[Assistant] Each sculptor could have a year for the work, and then a group of 34 judges would decide the winner, and the winner would make the doors. All the sculptors set to work. All except one.


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[Assistant] And he worked and worked, and then he asked his friends to come in and tell him how he could make his relief better.


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[Assistant] Then, he worked some more until he had a very beautiful relief indeed.


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[Assistant] When the year was up, each sculptor brought his relief to the judges. And what do you think? The judges couldn't decide which was the very best. There was a tie for first place. One of the winners was Ghiberti's relief. The other was cast by the famous architect Brunelleschi.


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[Assistant] But Brunelleschi himself thought Ghiberti's relief was better than his own, and so he very generously said he would withdraw and let Ghiberti be the winner. Then the judges said Ghiberti could make the doors. Ghiberti set to work.


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[Assistant] He worked and worked. One year. Two years. Five years. Ten years. And still he worked on the doors. You'll hardly believe how long it took to make them.


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[Assistant] I'll tell you the date when he began and when he finished.


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[Assistant] He started to work on the reliefs in 1403.


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[Assistant] What? He say? 21 years to make one pair of doors? That is a long time! Finally, the doors were finished and put in the baptistry.


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[Assistant] They opened down the middle and had 28 panels or scenes in relief, chiefly from the life of Christ.


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[Assistant] Each scene was made separately and then all fitted together.


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[Assistant] Ghiberti's doors made a big hit. Everyone liked them so much that the men of Florence asked the sculptor if he wouldn't make another pair of bronze doors for another doorway to the baptistry. There was no need for a competition this time. They knew Ghiberti was the man for the job. Ghiberti started on the new doors. He worked and worked and worked. One year. Two years. Five years. Ten years. Twenty years.


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[Assistant] But this time, when he had finished, the doors were so splendid that many people said they were perfect.


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[Assistant] A famous sculptor saw them and said, They are fit to be the gates of paradise.


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[Assistant] And that is what they have been called ever since. The Gates of Paradise.


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[Assistant] The gates of paradise have ten scenes from the Old Testament.


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[Assistant] Here is a close-up of the fourth scene showing the story of Abraham.


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[Assistant] The workman had to stop work and leave the cathedral unfinished.


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[Assistant] The architect had died, and as he was the only person who knew how to build a dome big enough for this cathedral.


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[Assistant] The cathedral remained unfinished for a long time.


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[Assistant] For over 100 years, the cathedral at Florence stood there with a big hole in the crossing where the dome ought to have been. Finally,


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[Assistant] It was decided to hold a competition and see if anyone could be found who could build the dome and thus finish the cathedral. In the competition, many plans were suggested. One man said he was sure he could build the dome.


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[Assistant] And put this earth in a huge pile where the dome is to be, then we can build the dome around the pile.


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[Assistant] When the dome is completed, invite the people to carry off the earth to look for the coins.


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[Assistant] When all the earth is carried away, there will stand our dome.


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[Assistant] It would have been like looking for the thimble in the ring in a birthday cake.


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[Assistant] The man who won the competition and got the job was named Brunelleschi. He had studied the old Roman buildings in Rome.


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[Assistant] He had worked as a sculptor, and he was a very good architect.


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[Assistant] Brunelleschi said that he could build the dome and build it moreover without the wooden centering that would use up such a lot of timber. But in spite of Brunelleschi's confidence,


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[Assistant] They made the sculptor Geberti an architect for the dome too. Now, Geberti was a fine sculptor. His Gates of Paradise proved that. But he really hadn't an idea of how to build the dome.


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[Assistant] He therefore did no work on it, although he was getting as much pay for the job as Brunelleschi, who did all the planning. Of course, this didn't please Brunelleschi at all.


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[Assistant] So Brunelleschi made believe he was sick and stayed home in bed. Then the workmen had to stop work, for Ghiberti didn't know what to tell them to do next.


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[Assistant] So as long as Brunelleschi stayed in bed, the work waited.


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[Assistant] So Brunelleschi had to try another way of getting rid of him.


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[Assistant] He told the men in charge that he thought it best to divide the work between the two architects.


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[Assistant] There are two difficult things to be done, said Brunelleschi. The bridges upon which the masons must stand


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[Assistant] And the chain, which is to bind together the eight sides of the dome. Let Geberti take one of them, and I will take the other, that no more time be lost. This did the trick. Geberti chose the chain, but couldn't make it work. He was soon taken off the job, and Brunelleschi could go ahead alone. Brunelleschi finished the dome successfully.


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[Assistant] It is a different kind of dome from the dome of the Roman pantheon. And it is different from the dome of Saint Sophia.


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[Assistant] The dome is of brick, and it has ribs of stone running down the top.


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[Assistant] These ribs divide the dome into eight parts or sides so it isn't smoothly round like most domes. For another thing,


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[Assistant] This dome has a little cupola, or tiny tower on top known as a lantern, although there is no light burning inside.


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[Assistant] Just how Brunelleschi managed to build the dome without using centering is a mystery. But he did build it, and built it well.


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[Assistant] Today it still rises above the roofs of Florence to be seen from far or near, one of the great domes of the world. It gives to the cathedral its name, the Duomo.


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[Assistant] If you go to Florence, you will see near the dormo a statue of Brunelleschi. He is shown seated, looking up at the dome with plans on his lap.


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[Assistant] There is still another reason, beside his work on the Domo, for telling you about Brunelleschi.


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[Assistant] He was the first architect of a new kind of architecture known as Renaissance. The Renaissance was a rebirth of interest in life. In writing, painting, sculpture, and architecture.


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[Assistant] It was especially a rebirth of interest in everything left by the ancient Greeks and Romans.


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[Assistant] I have told you that Brunelleschi studied the old Roman ruins. He had measured them, drawn pictures of them, and learned all he could about them.


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[Assistant] So when Brunelleschi designed buildings, he used the kinds of columns and decorations and vaults and plans that he admired from studying the Roman ruins. I don't mean he built copies of Roman buildings. He just used them to go by.


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[Assistant] And so did all the Italian architects after Brunelleschi.


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[Assistant] The Italians didn't care for gothic architecture much anyway.


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[Assistant] There was too much sunlight in Italy for churches with walls of glass.


