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[Assistant] Is that he is also bound to be either a Frenchman or a Belgian or a Dutchman. As well as just a Fleming.


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[Assistant] Is that they had great artists who were painting at the same time as the early renaissance. Or, born again, artists in Italy.


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[Assistant] There weren't quite so many great artists in Flanders as in Italy at that time, but there were many more than in any other country. If you want to look up this country of Flanders on the map, look for Belgium. You will find it along the North Sea.


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[Assistant] The first of the famous Flemish artists were two brothers named Van Eyck. Hubert was the older brother and Jan the younger. They worked in the city of Bruges, which is not a very important city now, but then was one of the largest and richest cities in Europe. For a church in Ghent, these two brothers painted a magnificent altarpiece.


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[Assistant] An altarpiece was not like an ordinary picture.


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[Assistant] An altarpiece had a central panel with wings or shutters on each side, like a three-fold screen.


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[Assistant] These shutters could be closed like the shutters of a window.


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[Assistant] And so the Van Iks painted pictures on the back as well as on the front.


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[Assistant] Hubert was the one who planned the paintings on this altarpiece, but before he had finished them all, he died. And then Jan completed the work.


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[Assistant] The altarpiece was so much admired that several cities wanted it for their museums.


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[Assistant] So it was taken apart, and for a long time the central part was in one city, and each of the shutters in another.


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[Assistant] After World War I, the pieces were brought back to Ghent to make a complete altarpiece again.


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[Assistant] The altarpiece is almost all we have to show us how good an artist Hubert van Eyck was. But Jan's paintings have been better preserved, and there are several very famous ones in museums. Both the van Eycks painted with oil,


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[Assistant] And they used oil so well to bring out the colors and to keep the paintings fresh looking.


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[Assistant] That the story soon grew up that they were the inventors of oil paintings. This isn't exactly true, but they did improve oil painting so much that we can call them the fathers of oil painting. From them the Italians learned to paint with oil.


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[Assistant] The Van Eyck brothers were followed by other good painters in Flanders, but I'm going to have to skip them and tell you about the greatest Flemish artist who lived 200 years later than the Van Eycks.


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[Assistant] Peter Paul must have been a very bright boy, for he learned to speak Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, English, German, and Dutch. Do you know anybody who can speak seven languages?


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[Assistant] As a young man, Peter Paul worked for several years in Italy for one of the dukes there. The duke liked his work so much that he would not give Ruben's permission to leave.


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[Assistant] One day, however, Rubens had a message from Flanders telling him his mother was very ill.


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[Assistant] And they not only gave him orders for pictures, but made good use of him in other ways.


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[Assistant] He was entrusted with important missions to carry out in Spain, in France, and in England. Every place he went, he won friends. The King of Spain made him a knight. The King of England made him a knight. Honors were heaped upon him. He continued to paint hundreds of pictures. In his house was a huge studio.


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[Assistant] Where he had many young artists helping him as they themselves learned from him. He liked to paint big pictures best and the stairway of his studio was made very large so that his largest paintings could be taken from the studio after they were painted.


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[Assistant] Rubens is noted for the rich bright colors of his paintings. He could paint all kinds of pictures.


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[Assistant] Portraits in landscapes, animals in battles, religious pictures, and pictures of mythology and history.


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[Assistant] Some are so full of action, they make you excited just to look at them. The lion hunt is one of the exciting ones.


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[Assistant] It shows men on horseback with spears attacking lions.


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[Assistant] And the picture quickly shows you, hunting lions is not a sport for weaklings.


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[Assistant] Rubens learned to draw lions by hiring a real live lion for a model.


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[Assistant] Like most painters of his time, Rubens didn't mind painting people of the past in the same kind of clothes as people wore in his day in Flanders.


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[Assistant] No one then seemed to think it was peculiar to see a painting of an ancient Greek in the costume of the Flemings of the 17th century.


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[Assistant] But painters nowadays always try to have their figures wear clothes that would have been worn at the time the figures were supposed to have lived. Many people consider Ruben's masterpiece to be the descent from the cross.


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[Assistant] It shows Christ's followers removing his dead body from the cross on which he died. It is in the cathedral at Antwerp in Belgium.


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[Assistant] A picture everyone likes is the painting Ruben's date of his two sons. The older boy was 11.


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[Assistant] And the Younger Boys 7, when Rubens painted their portraits.


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[Assistant] The older boy was 11 and the younger boy 7 when Rubens painted their portraits. They look very lifelike, don't they? Indeed, they look very much like boys of today, except that their clothes are not the kind boys wear now, even when they are dressed up to go to a party or to have their pictures taken. Rubens was just the opposite from Lazy.


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[Assistant] He worked hard and fast, but even then he had orders for more pictures than he could do.


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[Assistant] Sometimes he let his pupils paint parts of his pictures to save time and also to give them practice. He was always ready to help other artists.


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[Assistant] And sometimes bought their pictures only because they needed money.


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[Assistant] He even bought some of the paintings of a certain artist who had been very unfriendly to him just because he felt sorry for him.


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[Assistant] Almost everybody likes to look at animals or hunt animals or play with animals or draw animals or eat animals.


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[Assistant] A man named Barrier liked to make statues of animals. Barrier lived in Paris.


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[Assistant] He worked in a jewelry shop and was a goldsmith as were so many of the Renaissance sculptors of Florence.


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[Assistant] But Berrier lived much later than the Renaissance. He lived in the 1800s. Berrier loved to go to the zoo in Paris.


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[Assistant] He used to take paper and crayons to the zoo and draw pictures of the animals.


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[Assistant] He would go home and make little statues of the animals he had drawn.


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[Assistant] When he was at work in the jewelry shop, he often made tiny gold animals for watch chains and necklaces and bronze animals to go on clocks.


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[Assistant] In this way, Barryay practiced until he became the best animal sculptor of his time in the world.


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[Assistant] His lions and tigers were especially liked by Americans, and on the street corners of American towns, men used to sell plaster casts of Berrier's Walking Lion.


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[Assistant] Perhaps there is one of these berrier lions on a mantelpiece in your house.


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[Assistant] Many of Berrier's bronzes show pain and cruelty.


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[Assistant] He seemed to like to make statues such as a tiger eating an alligator or a jaguar eating a rabbit.


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[Assistant] Very few people like to see one animal killing another. I'm sure I don't.


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[Assistant] Many of Berrier's bronze animals are much too small for monuments, but people call his work monumental sculpture.


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[Assistant] This means that Barrier modeled his statues in the same way large monuments that you see in parks should be modeled. They are not filled with tiny details.


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[Assistant] I wonder if you would know what I meant if I told you they are heavy in shape.


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[Assistant] Heavy in shape doesn't mean they are not graceful, but it does mean that a berrier bronze looks beautiful even at a distance as well as near at hand. Monumental.


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[Assistant] Almost as good as Barryay in making animal statues was still another Frenchman. His name was Frommier. Frommier made many splendid statues of animals.


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[Assistant] In one called Pan and the Two Bear Cubs, Pan is having lots of fun tickling the little bears with a straw.


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[Assistant] From yeaah began making statues of people as well as animals.


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[Assistant] His statues of men on horseback, equestrian statues, proved to be his best ones.


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[Assistant] Joan is clad in armor and holds aloft the flag of the King of France as she leaves the King's soldiers to battle. Frenchmen are proud of Joan of Arc. They consider her a saint.


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[Assistant] Frenchmen are proud, too, of another leader of French armies. Although he certainly wasn't a saint. His name was Napoleon.


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[Assistant] You probably already know the story of Napoleon, the boy from Corsica who went to a military school.


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[Assistant] Became a lieutenant in the French army, then a famous and successful general.


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[Assistant] He made himself emperor of France and became the most powerful man of his time in all the world. At last he was defeated and went to live on Elba, an island in the Mediterranean.


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[Assistant] From Elba, he suddenly returned to France. His old soldiers rallied round him. He raised an army to fight the English and the Prussians.


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[Assistant] He was beaten at the Battle of Waterloo and sent to the island of St. Helena, far away in the South Atlantic Ocean.


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[Assistant] There, Napoleon spent the last six years of his life longing to return to lead his armies once more to victory. And there, he died.


