Addenda

and the church, if he so wishes. And they give also the dues. And all his factors dwelling there shall also possess the same, as is set down more broadly above, regarding the two percent: all the Ragusans, bringing in and casting out all their own goods freely, without any hindrance; paying only, for those goods of theirs which are entering when they come, two percent. And bearing this in mind regarding entry and exit, that no more is to be demanded for what has been paid in this way, as we have said. And our commercial officials for the time being are also bound to receive the two percent, whether they have such administration of the commerce in the market or on credit, whenever they come with their own [goods]; and they shall have the same regarding the rest, as is set down more broadly above. And for the declaration and security concerning this, the present chrysobull discourse of my Majesty was also issued to him, released in the month of June of the present current fourteenth indiction of the six thousand nine hundred and fifty-ninth year, in which also our pious and divinely-chosen majesty has set its seal. Constantine in Christ the God, faithful King and Emperor of the Romans, the Palaeologus.

ADDENDA

MONODY OF SIR ANDRONICUS CALLISTUS UPON DISASTROUS CONSTANTINOPLE

Alas, alas, and was this too required to be added to the common misfortunes of the Greeks, ^A overwhelming even the previous sufferings so greatly that no one might suppose any greater could ever occur? If, then, there existed at all such a thing—for it was the only good we had left, and that toward which the whole throng of the Greeks looked—this has now unfortunately been snatched away from us. For it has filled us with grief and terrible misfortune. And although even if other many things were present, this which is now before us is such that it would naturally turn one’s gaze away, hiding everything else and leaving it behind. For now the common hearth of the Greeks, the haunt of the Muses, the teacher of all wisdom, the queen of cities, has been captured, alas, by the hands of the impious. If anyone were to say this is a deluge, I do not think he would sufficiently represent the terrible nature of the disaster. For in that event, everything would have perished, and there would be no account—for even the ruler would not have suffered some evil from the lesser—but in what has happened now, it remains to see myriad terrors, and an account overcome by absurdity, and everything full of dizziness and turbulence, and a deluge truly descending upon the souls.

Inasmuch, then, as the injury of the soul is worse than that of the body, and inasmuch as living basely is worse than not living, by so much does the evil which has now infiltrated surpass a deluge; and if anyone were to call it a destruction of the sun and a common darkness, not even then would he weep for the calamity as it deserves, not only because that would have harmed the perceptible eyes alone; but this one, ^B immediately [harms] those of the soul, and subsequently those of the body. But that it seems to me that one would be entirely deprived of the senses, either being present in the midst of many evils so as to be unaware of such great sufferings, or having them sound and receiving those [sufferings] which are full of every unpleasantness. For now the evil will harm the better man, speaking with fables and crooked terminology; and honor and retribution have truly left men and gone to Olympus, and the remaining pains are grievous, and of the evil there shall be no defense. If a man in ancient times truly became a bird, or a tree, or a stone because of suffering, it would have been necessary for all of us to suffer this now, inasmuch as the calamity is even greater. And if those were falsehoods, as many other things were spoken by the fathers of the myths, yet now it would have been necessary for it to happen, so that it might be woven together with the excess of the suffering, and [some] wondrous monsters that strike at every sense of sight and hearing—which I think has happened, except that the myth only changes the nature of those things, while I say that, on the contrary, now the tear is to be had; the nature is of men as it was, but the tear has been taken away entirely with the speech, through much insensibility having been laid upon the souls caught by the suffering. For just as then ^C fire saw the eyes darkened, and the heavy thud struck the ears, so now finally the soul, hidden as in a tomb by the suffering, sees the body as if it were senseless; and so, therefore, the evil being by nature the greatest, what sort of voice shall I break forth with? Sufficing for it,

^A nor bone, O beauties and magnitudes of temples, O walls and tongue and hands, plain for one beating himself and filling the air with a cry! And what lament will not now be weak at first, and worse than the subject matter? But how again could I be able to use silence, even if this seems safe to many, not wishing to seem to wrong not only the one who bore me, but also all those to whom it is necessary to welcome the one who gave [this gift], and the whole swarm of the Hellenes, if they are to perish together? But to let be temples and tombs and sacred vessels and buildings and splendors, along with a good emperor and kinsmen and friends—whom would each one not have moved to a lament, let alone all of them summarily, unless one were entirely crippled in his mind?

