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Speaker 1: Shadow, a parable by Edgar Allan Poe YEA though I

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walk through the valley of the shadow Psalm of David,

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ye who read are still among the living, But I

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who write, shall have long since gone my way into

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the region of shadows. For indeed, strange things shall happen,

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and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away.

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Ere these memorials be seen of men, and when seen

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there will be some to disbelieve, and some to doubt,

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and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon.

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In the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.

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The year had been a year of terror, and of

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feelings more intense than terror, for which there is no

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name upon the earth. For many prodigies and signs had

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taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land.

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The black wings of the pestilence were spread abroad to

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those nevertheless cunning in the stars, it was not unknown

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that the heavens wore an aspect of ill, and to

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me the Greek oinos, among others. It was evident that

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now had arrived the alternation of that seven hundred and

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ninety fourth year. When at the entrance of Ares, the

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planet Jupiter is conjoined with the red ring of the

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terrible Saturnus, the peculiar spirit of the skies, if I

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mistake not greatly made itself manifest, not only in the

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physical orb of the earth, but in the souls, imaginations,

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and meditations of mankind. Over some flasks of the red

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Chian wine. Within the walls of a noble hall in

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a dim city called Ptolemaeis, we sat at night, a

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company of seven, And to our chamber there was no

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entrance save by a lofty door of brass, and the

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door was fashioned by the artisan coronos, and being of

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rare workmanship, ship was fastened from within black draperies. Likewise,

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in the gloomy room, shut out from our view the moon,

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the lurid stars, and the peopleless streets, but the boding

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and the memory of evil, they would not be so excluded.

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There were things around us, and about of which I

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can render no distinct account. Things material and spiritual, heaviness

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in the atmosphere, a sense of suffocation, anxiety, and above

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all that terrible state of existence which the nervous experience

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when the senses are keenly living and awake. And meanwhile

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the powers of thought lie dormant, a dead weight hung

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upon us. It hung upon our limbs, upon the household furniture,

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upon the goblets from which we drank. All things were

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depressed and borne down. Thereby, all things save only the

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flames of the seven lamps, which illumined our revel uprearing

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themselves in tall slenders of light. They thus remained burning,

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all pallid and motionless. And in the mirror which their

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luster formed upon the round table of ebony at which

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we sat, each of us there assembled beheld the pallor

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of his own countenance, and the unquiet glare in the

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downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we laughed and were

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merry in our proper way, which was hysterical, and sang

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the songs of an acreon which our madness, and drank deeply,

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although the purple wine reminded us of blood, For there

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was yet another tenet of our chamber, in the person

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of young Zoilus, dead, and at full length he lay

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enshrouded the genius and the demon of the scene. Alas

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he bore no portion in our mirth, save that his

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countenance distorted with the plague, and his eyes in which

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death had but half extinguished the fire of the pestilence

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seemed to take such interest in our merriment as the

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dead may happily take in the merriment of those who

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are to die. But although I Oinos felt that the

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eyes of the departed were upon me, still I forced

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myself not to perceive the bitterness of their expression, and

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gazing down steadily into the depths of the ebony mirror,

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saying with a loud and sonorous voice, the songs of

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the Son of Taos. But gradually my songs they ceased,

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and their echoes, rolling afar off among the sable draperies

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of the chamber, became weak and undistinguishable, and so faded away.

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And lo from among those sable draperies where the sounds

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of the song departed, there came forth a dark and

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undefined shadow, a shadow such as the moon when low

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in heaven, might fashion from the figure of a man.

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But it was the shadow neither of man, nor of God,

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nor of any familiar thing. A while among the draperies

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of the room, it at length rested in full view

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upon the surface of the door of brass. But the

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shadow was vague and formless and indefinite, and was the

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shadow neither of man nor of God, neither God of Greece,

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nor God of Chaldea, nor any Egyptian god. And the

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shadow rested upon the brazen doorway and under the arch

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of the entablature of the door, and moved not nor

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spoke any word, but there became stationary and remained. And

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the door whereupon the shadow rested, was, if I remember,

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aright over against the feet of the young Zoilus, enshrouded.

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But we, the Seven, there assembled, having seen the shadow

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as it came out from among the draperies, dared not

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steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes and gazed

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continually into the depths of the mirror of Ebony. And

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at length, I Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of

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the shadow its dwelling and its appellation. And the shadow answered,

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I am shadow, and my dwelling is near to the

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catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of Hallucion,

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which border upon the foul Charonian Canal. And then did

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we the Seven, start from our seats in horror, and

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stand trembling and shuddering and aghast, For the tones in

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the voice of the shadow were not the tones of

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anyone being, but of a multitude of beings, and varying

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in their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskly upon

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our ears, in the well remembered and familiar accents of

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many thousand departed friends, end of shadow, a parable