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[Assistant] The Italians like their buildings dark and cool inside, instead of full of sunlight.


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[Assistant] Even if the sunlight did come through the marvelous stained glass windows of a gothic cathedral.


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[Assistant] This new Renaissance architecture was good in many ways, but in some ways it was not so good.


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[Assistant] The gothic buildings had always been built so that every part of the building had its own special job to do. The buttresses were to push against the walls.


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[Assistant] The decorations carved on top of the buttresses were to give them more weight so they could hold more solidly.


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[Assistant] The stained glass windows and the statues were to tell the Bible stories to people who couldn't read.


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[Assistant] There was scarcely any part of a gothic building that was not honest or useful.


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[Assistant] But the Renaissance buildings weren't always so honest. Often they were designed just to look well. Columns and pilasters were put on for decoration.


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[Assistant] Without really helping to hold up anything as columns should. An ornament should look like an ornament.


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[Assistant] Not like a column which should be a hard-working, load-bearing support.


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[Assistant] Sometimes a renaissance architect would cover a gothic building with renaissance ornament to make it look like a renaissance building.


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[Assistant] But some of the renaissance buildings were honest buildings.


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[Assistant] The best artists of the time became architects and designed buildings. New gothic cathedrals cease to be built.


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[Assistant] Indeed, there were almost enough churches already, and so most of the Renaissance buildings were palaces or government buildings or libraries.


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[Assistant] I once read a description of a group of sculptured figures that had been made for a public building.


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[Assistant] The chief thing the newspaper said about the sculpture was that it weighed 10 tons. It did not say whether the statues were beautiful or not, just that they weighed 10 tons. It might have been 10 tons of coal, but mere size doesn't make a thing beautiful. The Greeks made some huge statues, but they were beautiful.


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[Assistant] They made also tiny sculptured figures so small


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[Assistant] That you have to look at them under a magnifying glass to see how really beautiful they are.


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[Assistant] Not long ago, I saw in a museum a piece of such sculpture that couldn't have weighed more than an ounce, and was no larger than a domino.


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[Assistant] It was a piece of colored stone through which the light shone and it was carved with beautiful figures of Greek gods and goddesses in low relief.


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[Assistant] The figures had been cut into the stone with very fine but sharp tools.


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[Assistant] It had been made by some Greek sculptor whose name no one knows, before Christ was born. It was called a gem.


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[Assistant] Which is the name we give to anything that is very precious, though it may be tiny.


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[Assistant] In the British Museum in London is a whole room of such gems made before the time of Christ.


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[Assistant] By sculptors as great as those who made man-size and colossal-size figures. These rich gems were made for kings and wealthy people. For no others could afford them.


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[Assistant] Rich people long ago used to collect such gems as you might collect postage stamps. And museums, and some people who can afford it, do so today.


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[Assistant] Often these tiny bits of low relief sculpture were cut in a stone that had two or three layers of different colors, so that the figures were in one color and the background in another. If one layer was black and the other white, the stone was called onyx.


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[Assistant] If the top layer was reddish, and those below it white and black, it was called sardonics.


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[Assistant] Such sculptured lower leaves were known as cameos. And some were very beautiful.


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[Assistant] Nowadays, cameos are made of shells of two color layers and are called shell cameos.


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[Assistant] Some are cut from two or more layers of different colored stone, cemented together, or from artificial sardonyx.


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[Assistant] It used to be the fashion for ladies to wear shell cameos as breast pins, and perhaps your grandmother may have had such a cameo pin with the head of someone cut in it.


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[Assistant] Some kinds of China have white cameo-like figures on a blue background. Some cameos were cut from glass of two colors.


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[Assistant] There is a famous vase in the British Museum called the Portland Vase.


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[Assistant] It is of blue glass, and the figures on it in relief are white glass.


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[Assistant] Many years ago, a crazy person, just to show off, knocked over the vase and it was smashed to bits.


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[Assistant] The bits were all picked up and put together again. And so well was it repaired that you can hardly tell that it was broken.


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[Assistant] There was another kind of gem made in great quantities before Christ.


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[Assistant] In which the figures were hollowed out or sunken instead of being raised. A gem of this sort was called a seal or intaglio, which means sunken. The seals were used to stamp a design in wax.


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[Assistant] Of course, the stamped impression made from the sunken relief was raised in wax.


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[Assistant] And one could make as many stamped impressions with the seal as he liked.


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[Assistant] Each person who could afford it had such a seal with a special design all his own to stamp everything he wished to mark with his own hand.


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[Assistant] Anyone would then know he alone had made the impression.


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[Assistant] The marks made by seals were largely used instead of signatures, back in the days when few people knew how to write, or even how to sign their names.


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[Assistant] Sometimes, the seal was fitted in a finger ring which was worn by the owner so that no one else could use it.


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[Assistant] Such rings were called signet rings, which means signing ring. Sometimes, the seal was not mounted in a ring,


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[Assistant] But was kept in a safe place so that no one but the owner could use it.


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[Assistant] Have you ever collected old coins? Old metal money of bronze or silver? Most boys have.


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[Assistant] Perhaps you would never think of such coins as a kind of sculpture. But that is what old coins are.


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[Assistant] Pieces of low relief sculpture. And the Greeks used to make the most beautiful coins with heads or figures of famous people or gods on them in low relief. First, they made a die, which was a sunken relief. And then, with this die, coins were stamped out of metal. Gold, silver, or bronze. One difference between a coin and a gem


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[Assistant] Is that a coin is made from a die, and any number of coins all alike can be made from the one die. But there is only one of a gem. The coins of some countries today are really beautiful. But none quite so beautiful as those the old Greeks made.


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[Assistant] One reason for this is that our coins have to be made quite flat, in very low relief. So that they will stack in a pile. For this is necessary in our banks.


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[Assistant] But it was not necessary to stack the old Greek coins in piles and so they could be made and were made in higher relief. Coins were, of course, used to buy things with.


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[Assistant] But there were old coin-like sculptures called metals that generally were larger and were not used as money.


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[Assistant] The figures on metals were often in higher relief and made by pouring the metal into a mold instead of by stamping the metal with a die.