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[Assistant] This statue shows Napoleon at Saint Helena, a map of Europe spread on his knees, one hand clenched in rage at his loss of power, the other hand loosely open, showing how hopeless he feels his chance of returning is.


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[Assistant] The statue was done by a sculptor named Vincenzo Vella, who was born in Switzerland. Do you like it? It is called a dramatic statue because it shows something happening. It is not just Napoleon.


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[Assistant] But Napoleon wishing to return and win back his past glory.


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[Assistant] Well, my house is over a hundred years old, said the man. It's in Massachusetts.


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[Assistant] Only a hundred years old, exclaimed another man. My house is two hundred years old. It's in Virginia. That doesn't seem old to me, still another man said.


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[Assistant] My house is four hundred and fifty years old. Each one was trying to tell a bigger story than the other. Four hundred and fifty years old, I cried. How can that be? That's before America was discovered. Before there were any white men's houses in this country. It isn't in America, he replied. It's in England. I'm an Englishman. Oh, well, that's different.


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[Assistant] If you count houses abroad, I've been in a house that's a thousand years old. It's a church. It's in France. Only a thousand years old, the Englishman seemed bent on going me one better. I have been in a house built two thousand years ago. It's in Greece, a temple. They call it the Parthenon.


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[Assistant] I've been in a house that is five thousand years old. A house built for the dead. It's in Egypt. They call it a pyramid.


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[Assistant] You win, said the Englishman. No one can beat that. And that's true. The oldest houses in the world are the pyramids in Egypt. Houses for the dead. But why are the oldest houses, houses for the dead? Where are the houses of the living?


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[Assistant] The houses they built 5,000 years ago to live in. They're all gone.


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[Assistant] Long, long ago. And the reason is this.


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[Assistant] A man expected to live only 50 years or so, and he built his house out of wood or mud bricks to last only as long as he lived.


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[Assistant] So the wood houses have all rotted away, and the houses made of mud brick have turned back to dust. But he expected to be a long time dead.


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[Assistant] So if he were a king, he built a house for himself to be dead in, and he built it so that it would last till judgment day. You see.


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[Assistant] The Egyptians, hundreds of years before Christ, believed in resurrection.


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[Assistant] They believe their dead bodies would sometime come to life again.


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[Assistant] So they built the pyramids out of stone to last till then.


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[Assistant] And they had their bodies embalmed. That is, made into what we call mummies. To last till then also. Now, the pyramids are still there in Egypt.


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[Assistant] But the mummies that were once in them are not in them anymore.


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[Assistant] They have been stolen, or they have been taken away and put in museums. In museums for anyone and everyone to gaze upon.


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[Assistant] In spite of all the care that the tomb builder took to have his body undisturbed till judgment day.


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[Assistant] We do not pay so much attention to how and where we are to be buried.


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[Assistant] Even kings and queens nowadays are buried in the ground with a monument over them or in a simple tomb.


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[Assistant] There were over a hundred pyramids built near the River Nile by Egypt's rulers.


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[Assistant] But the largest is one built by King Cheops, about 3,000 years before Christ was born. That's about 5,000 years ago. The pyramid is almost 500 feet high.


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[Assistant] In spite of that, it is by far the largest stone building in the world. A mountain of stone.


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[Assistant] The pyramid of Cheops is built of solid rock on a natural rock foundation.


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[Assistant] But as there was no rock nearby for building the pyramid itself,


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[Assistant] It had to be brought from quarries, some of which were 50 miles away and some 500 miles away.


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[Assistant] Then it had to be dragged 50 miles or 500 miles from the quarry.


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[Assistant] Some of the huge stones weighed more than a loaded freight car and it took several years to drag the rocks to the site of the pyramid. You see,


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[Assistant] There was no machinery in those days. No pulleys or derricks. No tracks or trucks. No engines or mechanical contrivances such as we have nowadays to lift and carry huge loads. So that every block of stone had to be pushed or pulled by sheer brute force.


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[Assistant] Hundreds of men, tugged from in front, and hundreds shoved from behind.


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[Assistant] And then each block had to be lifted and moved into place.


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[Assistant] Probably a roadway was built right up the side of the pyramid to where the block could be slid into position.


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[Assistant] It is supposed to have taken 20 years to build Keops's pyramid, and they say the king employed over 100,000 men to do the job.


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[Assistant] Outside of the pyramid when it was finished was a smooth polished stone. Perhaps in bands of different colored granite.


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[Assistant] But long ago, all this covering of polished stone was stolen and carried off to make other buildings, so that the sides of the pyramid are now rough, irregular steps, each one several feet high, and you can climb to the top on any side simply by climbing from one step to another. The Great Pyramid, as we call it,


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[Assistant] If it were sliced through the center like a piece of cheese,


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[Assistant] Would show three small rooms. One above the other and some slanting passageways to the three rooms. The rest would be solid rock. See the picture below.


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[Assistant] The topmost room was for the king's own mummy, and in order to make sure that the weight of stone above would not crush through the room in which his mummy was, he had five ceilings of stone built, one above the other, with a space above each ceiling and then a slanting ceiling above them all.


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[Assistant] The two lines slanting upward from his room to the sides are small air passages.


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[Assistant] The room underneath his own was for his queen. And the one under that, in the cellar or foundation of the pyramid, was perhaps for nobody. That was for a while the great mystery of the Great Pyramid. But now we feel we have guessed the riddle. You see, there is only one passageway starting from the outside.


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[Assistant] From this one passageway, another secret passageway led off to the kings and queens chambers.


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[Assistant] But the passage that went straight ahead led down to the room that had nothing in it.


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[Assistant] Keops was afraid that after he and his queen had been buried away in his tomb, some enemy of his might try to steal their mummies, and so prevent them from coming to life again on judgment day.


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[Assistant] So he had all the passageways filled up with stone after he was buried, and then the entrance covered so that no one could find where or how to get in.


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[Assistant] But Keops figured that if someone did find the entrance and began to dig out the passageway down to the cellar, this straight passage would lead him off the track.


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[Assistant] And he would keep on down and not see the other secret passageway leading off to the kings and queens chambers.


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[Assistant] Then when he did reach the empty room, he would find nothing. An April Fool joke.


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[Assistant] But in spite of all these extraordinary precautions that Keops took to prevent anyone's finding his mummy, all these passageways and rooms were later discovered and opened and the mummies were removed. To where? By whom? No one knows. And that was a joke on Keops.


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[Assistant] Though as I told you, there are over a hundred pyramids, not all of them have the true pyramid form. That is, not all of them are triangular.


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[Assistant] In some pyramids, the sides slope in very little at the bottom, and then, as if the builder had changed his mind, they slope in faster toward the top.


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[Assistant] The pharaoh who built his tomb like this may have been sick and afraid he was going to die before the pyramid was finished and so had to hurry up.


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[Assistant] In some of the pyramids, the sides zigzag toward the top in several giant-like steps.


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[Assistant] Perhaps the pharaoh just wanted to have his pyramid different from all the others. Some of the pyramids are built of brick instead of stone. Perhaps the pharaohs who built such pyramids were poor.


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[Assistant] And so, the three greatest pyramids stand close together on the sands of the desert in giant majesty, as they have stood for ages past and will for ages and ages to come, to throw the beholder with their sublime grandeur. Mere size doesn't make a thing beautiful. A big thing may be very ugly.


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[Assistant] But, the pyramids are monuments to man's attempt to make something enduring, lasting. And the builders succeeded in making the most permanent, lasting thing ever built by man.


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[Assistant] The pyramids are also monuments to their belief in a life after death.


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[Assistant] And when we think of the millions of people that have come and gone and lived and died since these mighty monuments were built, and the countless millions that will come and go while the pyramids still stand on, it sets us thinking of the shortness of our little lives and the awesome length of eternity. And that is art. All the pyramids were tombs.


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[Assistant] But not all tombs were pyramids. That is, some tombs were not pyramid-shaped at all. But just stone buildings with flat tops.


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[Assistant] Furthermore, some tombs were simply caves cut into the rock cliffs on the west side of the Nile.


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[Assistant] These rock tombs were hollowed out on the west side of the river so that the entrance would face east toward the rising sun.


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[Assistant] The Egyptians never faced their tombs any other way. For they thought the sun god could not wake the dead on judgment day unless the tomb faced him as he rose in the east.