^B Alas, in what perplexities am I encompassed, in what evils do I direct myself? In what sort of calamities does the discourse happen upon? Yet, if anyone had any strength to perform a lament in proportion [to the events], or a discourse near to the value of them, our excuse of being unable for this would have had [some standing] with us. But since not even Orpheus, if he were present, nor Aeschylus, nor the whole swarm of tragic poets would have had the strength, but would have been defeated in every way, appearing as a pygmy in comparison to Heracles, it seems to me also that I, having used poor words, being among foreigners, [must] lament my own and the common calamity. Why then do I fashion my words thus, and not send forth a painful voice, since it is fitting in such evils? Why [do I not] stretch out my hands with wailing, beating my breast and tearing [my flesh], and with my nails furrow my cheeks, and scatter ash and dust, and pull out my hair, so that not only the soul may suffer, but the body also, by the magnitude of the calamity!

Alas, O queen of cities, and fatherland which, after such dignity, saw a day of slavery, as you fare as badly now as you formerly fared well, some envious demon having taken up a position against you, it destroys [you] by the departure of the previous prosperity of God, having recognized our ungratefulness; for otherwise one would not say that fortune was the cause of the present evil, being a figment of the mind, nor would the envious demon, even if he happens by nature to be very malicious and evil-working, have been so strong against us. Rather, just as we ought not to have been deprived of the light, so also [we ought not to have been deprived] of every good, of which the first [thing] among us was the greatest and queen of cities. For now, having encountered ten thousand evils, we did not foresee that the evil ones, having the good by their hands, [would be] as they were before one cast them out.

^D For now not only does the multitude of the Hellenes wrap itself in an incurable misfortune, but also many [others]... for to whom it matters little now, they will be no less dejected day by day, not just day to day, but as long as water flows, and tall trees flourish; and so much the more, by as much as they are deprived of its goods. For the city was the private hearth of the Hellenes, but it offered its goods as common to all, and to all simply it stood as a mother, a nurse, a resting place, a provider of all kinds of goods.

Alas, O queen of cities, O common misfortune of the race, O grief reaching even to the bones—and [you] in length and width, surpassing all others, O museums of the Academy, of the Stoa, in beauty indeed excelling, but in wisdom in no way [surpassed]; ^A a harbor sweet indeed formerly and fortunate for ships; but now unfortunate and nothing differing from Scylla! O New Rome, having aged by the weight and multitude of calamities! Where are your beauties now? Where is the most divine emperor? Seeing more keenly than Themistocles, conversing more sweetly than Nestor, more temperate than Cyrus, more just than Rhadamanthus, more manly than Heracles! And where is the ornament of the Church, both the divine high priest and those immediately after him, and the remaining holy choir? And where are the shrines and nunneries and the modesty of the monks, which is even comparable to angels? And where is the council-chamber with the councils, in which what was needed, what was not seen? And what was seen, what was not immediately done? And what orators did they not surpass in speaking, now indeed for a long time and very clearly, now like snowy winter storms? And the tribunal, where [is it], having left behind the laws of Solon and the [teachings] of Plato, but having been rather adorned by knowledge and by the words from the [Holy] Spirit, which indeed are stronger than all persuasion and wisdom? ^B And where is the remaining swarm of the learned, some adorned with wisdom, [and] others with the rest of the goods by which a state is adorned and consists? For no one was devoid of any good; but everyone, for whatever good he possessed, was surpassed by no one else; and he conquered all those who were deliberating [with him] through combinations, and [it was necessary] for the rest of the learned to be defeated together by the good [of the others].

Where is the power of words which was flourishing in you? Where is the craft of grammar, which makes the tongue Hellenized and clear of all unpleasantness? And the fire-breathing [power] of rhetoric, no less touching than the fire of Chimaera? And where is the power of dialectic, rejecting every sophism, and holding only to truth and straightforwardness? And where [are] natural problems and inquiries and solutions exceeding the comprehension, and divisions and musical analogies and tones and geometric formations and accounts, and the causes and courses of the stars? How many of the ancient [writings] did those in the city, having been destroyed by time, raise up, and not a few also added, and until now [they are] seen preserved! And where is the power of theology and of primary philosophy, so that their words are a pillar of orthodoxy and the correctness of dogmas and a source; and of the practical part of study, so that these were an image, as it were, of the virtues formed by the ideas, and in all these things he was first, the source of wisdom and the guide of our words, who was less than neither of the two philosophers, ^C—I would say that he was even greater! ^D In magnitude, therefore, the city simply surpassed all the Eastern [cities] and in beauty [those] of the West. And the walls, so strong and unyielding to enemies, perhaps could not be found to be compared to them; for the trench was straight and by width and depth and baked bricks, fortified, [like] another river...