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[Assistant] Usually, such medals were made for prizes in athletic games or honors in war or to celebrate some great event, anniversary or celebration. Medals of this kind are made today, so your father may have one to show you.


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[Assistant] I know a little girl who was having tea with her aunt.


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[Assistant] The little girl very carefully ate all of her cake except the chocolate icing.


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[Assistant] She was saving the icing till last because she liked it best.


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[Assistant] I see you don't like your chocolate icing. Cideron.


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[Assistant] I just love chocolate icing. So, I'll need it myself.


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[Assistant] And the aunt did eat it all before the little girl could tell her she really loved chocolate icing too.


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[Assistant] Well, I've saved till last several statues that I think you may like best of all.


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[Assistant] They are not supposed to be quite as great and famous as the Greek sculpture, or the best Renaissance statues, or Saint-Gaudens work. But, here they are.


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[Assistant] The first of my saved-till-last statues is a monument in memory of Eugene Field.


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[Assistant] Eugene Field was the man who wrote those jolly poems, Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod, and The Sugar Plum Tree.


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[Assistant] The sculptor might have made a portrait bust of Eugene Field, but instead he made something much more interesting.


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[Assistant] It is a statue of a little boy and girl who have fallen sound asleep because a fairy has waved poppy blossoms over them. Poppy blossoms, you know, are supposed to make you sleepy. You can see the poppy blossoms in the fairy's hand. The fairy and the little boy and girl are in full round. Then there are scenes carved in low relief.


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[Assistant] One shows winking, blinking, and nod, sailing along in the wooden shoe, with the fish jumping all around them.


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[Assistant] You remember in the song, they had nets of silver and gold. You can see the nets hanging from the stern of the shoe.


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[Assistant] Another scene shows the sugar plum tree with a pussycat up in the branches and a little dog and some children looking up at the cat. The sculptor who made the Eugene Field Memorial, it is really a fountain in Chicago, is Edward McCartan of New York.


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[Assistant] He also made a very beautiful marble statue of the moon goddess Diana out hunting with her greyhound.


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[Assistant] I think you'll like the next sculptor because you probably like cowboys and Indians and animals.


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[Assistant] Alexander Fimister Proctor has made statues of all of these.


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[Assistant] He helped Saint Gaudens model the horse for the Sherman Statue.


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[Assistant] Proctor's best known works are the famous Princeton Tigers.


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[Assistant] The bronco has bucked high in the air and is coming down stiff legged on its two front feet. What a jolt the cowboy must be getting.


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[Assistant] Notice how the whole weight of this equestrian statue is carried by the two front legs of the horse.


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[Assistant] James Earl Frazier is the sculptor whom we have saved to the very last.


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[Assistant] We can call him an all-around sculptor because he is good at large statues in the round, as well as reliefs in portraits, medals in coins. He can do people in animals.


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[Assistant] He has modeled for equestrian statues, horses that are more than life size, and he made the tiny buffalo on the United States five cent coin. The Buffalo Nickel.


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[Assistant] When you are studying United States history, see if you can get hold of a picture of James Earl Frazier's statue of Alexander Hamilton.


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[Assistant] It is a wonderful statue, full of dignity and grace.


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[Assistant] James Earl Frazier designed the victory medal given to each American who served in the Army or Navy during World War I.


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[Assistant] Perhaps someone in your family has one of these medals.


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[Assistant] The medal has on the front side, a bass relief figure of victory.


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[Assistant] As this is an American medal, the sculptor put a crown with spikes on Victory's head like the crown on the Statue of Liberty.


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[Assistant] On the back are the names of the countries who were on our side in the war and the United States shield.


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[Assistant] Frazier made a wonderful portrait bust of President Theodore Roosevelt, who liked it so much, he said he would never pose for another bust.


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[Assistant] And now last of all comes Frasier's best known statue.


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[Assistant] It is the famous end of the trail. An exhausted Indian on a weary worn out horse.


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[Assistant] A strong wind blows at their backs. You can see the Indian's blanket and the horse's tail whipped forward by this wind. Everything suggests weariness.


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[Assistant] The horse's head droops low. The Indian's head nods forward. His spear points to the ground.


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[Assistant] You feel that both horse and rider have made a terrible journey without rest and have reached the end of the trail too tired to keep awake any longer.


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[Assistant] The end of the trail is to mark in San Francisco the western end of the auto highway which runs across the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific.


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[Assistant] In this book, it will mark the end of our trail of sculpture.


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[Assistant] And now that you and I have finished this trip of ours along the trail of sculpture, from long ago Egypt to nowadays America,


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[Assistant] I hope you are not so tired out at the end of the trail as Frazier's Indian seems to be.


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[Assistant] Our trip had to be short and so we missed seeing some of the finest statues and talking about some very good sculptors. And that is really a good thing.


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[Assistant] There is so much left for you to see that it should make you want to take the sculpture trail again and learn to know the sculpture I haven't even mentioned in this book.


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[Assistant] You, just like Buffalo Bill, will have to search for signs along the trail. I wish you a very happy journey.


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[Assistant] The Romans had conquered, ruled, and civilized almost all of Europe. Then the mighty empire the Romans had built up came tumbling down.


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[Assistant] It began with the split between the eastern part of the empire and the western. When the capital was moved to Constantinople,


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[Assistant] Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Rome was the capital of the Western Roman Empire.


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[Assistant] So then there were two Roman empires and two emperors. But this didn't last long.


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[Assistant] Savage men from the north began pushing and fighting their way down across France to Italy. These men were fierce and rough. They had never learned to read or write. We call them tutans.


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[Assistant] The Teutons finally overran France, Spain, and Italy.


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[Assistant] They took Rome itself, and that ended the old Roman Empire in the west.


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[Assistant] I wonder what the Teutons thought when they entered Rome and saw the great palaces and theaters, the temples, and monuments. The Teutons were rude and rough and ignorant, but they were strong and brave and good fighters. They became Christians.


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[Assistant] Gradually, they learned the languages of the parts of Europe where they settled.


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[Assistant] All parts of the Roman Empire had once upon a time spoken Latin, the language of Rome.


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[Assistant] Now, under the Tuton tribes, the language of each part of Europe became different.


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[Assistant] The Latin used in France gradually became French. The Latin used in Spain became Spanish.