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[Assistant] If the tomb faced him, he would wake these people who were dead. Just as the rising sun shining into east windows wakes a sleeper in the morning.


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[Assistant] Here is such a rock-cut tomb, one of the most famous, a tomb at Beni Hassan.


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[Assistant] It is particularly interesting because it has two columns in front. Two columns cut out of self-same rock. None of the pyramid tombs had columns.


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[Assistant] So these are the oldest houses in the world. Houses of the dead, pyramids, and tombs.


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[Assistant] And whenever any traveler was unlucky enough to pass along the road below the castle,


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[Assistant] Down would come the ogre and carry the traveler off to his dungeon tower. That sounds like the beginning of a fairy story. And that is just what it is. But, there is more truth than you might think in a fairy story.


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[Assistant] In the middle ages, when people believed in fairies and ogres, there were many real castles. Most of them built on the top of a hill.


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[Assistant] And although there were no real ogres, there were, I'm sorry to say, bad men living in some of these castles, who would really lock up in their dungeon towers, anyone from whom they thought they could get money.


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[Assistant] Of course, not all knights who lived in the castles were bad.


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[Assistant] But most of them are warlike and fierce, and all the old castles had dungeon cells for prisoners. These castles were built because of the feudal system. The feudal system worked like this.


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[Assistant] The king or prince who conquered a country would divide the country up among several of his lords.


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[Assistant] These lords would then divide their parts of the land up among other lords.


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[Assistant] And these would divide their share again among the knights. Each lord and knight


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[Assistant] Each lord and knight built himself a strong castle to protect his part of the land from anyone who might try to take it away from him.


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[Assistant] There were no policemen in those days to keep one man from trying to steal another man's land.


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[Assistant] And so each knight had to have his own soldiers and his own castle to protect his rights.


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[Assistant] Near each castle was a village where the common people who were not lords or nobles lived. These people were not very well cared for. They lived in miserable little huts.


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[Assistant] Most of them had to give part of all the food they raised to the lord of the castle.


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[Assistant] The lord of the castle protected the poor people from enemies.


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[Assistant] The castle was built with great thick stone walls all around it.


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[Assistant] Outside of the wall was a deep ditch of water called a moat.


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[Assistant] The only way to get into the castle was across a drawbridge over the moat.


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[Assistant] The drawbridge could be drawn up from inside the castle so that an enemy could not enter.


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[Assistant] If the enemy reached the drawbridge before it was drawn up,


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[Assistant] He found his way blocked by a huge latticework gate, called a portcullis, which was dropped across the gateway of the castle.


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[Assistant] The castle had huge stone towers at the gateway and along the wall, with very narrow slits for windows.


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[Assistant] Archers could shoot arrows out of these slits, but the slits were hard to shoot through from the outside.


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[Assistant] Inside the walls, there was a courtyard around which were the stables.


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[Assistant] There was a large dining hall and often a little church or chapel in the keep.


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[Assistant] And down below the ground level were the prison cells and torture chambers. In case of an attack, all the people of the village came into the castle.


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[Assistant] Often with their cattle and flocks and stayed there.


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[Assistant] So there had to be great stores of food on hand.


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[Assistant] Here is a picture of the castle of Pierre Fon in France.


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[Assistant] Notice how few windows there are in the lower walls.


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[Assistant] Pierfone gradually fell to pieces until it was restored about 50 years ago.


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[Assistant] People get tired of seeing the same styles in dresses and hats and try to start something new. Ladies nowadays go to Paris for their styles. In the same way,


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[Assistant] Architects used to go to Greece for their styles in buildings.


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[Assistant] Some architects have tried to start new styles in columns just to have something new and different.


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[Assistant] But the columns they have invented have all been less beautiful than the two Greek columns I have described.


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[Assistant] The Greeks started a new style of column called the Corinthian.


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[Assistant] But they didn't like it very much themselves, and hardly used it at all.


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[Assistant] The old architect, Vitruvius, who told us the story of the Ionic Column.


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[Assistant] Tells us another fairy tale to explain the Corinthian capital.


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[Assistant] Vitruvius said that a basket of toys with a tile over the top was placed on the grave of a little girl in Corinth, as was the custom in those days.


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[Assistant] By chance, the basket had been placed directly over a thistle plant, and the leaves of the thistle grew up around the basket. An architect, seeing this basket with the leaves curling around it,


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[Assistant] Thought it would make a good design for a capital of a column. And so he copied it in marble, and put it on an ionic column in place of the ionic capital. In this way was invented the Corinthian column.


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[Assistant] So the Corinthian column is just an Ionic column with a different capital.


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[Assistant] The Greek thistle is called the acanthus. So the leaves which curl upward and outward on each side of the Corinthian capital are acanthus leaves.


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[Assistant] Just underneath the tile, which is called the abacus, are four corner scrolls or curls.


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[Assistant] They're like curl shavings the carpenter makes with his plane.


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[Assistant] But not like those of the Ionic Capital, which are like roles of music.


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[Assistant] The Ionic curls faced front and back, but the Corinthian curls faced corner-wise.


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[Assistant] Many people think the Corinthian capital more beautiful than either the Doric or the Ionic.


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[Assistant] But others think it too fancy and not natural to have stone beams resting on leaves. At any rate,


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[Assistant] Though the Greeks invented the Corinthian column, they hardly used it at all.


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[Assistant] The Greeks finished all their great buildings about 300 years before Christ was born. And all their great architects seemed to have died. For no great ones lived after that time.


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[Assistant] You know, from your geography, that Greece is nearly an island, called a peninsula, in the Mediterranean Sea.


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[Assistant] Next door to Greece is another near island or peninsula called Italy.


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[Assistant] The capital of Italy was Rome, and after Greece had lost her power, Rome became the capital, that is, the head of most of the world. The Greeks were great architects, but the Romans were great builders. There is a difference. The Romans built many fine buildings, but they didn't have as good taste as the Greeks.


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[Assistant] The Romans liked the Corinthian column better than either the Doric or the Ionic.


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[Assistant] The Romans also made another column composed of both Ionic and Corinthian capitals. And so this column is called Composite.


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[Assistant] It had the large curls or volutes of the ionic and the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian.


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[Assistant] Often it is hard to tell whether a column is Corinthian or composite. In the composite column, the ionic top is larger than in the Corinthian. That is all. The Romans also changed the Doric column.


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[Assistant] Gave it a base, and left out the flutings in the saucer-shaped part of the capital.


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[Assistant] This kind of Roman column was called Etruscan Doric or Tuscan. The Romans made other changes in their styles of building. Changes for the worse.


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[Assistant] In order to make columns seem higher than they were, they frequently put a box-like base or pedestal beneath each column.


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[Assistant] They also placed split half columns against walls.


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[Assistant] Such half columns built against the wall are called engaged. Other columns they flattened out against the wall so that they appeared square. A column so flattened out is called a pilaster.


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[Assistant] You can remember the name by thinking of plaster and putting an I between the P and L.


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[Assistant] The greatest thing the Romans did for building was to use the arch.


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[Assistant] As you know, the Assyrians invented the arch, but used it very little because they had very little stone with which to build arches. But they never rested their arches on columns.


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[Assistant] The Greeks and other architects before them placed a single stone across from column to column.


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[Assistant] But a single slab of stone could not reach very far. So the spaces between columns were never very great, and never could be very great.


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[Assistant] The Romans were the first to make arches from column to column, instead of using straight slabs of stone from column to column.


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[Assistant] The Romans also made barrel vaults and domes, which, you remember, were arch ceilings built on the same principle as the arch.


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[Assistant] By using the dome and the vault, they were able to roof over much larger spaces than ever could have been roofed over with single slabs of stone or with wooden roofs.


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[Assistant] Furthermore, a vaulted or domed roof of stone was fireproof, whereas a wooden roof, of course, was not.


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[Assistant] Another great thing the Romans did for building was to use cement and concrete.


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[Assistant] Concrete is a mixture of cement with water and sand and pebbles. This mixture turns into stone when it dries.


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[Assistant] The Romans used cement between the stones of their arches, and they made their domes and vaults of concrete.


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[Assistant] Now, an arch or a dome or a vault, if properly put together, needs no cement, for the stones push against one another so tightly they can't slip through and down. But, as I have told you, an arch does need heavy walls at the side so that the stone in the arch will not push over the walls.


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[Assistant] For the weight of each stone pushes and shoves sideways. The Romans found a way out of this difficulty.


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[Assistant] They made their vaults and domes with cement or concrete to hold the stones together so that the vault or dome became a single solid stone. Such a concrete dome pushes downward.


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[Assistant] But doesn't push sideways. So that heavy side walls are not really necessary.


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[Assistant] You can rest a trunk or a piano or an automobile on blocks or bricks and the trunk or piano or automobile will not fall.


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[Assistant] But if the blocks or bricks are pushed sideways the least bit, the load they carry will fall.


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[Assistant] Have you ever stood up a row of blocks or bricks and tried to walk across them? Try it.


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[Assistant] If you press straight down as you step on them, they will not fall.


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[Assistant] But if you shove them sideways the least little bit, over they go.


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[Assistant] Well, it's the same with a load on a column or a wall.


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[Assistant] As I have explained, if the load presses straight down, a small column or small wall will hold the load perfectly well.


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[Assistant] But, the separate stones in an arch do not push straight down.


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[Assistant] They push sideways and the wall must be made very heavy to keep from being pushed over by an arch.


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[Assistant] When, however, you have a row of arches on columns, each arch pushes against the next arch, and the next arch pushes back so that there is no side push on the columns. Arches push and shove. You may not see it, but they do. Try pushing against another boy who pushes against you.


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[Assistant] You can lean together like the sides of a letter A, but if one suddenly stops pushing or jumps aside, down the other goes. That's the way one arch pushes against another.


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[Assistant] Knock away one arch, and down the other goes.


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[Assistant] And all the rest of those fascinating people in the Arabian Nights. Open sesame!


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[Assistant] Let's see if the magic words will open the door of this chapter to show the treasures of Mohammedan architecture. The Mohammedans believe in a book called the Quran.


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[Assistant] The Quran forbade any Mohammedan to make a picture or a likeness of any living thing.


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[Assistant] So you can easily guess that a Mohammedan temple, or mosque as it is called, must be very different from a gothic cathedral which is covered with hundreds of statues of men and animals and plants.


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[Assistant] Another difference you would probably notice at once if you were in Istanbul or any other Muhammadan city would be the number of domes.


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[Assistant] These domes are generally not round, but oblong, like half an egg or an onion.


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[Assistant] And they often have points on the tops like the end of a fat turnip or beet.


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[Assistant] But all the mosques do not have domes. For a Muhammadan dome used to be the sign of a tomb.


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[Assistant] And only where the building served as a tomb for someone, a dome was built.


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[Assistant] When you get close to a Mohammedan building, you notice that the builders must have been good carvers of stone and marble.


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[Assistant] Even if their religion didn't allow them to carve statues of living things.


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[Assistant] Their carving is a pattern of straight lines and curves, squares and circles, diamond shapes and star shapes, zigzags and criss-crosses.


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[Assistant] Some of the carving is so fine, it forms a network that looks like stone lace.


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[Assistant] Inside the buildings, the carving and decorations become even richer than outside.


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[Assistant] The designs are called Arabesques, because the first Mohammedans were Arabs, and the Arabs built many mosques decorated in this way.


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[Assistant] Sometimes the arabesques are writings from the Quran.


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[Assistant] The Arabian letters are graceful and make beautiful decorations.


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[Assistant] And inside these Mohammedan buildings, we are apt to find still another form of decoration that other buildings do not have.


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[Assistant] The vaults under the domes, the ceilings of the rooms,


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[Assistant] Often have a curious carved work that looks like hundreds of little stone icicles hanging down from the roof.


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[Assistant] A man who climbs up five times a day to call the people to prayer. Some of the mosques have a minaret at each corner.


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[Assistant] Come to prayer, come to prayer. There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.


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[Assistant] And then all good Mohammedans face toward the sacred city of Mecca and kneel in prayer.


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[Assistant] Mecca is the sacred city because Mohammed himself was born and lived there.


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[Assistant] Each Mohammedan mosque has a niche, or hollow in the wall nearest Mecca.


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[Assistant] This niche takes the place of the altar in a church or temple.


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[Assistant] The early Mohammedans did not believe in simply asking other people to become Mohammedans.


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[Assistant] They brought people into their religion by saying to them, Be a Muhammadan or we'll kill you.


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[Assistant] So the Muhammadan religion spread quickly from Arabia where it started, for the Arabs were great conquerors.


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[Assistant] Eastward it spread, farther and farther through Persia and across India.


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[Assistant] Baghdad became the capital city of these eastern Mohammedans.


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[Assistant] Westward, the Arabs pushed across Egypt, across northern Africa, till they came to the Strait of Gibraltar. This did not stop them. They built boats and sailed across to Spain.


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[Assistant] Through Spain, they spread until they got as far as France.


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[Assistant] All Europe would probably have become Mohammedan if the French had not stopped the Arabs in a battle fought at the town of Tours in France. But much of Spain did become Mohammedan. The Arabs in Spain were called Moors.


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[Assistant] The Moors set up a capital at Cordova for all the Western Mohammedans, just as Baghdad was the Eastern capital, just as the Roman Empire had once had an Eastern and Western capital. Rome and Constantinople.


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[Assistant] For over 700 years, the Moors ruled in Spain until they were finally driven out about the time of Columbus.


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[Assistant] In Cordova, the Moors built a huge mosque which is still standing there.


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[Assistant] You remember how the Mohammedans turned the Christian church of Saint Sophia in Constantinople into a mosque. Well, in Cordova, just the opposite happened.


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[Assistant] For when the Moors were finally driven out of Spain, the Christians turned the Muhammadan Mosque into a church. And a church it still is.


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[Assistant] But by far the most famous Mohammedan building in Spain is the Alhambra.


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[Assistant] The Alhambra was built by the Moorish kings of Granada in Spain as a kind of fortress palace.


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[Assistant] The Alhambra is on a tall hill of rock with steep cliffs that helped keep back enemies.


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[Assistant] Inside the different buildings were guard rooms and halls, gardens and courts, all decorated with thousands of arabesques.


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[Assistant] The Court of Lions is one part of the Alhambra that you may have heard of. It looks something like a cloister, for around its four sides are arcades. In the middle is a big marble basin, held on the backs of twelve lions, which is used as a fountain. And now I'm sure you are going to ask an embarrassing question. It's embarrassing because I can't answer it. How could the Moors have marble lions


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[Assistant] If they were not supposed to carve statues of living things. I don't know.


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[Assistant] Maybe the lions were an exception that proved the rule.


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[Assistant] Maybe the lions were carved by Christians and captured and brought to the Alhambra by the Moors. Maybe. But who knows?


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[Assistant] Another noted building in Spain left by the Moors is called the Geralda Tower. Geralda meant weather vane.


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[Assistant] The weather vane is naturally on the very top of the tower. It is a figure of faith that swings with the wind.


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[Assistant] The top three stories of the tower are Christian Renaissance architecture,


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[Assistant] Because when the Christians finally drove the Moors out of Spain,


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[Assistant] They used the Mohammedan buildings for their own needs and often added to them.


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[Assistant] Now I'm going to take you from Spain in the west to India in the east. In Agra, India,


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[Assistant] And yet his wife was still alive when he built her tomb.


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[Assistant] That seems strange to us, but it was the custom there. It was a sensible custom at that.


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[Assistant] Many travelers who have seen it have called it the most beautiful building in the world. They have even placed it ahead of the Parthenon.


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[Assistant] The Taj Mahal is built all of marble and shines in the sun like a beautiful white jewel.


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[Assistant] Around the building are gardens, trees, lawns and fountains, and right in front of it is a long rectangular pool of water that reflects the trees and the Taj Mahal too.


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[Assistant] And with the Taj Mahal, we will end our story of Mohammedan buildings.


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[Assistant] Saying as Alibaba might say to close the chapter, shut sesame.


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[Assistant] Chapter 87. The Scrapers of the Sky. How high is up? For a mountain, up may be several miles. For an airplane, up may be even higher than the highest mountain. For a building, up is a little over 1,000 feet. Not nearly so high as the mountaintop, not nearly as high as the airplane can fly. But the 1,000 feet up of the building


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[Assistant] Seems to me even more wonderful than mountain heights or airplane flights. Very tall buildings, as you know, are called skyscrapers. They are an American invention, and all but a few of them are in the United States. Most American cities have skyscrapers, but the place where those... Most American cities have skyscrapers,


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[Assistant] But the place where they make the finest showing is New York City.