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[Assistant] And the Latin used in Italy and in Rome itself became Italian.


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[Assistant] No longer could a man from Spain talk with a man from France in his own language.


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[Assistant] But Spain and France and Italy did not become real nations right away. Everywhere there was fighting. Everywhere mix-ups. One tribe fought another. One town fought with another town. The old civilized life was upset.


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[Assistant] Everything became darker and darker for civilization. The ways of the Romans were forgotten.


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[Assistant] There would have been no time for architecture on account of so much fighting.


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[Assistant] Even if almost everybody had not forgotten what architecture was.


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[Assistant] The old basilican churches were still used, but few new ones were built.


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[Assistant] Now, although everything certainly looked black for Europe, there were a few lights to be seen in the darkness. One bright spot was the reign of Charlemagne. Charlemagne was a Teuton.


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[Assistant] He grew up uneducated and never learned to write.


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[Assistant] Can you imagine a ruler nowadays, the President of the United States for instance, who couldn't write a letter?


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[Assistant] But Charlemagne had a good mind and he wanted to learn all there was to know. He became King of France


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[Assistant] He brought to his court all the wisest men he could find.


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[Assistant] He was crowned emperor of a new Roman empire in 800 AD. Another light flickering in the dark ages was kept burning by the Christian monks.


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[Assistant] As you know, monks are men who live in monasteries.


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[Assistant] A monastery was ruled by a chief monk called an abbot.


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[Assistant] The monks thought they could live better lives if they worked hard and kept away from all the fighting and badness going on in the world.


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[Assistant] Those old monks worked hard in the monasteries. They raised vegetables, built churches and houses, taught school, made paintings, wrote histories, helped the poor, and sick people who came to them.


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[Assistant] Best of all for you and me, they studied the old Roman writings and kept them safe.


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[Assistant] So that we can know much more about the old Roman ways than we could if it hadn't been for the learned monks.


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[Assistant] The monastery that the monks lived in was built around a church.


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[Assistant] Such a church was called the Abbey because of the abbot who ruled the monastery. On one side of the Abbey was a courtyard.


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[Assistant] Across the courtyard from the church was generally the dining hall, which was called the refectory.


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[Assistant] The church and the refectory were connected along each end of the courtyard by hallways.


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[Assistant] These hallways were like long porches with columns on the sides facing the courtyard and were called cloisters.


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[Assistant] The columns in the cloisters were not like the old Greek and Roman columns.


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[Assistant] They want Doric or Ionic or Corinthian or Tuscan or Composite.


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[Assistant] But were of many different shapes, even in the same cloister.


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[Assistant] Some were twisted in shape like a screw or like a wet towel when you try to wring the water out of it.


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[Assistant] Some were decorated with bands around them or with crisscross stripes.


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[Assistant] In many cloisters, the columns were in pairs, two and two, like animals going into Noah's ark. And these were called coupled columns. Not much like the columns on the Parthenon, are they?


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[Assistant] For us, and for our tragedy, here stooping to your clemency, we beg your hearing, patiently.


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[Assistant] Hands apt, drugs fit and time agreeing,


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[Assistant] Confederate season, else no creature seeing.


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[Assistant] Thy natural magic and dire property on wholesome life usurps immediately.


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[Assistant] There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave to tell us this. Why, right! You are in the right, and so, without more circumstance at all, I held it fit that we shake hands and part. You as your business and desire shall point you, for every man hath business and desire such as it is, and for my own poor part look you.


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[Assistant] Boy, he says thou so. Art thou there, true Penny? Come on. You hear this fellow in the cellarage? Consent to swear.


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[Assistant] Propose the oath, my lord. Never to speak of this that you have seen. Swear by my sword. Swear.


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[Assistant] Hick, ed, or bickway, then we'll shift our ground. Come hither, gentlemen, and lay your hands again upon my sword. Swear by my sword never to speak of this that you have heard.


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[Assistant] There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than a dreamt of in your philosophy. But come, here as before. Never.


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[Assistant] With arms encumbered thus, or this head-shake, Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, As, well, well, we know, or we could, and if we would, Or if we list to speak, or there be any if they might, Or such ambiguous giving out, to note that you know aught of me, This to swear. So grace and mercy at your most need help you.


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[Assistant] With all my love I do commend me to you, and what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do to express his love and friending to you, God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together, and still your fingers on your lips, I pray. The time is out of joint.


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[Assistant] Oh cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right. Nay, come, let's go together.


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[Assistant] Chapter 9 East of China The Yamato Dynasty of Japan


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[Assistant] India had many small kingdoms, but the Gupta dynasty united them into one. China had two parts, but the Sui dynasty united them into one.


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[Assistant] And exactly the same thing happened in the country of Japan.


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[Assistant] The dynasty that united Japan was called the Yamato dynasty. It is the oldest dynasty in the world.


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[Assistant] The first Yamato emperor ruled in Japan almost 2,000 years ago. And a Yamato emperor is still on the Japanese throne today.


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[Assistant] The country of Japan is made up of four long, thin islands in the Pacific Ocean, just east of China.


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[Assistant] Japan isn't very wide, but it is so long that there are frozen plains of snow at the north end of the island and coral reefs and warm sunny beaches at the south end.


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[Assistant] The four big islands that make up Japan have almost 4,000 small islands all around them.


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[Assistant] At first, Japan was ruled by many different clans or families.


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[Assistant] Each clan had its own territory and its own government. But one clan in the middle of Japan, the Yamato clan, grew stronger than all the rest.


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[Assistant] The Yamato leaders conquered all of the other clans one by one. It took over 200 years.


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[Assistant] But finally the Yamato leaders could call themselves the emperors of Japan.


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[Assistant] The Yamato emperors told stories to prove that they deserve to rule over Japan.


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[Assistant] These stories announce that the Yamato emperors were living gods, descendants of Amaterasu, the sun goddess. Here is one of these legends.


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[Assistant] In the beginning, the world was full of sky spirits who created the islands of Japan. These spirits had children of their own. The strongest and most beautiful of the daughters was Amaterasu.


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[Assistant] Amaterasu was given the entire sky to rule over.


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[Assistant] But her brother Susano, who had been given the sea, was jealous. The sky is larger than the sea, he complained.