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[Assistant] New York has almost 200 skyscrapers sticking up into the air like the bristles on a monster's toothbrush.


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[Assistant] From a distance, they are fairy towers. Dream buildings. Almost unbelievable. And when you have ridden up to the top of one of the very


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[Assistant] And when you have ridden up to the top of one of the very high skyscrapers, they become even more unbelievable.


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[Assistant] Gothic cathedrals have tall towers and lofty spires, but next to the tall skyscrapers, the Gothic cathedrals would not look high at all. How can men, you wonder, possibly build so far above the ground? But there you are, one hundred and two stories above the ground, and people on the streets, but there you are, one hundred and two stories above the ground, and people on the streets below,


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[Assistant] But there you are, one hundred and two stories above the ground.


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[Assistant] And people on the streets below look like moving black specks. You pinch yourself and it hurts. So you must be awake and not dreaming. The building is real after all. What a long time it must have taken to build it. You were wrong. It takes a very short time to build a skyscraper.


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[Assistant] The gothic cathedrals you remember took hundreds of years to build. The Empire State Building in New York


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[Assistant] The Empire State Building in New York City took less than one year. And yet it has 102 stories. Magic! Here is more magic.


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[Assistant] A modern skyscraper is built from auto trucks. It rises in the air according to schedule. Each steel girder, each piece of stone, each section of pipe rolls into the building on a truck at just the right time. If the wrong piece got there first, it couldn't be used at once. There would be no place to put it. It would get in the way. Traffic would be blocked on the street.


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[Assistant] The whole building would have to wait. So the material is taken out of the trucks and hoisted into place at once.


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[Assistant] Instead of being piled up on the ground to wait its turn.


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[Assistant] You can easily see then that a very important part of building a skyscraper has to be done beforehand. The plans of the architect and engineer have to be very carefully made and checked.


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[Assistant] All the material has to be ordered and made ready for use so that it will arrive at just the right time.


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[Assistant] And that is one reason why the whole huge wonderful structure can be put together so quickly and without even blocking the streets around it.


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[Assistant] A skyscraper is made differently from the other kinds of buildings.


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[Assistant] A skyscraper is made differently from the older kinds of buildings. It has a steel framework. Each story is a kind of steel cage. And on the cage are fastened the outside walls. These walls don't help at all to hold up the building. The steel cages do all the holding up. The walls are like the walls of a tent, to protect the inside from the weather, not to help support the weight.


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[Assistant] And the walls of a skyscraper where the walls aren't even touching the ground.


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[Assistant] No one would want to walk up to the top floor of a skyscraper. It would take too long. If you tried it, you would find you were so tired out when you reached the top that you probably couldn't walk down again. So, skyscrapers wouldn't be any good without elevators. A big skyscraper has many elevators run by electricity. There are locals and expresses, as on a railroad, so that you can reach the top stories quickly


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[Assistant] The elevators on the latest skyscrapers are arranged so that a passenger never has to wait for more than a minute.


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[Assistant] The first skyscrapers were built in the last years of the 19th century.


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[Assistant] These early skyscrapers were shaped like tall shoe boxes standing on end. After many of these box buildings were built,


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[Assistant] People found that they cut off the light from the streets below and from buildings next door.


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[Assistant] The rules said that skyscrapers could no longer be built with a shape like a shoebox. The higher the building rose in the air, the rules said, the narrower it had to be. The lower part of a skyscraper, for instance, might cover an entire city block.


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[Assistant] But after the building had risen a certain number of stories,


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[Assistant] The other stories above had to be set back from the edge of the street so as not to be cut off the light.


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[Assistant] But after the building had risen a certain number of stories,


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[Assistant] The other stories above had to be set back from the edge of the streets so as not to cut off the lights.


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[Assistant] The tower of the building might be built as high as the sky, just so its base didn't cover more than one quarter of the base of the first floor of the skyscraper.


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[Assistant] These setback rules made the new skyscrapers look quite different from the older ones. The older skyscrapers look different too.


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[Assistant] Because architects had tried to make them in the style of some architecture of the past. Some had Greek columns at the base, although the columns carried no weight and weren't used for anything except show. Some had huge cornices at the top, which were copied from the Renaissance building, but were just as useless and false as the columns. The outsides of these skyscrapers were fake,


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[Assistant] Without sticking old fashioned decorations on the outside. Color began to be used. Several skyscrapers have the outside walls made of black brick trimmed at the top of the building with gold. The American Radiator building in New York is black and gold. So is the Richfield building in San Francisco.


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[Assistant] Other skyscrapers have dark red bricks at the lower stories.


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[Assistant] With the color growing lighter and lighter toward the upper stores. The Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building


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[Assistant] Use the bright nickel color of rustless steel on the outside.


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[Assistant] The windows look like stripes running from the ground to the top.


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[Assistant] That makes stripes across the building instead of up and down.


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[Assistant] Others have the windows arranged in rows that make stripes across the building instead of up and down. Other skyscrapers are made like blocks, small blocks on top of larger blocks.


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[Assistant] But I haven't yet told you what skyscrapers are used for. You probably know already. Some are used as offices where people work. Some are used as apartments where people live. Certainly people don't build skyscrapers for fun. They have to be useful.


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[Assistant] And as it costs millions of dollars to build a real skyscraper, the buildings have to make money after they are built. Skyscrapers make money by having their rooms rented for offices or apartments. In the office skyscraper, there is often a bank or a store or even a theater on the first floor.


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[Assistant] Some office buildings have 10,000 people working in them.


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[Assistant] They jam the sidewalks and fill the streets with traffic.


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[Assistant] Skyscrapers seem wonderful at a distance. They seem wonderful near at hand, and the more one learns about them, the more wonderful they seem. If you've never seen a sky-, if you've never seen a high skyscraper, it will give you an idea of how very high it is when I tell you that the male chutes have to be made with parts in them to slow up the letters dropping down from the top. Otherwise the letters would go so fast, they would be scorched.


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[Assistant] Moreover, that we much did long to see you, the need we have to use you did provoke our hasty sending.


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[Assistant] Something have you heard of Hamlet's transformation, so call it?


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[Assistant] Scythna the Exterion of the Inward Man resembles that it was.


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[Assistant] I entreat you both that being of so young days brought up with him,


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[Assistant] And says so, neighboured to his youth and haviour, That you've out-saved your rest here in our court some little time, So by your company to draw him on to pleasures.


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[Assistant] And to gather so much as from occasion you may glean, Whether ought to us unknown afflicts him thus, That opened, lies within our remedy.


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[Assistant] He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found the head and source of all your son's distemper.


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[Assistant] Well, we shall sift him. Welcome my good friends.


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[Assistant] Say, Voltimond, what from our brother Norway?


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[Assistant] Put your dread pleasures more into command.


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[Assistant] But we both obey.


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[Assistant] And here give up ourselves in the full bent to lay our service freely at your feet to be commanded.


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[Assistant] My liege and madam, to expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is, why day is day, night night and time is time, were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.


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[Assistant] Your noble son is mad. Mad call I it, for to define true madness what is but to be nothing else but mad. But let that go.


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[Assistant] More matter with less art. Madam, I swear I use no art at all. That he is mad tis true.


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[Assistant] It is true, it is pity, and pity it is, it is true. A foolish figure, but farewell it, for I will use no art.


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[Assistant] Mad let us grant him then, and now remains that we find out the cause of this effect, or rather say the cause of this defect, for this effect defective comes by cause. Thus it remains and the remainder thus. Perpend. I have a daughter.


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[Assistant] Have while she is mine, who in her duty and obedience, Mark, hath given me this. Now gather and surmise.


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[Assistant] Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.


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[Assistant] This in obedience hath my daughter shown me, and more above hath his solicitings, as they fell out by time, by means and place, all given to mine ear. But how hath she received his love? What do you think of me?


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[Assistant] As are the man faithful and honorable. I would fain prove so, but what might you think?


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[Assistant] When I had seen this hot laugh on the wing, as I perceived it, I must tell you that before my daughter told me, What might you?


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[Assistant] Oh, my dear majesty or queen, here think, If I had played the desk or table-book, Or given my heart a winking, mutant dumb, Or looked upon this love with idle sight, What might you think?


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[Assistant] No, I went round to work, and my young mistress thus I did bespeak.


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[Assistant] Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star. This must not be.


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[Assistant] And then I prescripts gave her, that she should lock herself from his resort, admit no messengers, receive no tokens, which done, she took the fruits of my advice, and he repelled it, a short tale to make.


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[Assistant] Tell into a sadness, then into a fast, thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, thence to a likeness, and by this declension into the madness wherein now he raves, and all we mourn for.


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[Assistant] Hath there been such a time? I would fain know that.


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[Assistant] If circumstances lead me, I will find where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed within the center. How may we try it further?


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[Assistant] You know sometimes he walks four hours together here in the lobby.


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[Assistant] At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him. Be you and I behind an arras then. Mark the encounter. If he love her not, and be not from his reason fallen thereon, let me be no assistant for a state, but keep a farm and carters. We will try it.


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[Assistant] How does my good lord Hamlet? Well, God have mercy. Do you know me, my lord?


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[Assistant] What do you read, my lord? Words, words, words. What is the matter, my lord? Between who? I mean the matter that you read.


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[Assistant] Am I not to the right, old Jephthah? If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well. No, that follows not. What follows not?


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[Assistant] So look where he has not turned his colour, and his tears in his eyes are prithee no more!


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[Assistant] The city of Baghdad was known for its beautiful buildings, its running water, its public libraries and its thinkers. Philosophers, scientists, astronomers and writers came to Baghdad to study, to learn and to write books.


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[Assistant] One of the most famous Islamic books, The Thousand and One Nights, takes place in the palace of the caliph in Baghdad.


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[Assistant] In the book, sailors, soldiers, and explorers tell the caliph all about their adventures. One of the sailors is named Sinbad.


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[Assistant] Sinbad tells this story about himself.


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[Assistant] When I was a young man, I had more money than the king.


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[Assistant] I bought myself the best food, the finest drink and the most beautiful clothing.


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[Assistant] I did nothing but eat, drink and go to parties with my friends.


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[Assistant] And I had done nothing all my life but enjoy myself.


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[Assistant] I thought, before it is too late, I want to have an adventure and make a name for myself.


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[Assistant] When people hear my name, they will think, Sinbad was a great explorer, braver than a lion. So I sold everything I had left, even my fancy clothes.


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[Assistant] I used the money to buy clothes for traveling and food for a long journey.


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[Assistant] Then I went down to the harbor and set sail with a group of merchants heading for foreign lands.


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[Assistant] We sailed over the sea for weeks and weeks stopping at one island after another to trade and to buy.


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[Assistant] We were tired of sailing and weary from our trading when we saw ahead of us the most beautiful island in the world. It looked like paradise.


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[Assistant] Tall green trees shaded soft lush meadows.


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[Assistant] Flowers grew blue, yellow, and scarlet along the edges of clear running streams.


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[Assistant] Land, called out the captain. Let's sink our anchor here and rest for a while.


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[Assistant] So we all left the ship, anchored on the shore, and wandered through the dim cool gardens and sunny fields.


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[Assistant] Some of the men built fires on the shore and roasted meat for a feast.


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[Assistant] Where it had been a long time since I had felt solid ground under my feet.


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[Assistant] I could smell the roasting meat on the breeze, and the scent of food made me hungry.


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[Assistant] I thanked Allah that he had brought us to this beautiful place where we could rest and eat. Suddenly I heard frantic shouts coming from the shore.


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[Assistant] The captain had climbed back on board our boat, where it lay up against the sand. He was screaming, run, run for your lives! Leave your clothes and food and get on board! Allah save us! This is no island, it's a fish!


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[Assistant] And when I looked around me, I saw that he was right. A great fish as big as a mountain had settled in the middle of the sea. It had been there so long that sand washed up on it and trees grew in the dirt. Covered with ground and grass, the fish looked like an island.


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[Assistant] Beneath my feet I could see glittering moss-grown scales. A huge eye rolled up at me. The fish was awake and angry.


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[Assistant] Men were fleeing back to the ship, leaving their pots, their food, and their clothes on the heating sand. But I was too far away. I was still running across the sand when the fish shook itself and leapt high into the air.


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[Assistant] And then the fish hit the surface of the water with a thundering crash. Water sprang up all around it, high as a mountain as it dived down into the surging sea.


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[Assistant] Waves swept over me. My eyes and mouth were filled with water. I kicked frantically, seeing only the glitter of green sea all around me.


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[Assistant] I could hear the shouts and cries of my fellow sailors also struggling in the sea.


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[Assistant] I thought that I would drown, but Allah sent my way a wooden tub washed from the island. I climbed into it and huddled in the bottom while the waves tossed me this way and that, and as I watched our ship disappeared into the distance.


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[Assistant] The terrified captain was sailing away as fast as he could.


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[Assistant] Ignoring the shouts of the men stranded in the sea. Night came.


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[Assistant] All that night and all the next day I sailed in my wooden tub, pushed about by the wind and waves. I suffered terribly from thirst and hunger. The sun beat down on me.


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[Assistant] When I dangled my feet over the tub's edge to cool them in the sea water,


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[Assistant] Fish rose to the surface and nibbled at my soles.


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[Assistant] But as dark began to close around me again, I saw that the tide was carrying me towards a mountain island.


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[Assistant] With trees bending from its sides almost down to the water's surface.


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[Assistant] My tub washed beneath a tree and I grabbed its branches and pulled myself up onto land.


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[Assistant] My legs were numb and cramping, and I had not slept since the fish island dove into the deeps beneath me. So I threw myself down on the shore.


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[Assistant] And slept like a dead man until the next morning.


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[Assistant] When I awoke, I managed to get to my feet and look about me.


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[Assistant] I found trees that bore sweet figs and apples and springs of fresh sweet water. So I ate until I was full and drank until I was no longer thirsty. I thanked Allah for sparing my life and began to explore the island. Birds sang sweetly in the trees above me. The soft smell of flowers drifted past me. But I could not see any sign of man. Was I alone on this island?


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[Assistant] I climbed a tall tree so that I could look around in all directions.


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[Assistant] But I saw nothing but sand, trees, the sky, and the mountain rising above me.


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[Assistant] I looked and I looked for some sign of life. Surely I could not be the only man on this island.


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[Assistant] Finally I saw far away on the other side of the mountain some great white thing in the middle of the trees.


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[Assistant] It was too smooth to be a rock. Perhaps it was a building.


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[Assistant] I noted its direction, climbed down from the tree, and began to walk towards it.


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[Assistant] I struggled through the underbrush and over rocks for hours until my feet were cut and bleeding.


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[Assistant] Finally, I arrived at a clearing in the trees. In the center of the trees, a huge white dome rose to the sky. I walked all around it, but there was no door or window in any wall.


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[Assistant] I beat on it with my fists, but it was not made of stone. The thick white walls were warm and hard, and I could not make any dent in them.


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[Assistant] I tried to climb up it, but the sides were so smooth and slippery that I could only get a few feet off the ground before I slid off and fell.


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[Assistant] By now, the sun was sinking towards the sea. Dusk was creeping up around me. I thought that I should find myself a place to sleep. But as I turned away to look for shelter, I saw the sky grow suddenly dark.


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[Assistant] The light of the sun was blotted out. The air grew cold around me. I thought that a cloud had come over the sun


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[Assistant] But then I saw that an enormous bird, as wide as a cloud and as tall as a mountain, had swooped down over my head. So large was this bird that it blotted out the sun.


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[Assistant] I was so amazed that I fell down on the ground, hoping that the bird would not see me. And I remembered that I had once heard a sailor tell of a huge bird called a rock that lives on faraway islands and feeds elephants to its babies. Then I knew that the enormous dome was the rock's egg.


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[Assistant] He's going to his mother's closet. Behind the arras I'll convey myself to hear the process. I'll warrant she'll tax him home, and as you said, and wisely was it said, tis meet that some more audience than a mother.


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[Assistant] Chapter 6 The Rise of Islam Mohammed's Vision


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[Assistant] Far, far away from Rome and from Constantinople, a hot, dry desert lay under the blazing sun. This desert, on the Arabian peninsula, has water on three sides of it.