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[Assistant] So he mounted a war against Amaterasu to throw her out of the sky.


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[Assistant] But he lost the fight and had to flee from the sky down to the earth.


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[Assistant] He ran until he was weary and had to rest by a stream. As he rested he saw a pair of chopsticks drifting by him on the current.


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[Assistant] An evil serpent with eight heads has come to our land. The old man wept. Every year for the past seven years he has eaten one of our daughters. We had eight daughters, but all have been eaten except for our youngest. And today the serpent will come and eat her as well.


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[Assistant] Turned the lovely girl into a comb and hid her in his hair. Then he laid out eight bowls of rice wine for the serpent and hid in the bushes. Soon he heard the serpent approaching.


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[Assistant] It roared and thrashed its eight heads around, looking for its prey. But then it saw the wine.


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[Assistant] The eight heads dipped down and drank the eight bowls of rice wine. And then the serpent, full of wine, rolled over and went sound asleep.


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[Assistant] Susanoo came out of the bushes, drew his sword, and chopped the serpent into 80 pieces. Inside the serpent, he found a great magical sword. He sent this sword to his sister, Amaterasu, for a peace gift.


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[Assistant] Then he took the comb from his hair and turned it back into the beautiful girl.


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[Assistant] He built a palace with eight walls and lived there with his lovely wife.


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[Assistant] He settled down in the center of Japan and ruled over a plain covered with reeds. But his kingdom was an unhappy one.


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[Assistant] All over it, men fought with each other. And Okuninushi's 79 brothers were constantly trying to overthrow his rule.


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[Assistant] The Reed Plain became so noisy and full of battle that the plants, rocks, and trees started sending up complaints to the heavens.


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[Assistant] Up in the sky, Amaterasu heard the complaints.


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[Assistant] She decided to send her favorite grandson, Oninji, to bring peace to the reed plain.


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[Assistant] So she called him before her throne and gave him three sacred objects. The string of beads she wore in her hair.


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[Assistant] Establish peace and order instead of chaos. Your descendants will reign as long as heaven and earth endure.


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[Assistant] So Honinji went down to the reed plain in the center of Japan and began his reign.


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[Assistant] In time he had children and grandchildren of his own. His descendants were the Yamatos.


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[Assistant] And when each Yamato Emperor comes to the throne,


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[Assistant] He has given copies of the three sacred objects of Oninji.


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[Assistant] The magic sword, the string of beads, and the mirror of Amaterasu.


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[Assistant] Susano retreated into the darkness and chose it as his kingdom.


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[Assistant] From then on, Susanna was the moon god who ruled the dark.


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[Assistant] Because of their old quarrel, the two never met again.


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[Assistant] Just as the sun and the moon never meet in the sky.


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[Assistant] Barbarians come to Britain. The Celts who lived in Britain didn't all belong to the same kingdom, and they didn't all obey the same king.


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[Assistant] Britain was full of different tribes of Celts, and each tribe followed a different king.


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[Assistant] Old, old stories tell us that one of these kings was named Vortigern.


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[Assistant] Vortigern ruled a wealthy, powerful tribe of Celts in the middle of Britain.


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[Assistant] His people obeyed him, and the warriors who fought for him followed his commands. But Vortigern still wasn't happy. Other tribes of Celts from up north kept attacking his kingdom, and Vortigern was tired of fighting them off. He wanted help.


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[Assistant] Vortigern sent a message across the North Sea to barbarian tribes called the Angles and the Saxons. Come and help me fight against my enemies, he said. If you do, I'll give you land to live on here in Britain.


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[Assistant] So the Angles and the Saxons came across the North Sea into Britain and helped Vortigaunt fight his enemies. They liked Britain, so they settled down and stayed there.


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[Assistant] They sent word back to their friends. Come live in Britain with us. There's plenty of room here.


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[Assistant] The whole middle part of Britain filled up with Angles and Saxons.


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[Assistant] The Celts didn't like all these barbarians in their country, but there were so many Angles and Saxons that they couldn't drive them all out.


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[Assistant] Soon the south and east part of Britain was completely occupied by Angles and Saxons. They divided the land into seven kingdoms.


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[Assistant] Today we call this part of Britain England, a name that comes from the word angle.


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[Assistant] We call the people who live there Anglo-Saxons.


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[Assistant] Poor Celts. First the Romans attacked them. Now the Anglo-Saxons had driven them out of their own land. Some of the Celts decided to make the best of it.


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[Assistant] They married the Anglo-Saxons and lived with them in peace.


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[Assistant] But other Celts retreated up into the north and west of Britain to live by themselves. Today we call the countries where the Celts lived Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.


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[Assistant] Do you remember that the Celts told stories to each other rather than writing them down?


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[Assistant] The Angles and the Saxons didn't do very much writing either. They didn't write down their history. They didn't write down their stories.


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[Assistant] And they didn't keep records of what they did every day.


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[Assistant] So although we know that the Angles and Saxons lived in England for a long time,


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[Assistant] We don't know what they did during all those years.


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[Assistant] This time in England is called the Middle Ages or the Dark Ages.


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[Assistant] It is a dark time to us because we can't read about what happened in the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.


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[Assistant] The only stories that we have from this time


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[Assistant] Our stories that were passed down from one bard to the next by word of mouth.


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[Assistant] Chapter 2 The Early Days of Britain The Celts of Britain


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[Assistant] After the Western Roman Empire fell, all of the countries that had once belonged to Rome were free of Roman rule. One of those countries was Britain. Do you remember flying over Britain on your magic carpet?


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[Assistant] The Roman soldiers in Britain were fighting fierce, dangerous warriors who were painted blue. These warriors were called Celts.


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[Assistant] The Celts lived in Britain before the Romans invaded the island. They weren't happy to see the Romans arrive.


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[Assistant] And even though the Romans set up camps and towns in the south part of Britain,


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[Assistant] They never managed to conquer all of the Celts.


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[Assistant] When the Western Roman Empire fell, the Celts drove the last Roman soldiers out of their country. Now Britain was theirs again. The Celts were proud of their fighting strength. They praised men who had courage in battle.


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[Assistant] They sang songs and told stories about great warriors.


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[Assistant] Especially trained singers called bards learned stories about the chieftains and battle heroes of long ago. The stories weren't written down.