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[Assistant] But even though water is all around it, the Arabian Peninsula is parched and sandy.


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[Assistant] During the day the sun beats down on the desert with blistering heat.


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[Assistant] Sand blows through the air. Sometimes the blowing sand is so thick that you can hardly breathe. Little clumps of palm trees dot the burning sand. The clumps are called oases.


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[Assistant] If you dig deep enough you can find water in an oasis, but not very much. A desert is a hard and dangerous place to live.


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[Assistant] But strong, determined tribes of people called Bedouins managed to live in the Arabian Peninsula and even build cities there. One of these cities was called Mecca. Over a thousand years ago,


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[Assistant] An orphan boy named Mohammed lived in Mecca. He lived with his grandfather and uncle. Although they had little money,


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[Assistant] Muhammad learned that a Bedouin should always help the poor, give food and lodging to strangers if they needed it, and take care of the sick. He helped his uncle herd his flocks of sheep. He worked hard.


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[Assistant] He saw other Bedouins treating the poor and sick badly.


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[Assistant] The men around him drank too much, they gambled their money away instead of buying food for their children, and they worshipped many different idols. Muhammad spent more and more time alone.


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[Assistant] He liked to go into the desert away from the crowded, noisy city of Mecca to think and pray in a dark, quiet cave. He wondered, what would make men change their ways? How could they become better?


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[Assistant] One day, something odd happened to Mohammed in his quiet cave.


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[Assistant] He closed his eyes. Silence was all around him. Suddenly he heard a faint musical sound.


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[Assistant] It grew louder and louder as though bells were ringing all around him.


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[Assistant] Suddenly Mohammed saw a silk scroll floating in the air.


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[Assistant] And although Mohammed had never learned how to read, suddenly he knew what the word said. Terrified, Mohammed ran out into the desert, but the voice spoke to him again. Mohammed, it said.


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[Assistant] Muhammad, you are the messenger of Allah, the one true God, and I am the angel Gabriel. Muhammad looked up.


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[Assistant] Above him he saw the angel Gabriel, like a huge shining man with his feet set on the edge of the sky. Light came pouring down from Gabriel, and as Muhammad watched, Gabriel disappeared into the sky. What do you think Muhammad did next?


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[Assistant] We've always been the most hated band in the world, you know? And uhm, always, you know, it's always surprising to us how we didn't want to be labeled old school. You know, we fought to not be labeled old school.


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[Assistant] We feared being labeled old school for so long, and now that we're officially old school, it's by far the most rewarding time of our whole career.


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[Assistant] No doubt, no doubt. I think, I think, yeaah, I agree with that, man. I, I, I think, uhm,


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[Assistant] It may have connected the dots for a lot of people, man. A lot of people that may have felt really distant from hip hop to something wild like us having, you know what I mean? And we've heard plenty of times throughout our career, man. You guys are the only hip hop I've listened to. We've heard that too, you know what I'm saying?


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[Assistant] We tried to apply a tactic that we used when we were local. When we first came out in Detroit, there was two artists in rap that were killing it. One's name was Isham.


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[Assistant] Like, there was a chain in Michigan called Harmony House. They had like 36 stores. But, uh, if they carried your shit, you know, you were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were about to- You were


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[Assistant] But we kept working the shit, we kept pushing the shit, you know. We got, uhm, we got that third record, Riddle Box, up to over 100,000 units.


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[Assistant] And then, well yeaah, The Chronic, and then around 95, Master P had it, you know, we started to see that happen, but uhm, we were just doing,


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[Assistant] We had no idea. And uh, next thing you know, Disney's like, man shit, we're Hollywood Records, we're owned by Disney. We can get you off jive, that's no problem.


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[Assistant] Slash from Guns N' Roses. He played guitar in a song.


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[Assistant] You know, these other, these rock guys, uhm, we didn't know who the, we didn't know who Slash was. I didn't know much about Alice Cooper. And then the other guy from the Sex Pistols named Steve Jones, he played on a song.


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[Assistant] So we released, Malenko ended up coming out the way it was supposed to be heard, right? That shit sold over a million copies, almost 2 million now. It might have even done 2 million now. Uhm, but it's been 20 years. But uhm,


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[Assistant] The contract expired. Finally, we called, uhm, we called, uh,


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[Assistant] You know what I'm saying? But also it turned into what the fucking gathering was. We gave them flyers to the gathering or something. They were like, they're gathering. What the fuck is this? But uhm, I'd say.


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[Assistant] Juggalos started to call themselves juggalos and say, juggalo, juggalo coming with their faces painted. That was like Riddlebox, our third album.


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[Assistant] Honestly though, honestly this is my advice to everybody. We'll be landscapers right now.


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[Assistant] You gotta just know, I'm gonna do this. This is it. You gotta brag about that shit already. Like, what are you gonna do? I rap. I'ma be a rapper. All my life. I rap now, I'ma rap when I'm 60.


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[Assistant] Man, that's the best time. That's the only time you have to know you're going to have that. You know, it's like we were talking about wrestling a minute ago. Undertaker.


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[Assistant] Uhm, from the time we were, from the time we were, uhm,


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[Assistant] Like 13 till 17. All right. I bragged about we knew we were going to be wrestlers. Like you couldn't tell us.


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[Assistant] Facts that we're going to be rappers. Uhm, when I was 26, he was probably 23. We had our first platinum out, which was great.


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[Assistant] If they're all like, you know, 20 guys trying to get that, you know, 8 minutes of TV time if you're lucky. And then in hip hop, we would be drawing the same crowd that 20 dudes are drawing all together and each one of them gets 8 minutes in front of it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it does. Especially bands and groups, man, they fall out so bad. You know what I'm saying? But uhm. We were put together by no label. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of factors to why we love each other like we do, man. There's a lot of factors.


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[Assistant] You know what I'm saying? Like uhm, for example, if we say Faygo in our rap, right? Most people don't know what Faygo is. But for the few people that are like, man, I got, we got Faygo in my hood, you know what I mean?


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[Assistant] I agree with you, I know we're a voice for a lot of people that feel like, you know, that they're, that they're, you know,


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[Assistant] I find Juggalos mad creative, you know what I'm saying? Like, I look at all the hustles that go on in the Juggalo world, like, like people that design their own clothing, you know, and sell it on the internet, like, uh, people, I mean, there's so many creative people.


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[Assistant] Uh, what's that game that ca- what's, what's our game called? Huh? No, no, no, the uh, insanity. Oh, Juggalos Against the Sanity. Okay, you got, you got that game that came out everywhere it's called-


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[Assistant] Okay, that game came out, right? But we got a game come, came out called Juggalos against Sanity. Okay, now when you're playing that game.


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[Assistant] To get those jokes, it's like, fuck man, the junk of the world is deep. Like, like, there are celebrities.


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[Assistant] It's a silly way of thinking about it. Everybody wants to convince you that their route is the shit, you know what I'm saying? Everybody wants to convince you that that's the way to do it, you know what I'm saying? Like uhm, you know, uh, you know, one juggalo is probably worth


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[Assistant] Man, yeah, you know, man, it's, it's, Magnets are actually very deep shit, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, not that I'm a master of Magnets, because I'm definitely not, but, uh, you know. What? You're not? No, I'm not.


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[Assistant] You know what I'm saying? If it was, if the whole juggler world was too much bigger, it wouldn't be as personal as this.


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[Assistant] I think it's at a great size where it can thrive and be alive like that.


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[Assistant] Like, like, we feel good, physically. Like, I don't think, honestly, I think people are always going to speculate and say their, their own opinion. But in our opinion, I don't think we've slowed down at all.


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[Assistant] Not in, not on stage, I don't think we slowed down physically and also creativity wise, like I think we're putting out as much music as we always have, we're fucking


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[Assistant] And I understand other artists, like what they go through, man, because like,


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[Assistant] 19, 29 years, right? Not a day goes by I put this on the creator. Not a day goes by where I don't


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[Assistant] And, uh, uh, you know, we, we, we get home and be like, man, we're going to take a break. We ain't going back out on the road for a minute. And then a month later, we'd be right back in the bus like, what the fuck happened?