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[Assistant] Instead, bars learned them from each other and memorized them so that they could be told again and again.


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[Assistant] These stories told Celtic children that it was good to be strong and warlike.


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[Assistant] One story told around the fires of the Celts was of Craith and his companions, three warriors with special powers. The story might have sounded something like this.


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[Assistant] One day the warrior Craith said to himself, I am a great fighter and have never lost a battle. But I am lonely.


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[Assistant] I want to marry a woman with hair as black as a raven's wing.


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[Assistant] Skin as white as snow and cheeks as red as blood.


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[Assistant] But the only woman as beautiful as all that is held prisoner by the great giant Fovor of the mighty blows at the end of the world.


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[Assistant] So Craith set off to fight the giant Fovar and rescue the beautiful woman who was the giant's prisoner. As he walked along the road,


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[Assistant] See that bird sitting on the topmost twig of the tree at the end of the world? The warrior said, pointing.


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[Assistant] You'd better come with me, he said to the warrior. I could use a companion with eyes as good as yours. And so the two men walked along.


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[Assistant] Soon the two of them saw a warrior lying on the ground with his ear pressed into the dirt.


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[Assistant] Oh, the warrior said, I'm listening to the grass grow down at the end of the world. You'd better come with us, Craith said. Your hearing might help us in our quest. And so the three men walked along. Soon they heard a noise behind them. Thump, thump, thump.


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[Assistant] They turned and saw a warrior coming up fast behind them. He was hopping on one foot and his knee was bent so that his other leg was tied up behind him. Why don't you untie your other leg? Craith asked.


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[Assistant] Oh, the hopping warrior said, if I did that, I would run so fast that I would soon be at the end of the world, and then where would I go? Come with us, the three said, and they walked on towards the end of the world.


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[Assistant] Soon the castle of the giant Fovore of the Mighty Blows came into sight.


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[Assistant] The warrior Craith and his three companions stood beneath the walls and called up, Giant! Giant Fovar! We've come to rescue the woman with hair like a raven's wing, skin like snow, and cheeks like blood. Set her free!


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[Assistant] When the giant heard them calling, he laughed. Bring me three bottles of water from the well at the other end of the world. He shouted out his window. Then I'll let her go. I swear. Go and get the water, Crate said to the hopping warrior.


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[Assistant] The warrior untied his leg and set his foot on the ground. Instantly he was gone.


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[Assistant] No more than a moment passed and he was at the well, all the way on the other end of the world. He filled his bottles and started back. But halfway there he thought,


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[Assistant] I'm going so fast that I'll be back before they can blink. I might as well sit down and rest a moment.


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[Assistant] He sat down under a tree to rest, the bottles of water by his side. But the sun was warm, the turf beneath him was soft, and soon he fell fast asleep.


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[Assistant] Back at the giant's castle, Craith was growing restless. Where is he? he asked his other companions.


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[Assistant] The warrior with the keen ears lay down and pressed his ear against the ground.


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[Assistant] Here, you with the eyes, throw a rock to wake him up.


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[Assistant] So the warrior with the sharp eyes peered halfway around the world and saw his friend dozing by the roadside. He lifted a rock and threw it. The rock flew through the air for hundreds of miles until it hit the sleeping man, ping, right between the eyes. He woke up with a start. I've been asleep, he exclaimed.


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[Assistant] I'd better go back with this water. And he scooped his bottles up and began to run.


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[Assistant] A moment later he was at the giant Fauvor's castle, with the water from the well at the world's other end.


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[Assistant] The giant Fovor was furious to see that his task had been done. But he had given his word.


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[Assistant] And so he had to free the beautiful woman with hair black as the raven's wing, skin like snow and cheeks like blood. And Craith married her, and they lived happily ever after.


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[Assistant] And always after that, the three warriors with the keen eyes, the sharp ears, and the quick feet, lived with Craith and went with him into battle, and together they could not be defeated.


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[Assistant] The long road that led to China, the Silk Road.


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[Assistant] Lead through mountains and along the edges of steep rocky cliffs.


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[Assistant] It wound through dry deserts where the only water was found in small pools under the scattered oases.


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[Assistant] Merchants who set off down the Silk Road to buy spices and jewels in China might be lost in a sandstorm in summer or a snowstorm in winter.


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[Assistant] Wine, sweet smelling wood, rugs with rich complicated patterns, and the mysterious shining silk cloth that only the Chinese knew how to make.


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[Assistant] Europeans marveled over these treasures and hurried to buy them as soon as the caravans from China arrived.


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[Assistant] Kubla Khan knew that trade with Europe would make China even more prosperous. So he did his best to encourage traders and merchants to come to his cities.


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[Assistant] He turned his Mongol soldiers into roadkeepers and policemen.


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[Assistant] And send them out to guard the roads and protect travelers against bandits.


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[Assistant] As the journey grew safer, more and more merchants and adventurers traveled along the Silk Road to see the marvels of China's cities. One of these adventurers was named Marco Polo. Marco Polo was the son of an Italian merchant named Niccolo. Before Marco was born, Niccolo left on a journey to China.


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[Assistant] It took me three years to travel to the Palace of the Great Khan. When I arrived,


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[Assistant] The Khan made me welcome and gave me a position as his messenger.


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[Assistant] All this time, I have been working for the Emperor of China.


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[Assistant] He sent me back home to ask the Pope for a hundred wise men who could explain Christianity.


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[Assistant] And he wants me to bring him back some holy oil from Rome. You're a strong boy and growing to be a man. You can travel with me to China. So Marco and his father started back down the Silk Road carrying holy oil for the Emperor of China. The journey took four years. Marco and his father were attacked by bandits.


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[Assistant] They had to take a detour to avoid a war in one of the countries they passed through.


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[Assistant] Marco became ill and had to rest for a whole year.


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[Assistant] But finally Marco and his father arrived in the city of Peking. There they met the emperor, Kublai Khan. We know what Marco Polo thought about this meeting because he wrote a book about his journey to China.


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[Assistant] This book, which he named The Book of Marco, was read all over the world.


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[Assistant] Marco Polo described the Marble Palace of the Khan.


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[Assistant] The palace stood in a huge walled garden where wild animals roamed the grounds.


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[Assistant] A man-made mountain rose up in the garden center with beautiful trees from every part of the world planted all over it.


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[Assistant] A lake filled with fish lay at the foot of the mountain and a small palace for the con to relax in was built at its top.


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[Assistant] Inside the palace, carvings of dragons and colorful paintings of battle scenes covered the walls. Marco Polo was led to a dining hall where 6,000 people could eat at once. In his book, he wrote, It is all painted in gold.


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[Assistant] With many histories and representations of beasts and birds, of knights and dames, and many marvelous things.


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[Assistant] Over all the walls and all the ceiling, you see nothing but paintings in gold.


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[Assistant] Here the great feasts of the Khan were held and Marco Polo tasted his first ice cream.


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[Assistant] Marco Polo was amazed by the beautiful clothes that the Chinese people wore.


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[Assistant] By the abundance of fresh meat and vegetables in the Chinese markets. And by the size of the fruit.


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[Assistant] Certain pairs of enormous size, he wrote, weigh as much as ten pounds each. And he was astounded to see fires made out of black rocks that burned.


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[Assistant] Marco and his father stayed in China for almost 20 years.


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[Assistant] Marco traveled all around China, seeing its great cities with their beautiful buildings and its tiny villages filled with peasants and farmers. When Marco Polo grew older,


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[Assistant] Kubla Khan put him in charge of governing different cities in his empire.


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[Assistant] He sometimes asked Marco to judge between Chinese officials who were arguing with each other.


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[Assistant] And once he even asked Marco to find out whether his soldiers were plotting against him. When Marco and his father finally returned home, their relatives refused to let them in.


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[Assistant] Marco was now a man of forty, and Niccolo had a white beard, and they were wearing ragged dirty clothes.


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[Assistant] You aren't Marco and Niccolo, their relatives scoffed? They've been dead for years. You're just beggars.


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[Assistant] So Marco and Niccolo ripped open the seams of their coats. Jewels tumbled out. Emeralds, rubies, and sapphires.


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[Assistant] The two men had worn their oldest clothes and had sewn their jewels into the seams so that robbers would not attack them.


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[Assistant] Finally, their relatives let them in. Marco and Nicolo had returned from China.


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[Assistant] Marco Polo was lucky to make his journey to China during the reign of Kubla Khan. The Great Khan wanted Europeans to come to his country, so he tried to make the Silk Road safe. But after the Great Khan's death, traveling to China became more and more difficult. The land between Europe and China itself


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[Assistant] had once been controlled by Kubla Khan and protected by his soldiers.


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[Assistant] But now other Mongol leaders divided this in-between land among themselves.


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[Assistant] Now there were wars all along the Silk Road. Merchants traveled to China less and less often, and then hardly at all. The new rulers of China, the emperors of the Ming dynasty, didn't want Europeans to come to their countries.


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[Assistant] Kubla Khan had been anxious to learn all about the religions, the science, and the people of the West.


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[Assistant] But the Ming emperors believed that China was already the best country in the world.


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[Assistant] They thought that Chinese art and science was already perfect, and that the Chinese way of living couldn't possibly be improved. So instead of trading with the outside world,


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[Assistant] The Ming emperors made the Great Wall even stronger to protect against invaders and stayed home.


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[Assistant] One of the emperors even made it illegal to build ocean-going ships.


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[Assistant] He told sailors that anyone who tried to sail to other countries and trade with them would be executed.


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[Assistant] That same Ming emperor decided that instead of traveling to other countries, he would put his time into building a palace right at the center of China's capital city, Peking. Today we call this city Beijing.


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[Assistant] This palace would show the beauty of Chinese architecture and the skill of Chinese builders. The royal family would live in it.


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[Assistant] The emperor's home and all of his official buildings


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[Assistant] would be part of the palace. And no foreigner would ever be allowed to enter it.


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[Assistant] We call this palace the Forbidden City because it was as large as a small city and because foreign visitors were forbidden to see it.


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[Assistant] The Forbidden City took 14 years to build. Its walls were made from enormous stones that were cut from stone quarries outside of Beijing. The stones were too heavy for oxen to pull into the city, especially during the winter when the roads were covered with frozen ruts.


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[Assistant] So the Chinese laborers dug a well every three or four hundred feet along the road.


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[Assistant] They poured water on the road and waited for it to freeze into ice and then slid the stones along the ice right into Beijing.


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[Assistant] The stone walls that surrounded the palace were 30 feet high.


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[Assistant] But out of hard red bricks made from rice and lime.


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[Assistant] The bricks are attached together with a cement made out of mashed rice and egg whites. These bricks have remained strong for centuries.


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[Assistant] And the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than they're even, Kristen. Come, my spade.


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[Assistant] I'll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself- Go to! What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?


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[Assistant] But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church, or the gallows may do well to thee. Do it again, come. Who builds stronger than a mason? A shipwright? Or a carpenter? Ah, tell me that, man-yoke. Oh, Marry, now I can tell! Do it!


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[Assistant] And can you by no drift of confidence get from him why he puts on this confusion, grating so harshly all his days of quiet with turbulent and dangerous lunacy?


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[Assistant] And he beseeched me to entreat your majesties to hear and see the matter. With all my heart, and it doth much content me to him so inclined. Good gentleman, give him a further edge, and drive his purpose into these delights. We shall, my lord.


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[Assistant] If it be the affliction of his love or no that thus he suffers for.


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[Assistant] How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience. The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art, is not more ugly to the thing that helps it than is my deed to my most painted word. Oh, heavy burden.


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[Assistant] Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little, was not like madness.


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[Assistant] There's something in his soul, or which is melancholy sits on brood, and I do doubt the hatch in the disclose will be some danger, which for to prevent I have in quick determination thus set it down. He shall with speed to England for the demand of our neglected tribute.


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[Assistant] After the seas and countries different with variable objects shall expel this something settled matter in his heart.


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[Assistant] Madness in great ones must not on watch go.


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[Assistant] After Bobber the Tiger died, he left his oldest son Humayun in charge of his empire.


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[Assistant] But not long after Humayun came to the throne, he was driven out of India by invaders.


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[Assistant] He spent the next 15 years trying to get the throne of India back.