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[Assistant] You know, constantly trying to lay low, you know. We were battling that shit, man, you know. And then, I remember when shit first started getting on the net of us with no paint on and shit, you know. Oh fuck, you know what I mean? Yeah. Battling and shit. I'm glad we ain't gotta fight all that no more, man.


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[Assistant] Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. To die.


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[Assistant] There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.


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[Assistant] For who would wear the whips and scorns of time? The oppressors wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the laws delay.


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[Assistant] The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin.


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[Assistant] Who would fartles bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death? The undiscovered country, from whose born no traveller returns, puzzles the will.


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[Assistant] And makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.


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[Assistant] And enterprises of great pitch and moment Would disregard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.


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[Assistant] Fair Ophelia, nymph in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.


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[Assistant] That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.


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[Assistant] This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.


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[Assistant] You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.


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[Assistant] Revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all. Believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?


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[Assistant] Now Jerusalem was in the hands of the crusaders. The land all around the holy city was ruled by crusader princes. But the Saracens wanted Jerusalem back.


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[Assistant] They organized themselves into an army, attacked one of the little kingdoms near Jerusalem, and defeated its crusader prince.


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[Assistant] When news of this revolt reached England, France, and the other Christian countries, a new army of knights set out to fight the Saracens. We call this the Second Crusade. But the Second Crusade failed.


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[Assistant] The crusader army couldn't retake that rebellious little kingdom. It remained in Muslim hands.


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[Assistant] The crusader army fell apart and the knights crept back home ashamed of their failure. And the Saracens under the great warrior Saladin


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[Assistant] began to prepare for an even greater attack on Jerusalem itself.


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[Assistant] When Saladin was born, Jerusalem had been in the hands of the crusaders for almost 40 years.


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[Assistant] And Saladin was just as anxious to win the city back for Islam


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[Assistant] As the Crusaders had been to conquer it for Christianity. From childhood on, he prepared himself to be a warrior.


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[Assistant] He spent years learning how to follow the Quran and training himself to fight.


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[Assistant] As a young man, he fought in the army commanded by his uncle.


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[Assistant] More and more Muslims noticed Saladin and praised his bravery.


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[Assistant] Finally, Saladin became the second in command or vizier over all the Muslims in Egypt. Now he had his own army.


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[Assistant] And he was determined to bring all the Muslims together into one powerful army with one goal, to retake the city of Jerusalem.


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[Assistant] But before he could do this, Saladin had to convince the Muslim warriors to follow him rather than any other Muslim leader. So he was careful to be a model Muslim. He never broke his word.


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[Assistant] He always prayed five times a day, even when he was traveling or fighting. He gave so many alms to the poor that his treasury was almost empty.


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[Assistant] He gained a reputation for justice and fairness.


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[Assistant] He called all of his knights together to ask them for advice.


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[Assistant] Saladin is marching towards us with a huge force of Saracens behind him, he said.


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[Assistant] We should stay here and defend the city. It's too hot to march out across the plains.


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[Assistant] If we stay here, Saladin's armies will have to tire themselves out coming to us.


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[Assistant] And you remember how hard it was for us to conquer the city as long as the Saracens stayed inside it. But another night disagreed.


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[Assistant] We should go out and meet this army, he shouted. Staying here is cowardice. Let's be courageous and attack Saladin first. King Guy didn't know what to do.


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[Assistant] But he was afraid that the oldest and strongest knight was out to take the throne of Jerusalem away from him.


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[Assistant] So he decided to follow the second knight's advice instead. He collected all of his men together and marched out to meet Saladin and his army. That was a terrible mistake. The summer day was the hottest of the year. The sun poured down on the crusaders.


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[Assistant] Their heavy steel armor heated up like frying pans on a stove.


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[Assistant] the rocks were too hot to touch dust choked the horses and made the men cough


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[Assistant] They grew so weary and thirsty that King Guy ordered them to stop in the middle of the afternoon and set up camp near a well.


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[Assistant] So the crusaders unloaded their horses, set up their tents, and hurried to draw water from the well. The well was dry.


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[Assistant] By now the Crusaders were sick from thirst. And even worse, they were down in a valley between two mountain peaks called the Horns of Hatton.


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[Assistant] An enemy army could hide behind the trees and rocks above the valley and shoot arrows down on them.


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[Assistant] But King Guy's army was too exhausted to move.


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[Assistant] The Saracens set fire to the brush and trees around the valley's edge so that the Crusader army couldn't escape.


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[Assistant] But the crusaders were so weak they didn't put up much of a fight. They were defeated, and King Guy surrendered. Now Jerusalem was undefended.


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[Assistant] So Saladin led his army into the city in a triumphant parade.


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[Assistant] Saladin told his men not to kill the Christians in Jerusalem. Instead, he took them captive and sold them as slaves. But he allowed the weak and the elderly to go free.


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[Assistant] And after he declared himself the ruler of Jerusalem, he announced that Jewish and Christian pilgrims would be allowed to enter the city in peace.


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[Assistant] For ninety years, Jerusalem had been under Christian rule. Now it was in Muslim hands once again. A third crusade was launched to get Jerusalem back. But Saladin could not be defeated. After this, there were five more crusades.


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[Assistant] Each of the Crusades tried to take part of the Islamic Empire away from the Muslims, but none of the Crusades were very successful.


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[Assistant] Crusades weren't a very good way to win land back from the Islamic Empire.


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[Assistant] Friends to this ground. And leashmen to the Dane. Give you good night. Oh, farewell, honest soldier.


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[Assistant] I pray, and I this morning know where we shall find him most conveniently.


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[Assistant] Random House Audio presents The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. Read for you by Rachel Leacock.


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[Assistant] The light hadn't officially turned green at the intersection of 17th and Broadway. Before an army of overconfident yellow cabs roared past the tiny death trap, I was attempting to navigate around the city streets.


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[Assistant] Clutch, gas, shift, release clutch. I repeated over and over in my head. The little car lurched forward through the intersection. Without warning, the lurching evened out and I began to pick up speed. Lots of speed. I could do nothing but jam my foot on the brake pedal so hard that my heel snapped off. Shit.


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[Assistant] Another pair of $700 shoes sacrificed my complete and utter lack of grace under pressure. It was almost a relief when the cars dulled. I had a few seconds to pull off my Manolos and toss them into the passenger seat.


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[Assistant] The light turned green just as I managed to touch the fire to the end of the cigarette.


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[Assistant] I was forced to leave it hanging between my lips as I negotiated the intricacies of clutch, gas, shift, release clutch.


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[Assistant] It was another three blocks before the car moved smoothly enough for me to remove the cigarette, but it was already too late.


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[Assistant] The long line of spent ash had found its way to my suede Gucci pants.


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[Assistant] But before I could consider that I'd wrecked $3,100 worth of merchandise in under three minutes, my cell phone bleated loudly. The caller ID confirmed my worst fear. It was her, Miranda Priestley, my boss. Andrea, can you hear me, Andrea? She trilled the moment I snapped my Motorola open. Yes, Miranda, I can hear you perfectly.


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[Assistant] Andrea, where's my car? Did you drop it off at the garage yet?


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[Assistant] I'm in the car right now, Miranda. I should be at the garage in just a few minutes. Whatever.


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[Assistant] She said brusquely, I need you to pick up Madeline and drop her off at the apartment before you come back to the office. Click. The phone went dead.


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[Assistant] I stared at it for a few seconds before I realized that she deliberately hung up because she had provided all of the details I could hope to receive. Madeline. Who the hell was Madeline?


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[Assistant] Attend to it immediately, as we'll be needing it tonight, to drive to the Hamptons. That's all.


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[Assistant] I stood, rooted to the carpet in front of her behemoth desk, but she'd already blocked out my presence entirely. Ah, sure, Miranda, I thought to myself as I walked away, trying to figure out the first step in the assignment that was sure to have a million pitfalls along the way. First was definitely to find out at which place the car was located.


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[Assistant] I started by calling Miranda's nanny, but her cell phone went straight to voicemail.


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[Assistant] The housekeeper is next on the list and, for once, a big help.


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[Assistant] She was able to tell me that the car was a convertible sports car in British Racing Green, and that it was usually parked in a garage on Miranda's block. Next on the list was Miranda's husband's assistant.


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[Assistant] One quick phone call to the Porsche dealership on 11th Avenue revealed that yes.