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[Assistant] Finally Humayun was able to return to his palace in Delhi, but he had lost much of his father's empire. Just one year after Humayun returned to India,


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[Assistant] He slipped on the steps of his library, hit his head and died.


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[Assistant] His thirteen-year-old son Akbar was crowned emperor in his place. Akbar was young.


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[Assistant] But he was determined to restore the glory of his grandfather's empire.


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[Assistant] He launched a furious campaign to reconquer the lands that Humayan had lost.


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[Assistant] And after he got those lands back under his control, he added even more cities to his empire. By the time he died, after a reign of 49 years, Akbar ruled an empire that covered half of India.


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[Assistant] Like his grandfather Babur, Akbar was a fair and just ruler. Although he himself was a Muslim, Akbar believed that he would need to be popular with his Hindu subjects if he wanted to stay on the throne.


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[Assistant] So he married a Hindu princess and allowed Hindu worship to continue in his country.


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[Assistant] Akbar became so famous that his people told story after story about him.


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[Assistant] Most of these stories are probably folk tales that didn't really happen.


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[Assistant] But because he is a fair man willing to do what is right Akbar always listens.


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[Assistant] Here is one of those stories from the time of the Mughal dynasty, the Bad Luck Servant.


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[Assistant] There was a servant named Gulshan, whom everyone thought to be bad luck.


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[Assistant] Whenever the eggs were rotten, the cook would yell, Gulshan, you're bad luck. These eggs turned because of you. If the bread burned in the oven, the baker would bellow, Gulshan must have been here. He's bad luck.


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[Assistant] And if it rained on a feast day, the whole palace would blame poor Gulshan.


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[Assistant] When the Emperor Akbar heard about this, he said, This poor man cannot be the cause of all the bad luck in my palace. Let him be my servant for the day and when all goes well, my household will see that he doesn't bring bad luck at all.


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[Assistant] So he sent his minister, Birbal, to tell Gulshan that he would bring the emperor his breakfast the following morning.


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[Assistant] Gulshan was terrified at the thought of serving the great Akbar himself. But when he got up in the morning he washed his hands


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[Assistant] Combed his hair, put on a clean tunic, and carried the emperor's breakfast into the royal bedchamber.


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[Assistant] Akbar thanked him, and Gulshan bowed and withdrew.


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[Assistant] There, Akbar thought to himself, nothing bad has happened. He began to eat his breakfast, but soon discovered a hair in his bread. Bad luck, he said out loud, but surely that could occur on any morning. He pulled the hair out of his bread and went on eating, but soon his leg began to itch. He peered down and saw that he had been bitten by a sand fly. He slapped the fly and said, bad luck, but I've been bitten by flies before. Akbar began to dress.


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[Assistant] While he was putting on his crown, his captain of the guard rushed in and said, Your Majesty, the peasants in the north are rioting. They demand lower taxes and better food. Ride north and settle the riot, Akbar ordered.


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[Assistant] But the captain of the guard had scarcely left when Akbar's steward knocked anxiously on the door.


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[Assistant] Your majesty, he said, there are maggots in all of the meat that we preserved for the winter. I will have to throw it all out. Throw it out, Akbar ordered.


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[Assistant] But the steward had barely gone away when the master of the horses called from the door. Your majesty, your favorite horse has gone lame.


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[Assistant] But the master of the horses had hardly finished speaking when Akbar's queen ran into the room.


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[Assistant] Our son has fallen and cut his arm, she wailed. Call the doctor at once. That's enough, Akbar shouted. Gulshan is bad luck. Take him out at once and hang him.


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[Assistant] Now when the Minister Birbal heard about the king's order, he went to the prison where Gulsin had been thrown to await his execution. Come with me at once, he ordered the unfortunate man, and I will speak to the emperor on your behalf.


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[Assistant] Akbar was in his throne room when Birbal arrived with Gulshan behind him.


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[Assistant] When you got up this morning, you were a free man, weren't you? he asked.


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[Assistant] Yes, moaned the unfortunate man, and now I have been sentenced to hang.


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[Assistant] What bad luck, Burble exclaimed. And whose face did you see first thing this morning? The, the face of the Emperor, Gorshin whispered. Burble turned to Akbar.


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[Assistant] You saw this man's face this morning and had bad luck, he said.


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[Assistant] But you are still alive and master of your country.


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[Assistant] He saw your face, and now he is sentenced to death. Whose face brought worse luck, his or yours?


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[Assistant] Gulshan, you may go free, but please, can you find another house in which to serve?


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[Assistant] But we do know that as they wandered through Central America, they fought battle after battle with the other tribes who lived there.


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[Assistant] They forced the Concord tribes to give them food, money, and soldiers for their army.


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[Assistant] The Aztecs grew richer and stronger, but they still had no homeland. As they roamed through the highlands of Central America, the Aztecs came to the edge of a wide lake. The edges of the lake were soft and marshy, filled with reeds. Little islands dotted its surface.


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[Assistant] On one of these islands, a large cactus grew and on the cactus sat an eagle holding a snake in its talons.


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[Assistant] When the Aztec priests saw the eagle, they cried out, It is a sign from the sun god. He wishes us to settle here. His divine power will be with us if we build our capital city on the island of the eagle. The Aztecs wanted to please the sun god.


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[Assistant] But when they launched their canoes and paddled over to the island, they found that much of it was soft and muddy. How could they build a city on marshy land?


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[Assistant] The Aztecs were determined to find a way, and so they hauled basketfuls of dry earth and stones from the land around the lake and dumped the earth onto the muddy beaches.


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[Assistant] They pulled basketfuls of mud up from the lake bottom and filled in the pools and swamps.


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[Assistant] They cut poles from the trees surrounding the lake, drove the poles down into the bottom of the lake, and attached reed mats to the poles.


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[Assistant] Then they filled the fenced in areas with more dirt and mud.


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[Assistant] Slowly the island became larger and drier.


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[Assistant] The Aztecs built more and more houses in their new city. They named it Tinochtitlan.


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[Assistant] Today the lake where Tenochtitlan stood is called Lake Texcoco. More and more people came to live in Tenochtitlan.


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[Assistant] Even though the island was not very big, this floating city had over a hundred thousand Aztecs living in it.