^A after it, [or rather] the one upon the earth from many sides; and he rushes against the city, bringing a heavy hand, but they resist him courageously, and immediately the most divine emperor falls, and many of the subjects with him; then, alas, taking the whole city as prey of the spear, he kills and plunders and takes captive. It is necessary, therefore, to wail and send forth lamentations from the depth of the soul and to wallow upon the ground, and to surpass every law of mourning for the calamity! O mistress of cities, how did you endure to place the yoke of slavery upon your neck? O most divine emperor, how, being so philanthropic and having in every way neglected no manner of philanthropy for the race, did you now endure to abandon us to such misfortune and slavery, completely disarmed and preserved for the earth and the rocks? O swarm of chosen ones, how did you endure to leave your kin and to have such a sharp dart in your hearts? O assembly of priests and monks, how did you not send forth extended hands to God for yourselves and for us, or [if] you have indeed done all that was fitting, it was necessary for this to have happened in ways that the wisdom of God knows, or [it] even surpasses the mind of Paul, but to look upon it causes dizziness! O city, wholly commercial and technical, where do you now hold your beloved ones, having left them behind? O wretched women, into what disasters have you fallen, seeing children snatched from your breasts, and seeing fathers and husbands being killed? O miserable old men, what an end have you reached! O unhappy youths, to what death have you fallen, having tasted the good things only with the tips of your fingers, and only wetting your lips and not your palate! O divine Wisdom, temple and house of God, surpassing all temples of those who are in cities, where now is your splendor? Where is your beauty? Where is the clarity of the stones? Where are the colors of the mosaics? Who will now perform your holy mysticism within? Who will send up the holy songs to God? O holy temple of the disciples of the Savior, second immediately after that one of yours, the brilliant and graceful one is gone; no longer will they together examine the holy votes in you; no longer do they teach, [as] we submit our ears in you. O other temples of God, which exist around every city, stars shining opposite one another from all sides! Where is your adornment now? Where are the initiations? Where the festivals? How have you been defiled, how have you been polluted, and are you polluted by the feet of the impious! O divine icons and all holy vessels and their ornaments, into what profane hands have you fallen! O tombs of the saints and reliquaries, in what impious men's hands will you lie as fragments!

Alas! For your judgments, O Christ, weep! For the lawlessness, we have become now as we were from the beginning, when we were not yours, and we were delivered to a most bitter and impious tyrant, we, your holy people, and every holy place. I wish to contemplate the former wealth of the city in a brief word and to place it alongside the present, so that I may better dramatize the calamity. Those things, then, are the creation of a holy man; for from there I shall begin, having left aside the former things and the miracles that have occurred, just as [in] histories.

^A For our common benefactor was ^B contemplating creating [it], but birds were snatching the stones from there and carrying them to the present site; and there was the assembling of holy divine dogmas at all hours, and the true God praised, and rites, and mysteries, and justice, and laws, and museums, and treatises, and sciences, and arts, and the precision of dogmas, and temples, and tombs and icons of saints, and holy vessels, and adornment, and order, and mystagogues, and initiates, and sanctuaries, and nunneries, and beauties, and brightnesses, and a good king with good subjects. But as for now, alas! an impious tyrant with subjects like him; and darkness and gloom with impiety and the disorder of priests with indecency and the looting of vessels, and the insolence of icons and tombs being torn apart, and temples being desecrated, and every divine dogma silenced, and unreason, and lack of refined culture with injustice and lawlessness, and the orgies of demons and an evil assembly, preaching impiety, and the savagery of barbarians being directed against us youthfully, saying with laughter, alas! that we do not worship the true God—and complete destruction. Is it not, then, exactly the opposite now from what it was before? Why, O King of the universe, does not Jeremiah come forward, crying out, not only having denounced our enemies, but also having left behind roots to produce—and these very great ones—by which you did not allow our vine to be devoured, nor the feet of the gentle to tread upon your holy court? But now the feet of the most hateful and impious of men shall tread upon it. But many, I know well, have philosophized about these things, and will do so no less now, for the disaster does not allow their mind to rest. But I would argue that those who have died are blessed now, and the living are to be pitied and worthy of lamentation; and I will add that of Scripture: "Blessed are the wombs that will not conceive, and the breasts that will not nurse." For would it not be so, one might reasonably think, in God’s providence concerning the living and the dead? For the former, having attained a blessed end—and having found an end, is blessed according to Solon. Much rather than Croesus, who possessed much gold and tasted of the evil with the tips of his fingers, but [for us] who were mortals by nature, and those living in the former good things, who died for the sake of piety and the fatherland, but we who are living have tasted of the terrible up to the ^C throat! Now truly life is joyless; now truly to die is desirable. Now truly life is joyless; now truly to die ^D is lost, alas! Totally given over to irrational practices, let us spend the rest of our life miserably; some will be nothing but diggers and day-laborers. O miserable children, both those now living and those yet to be born, who will feed and guide you, and teach you what is required, now that our common nurse and teacher has been ruined? You shall certainly be swineherds and cowherds, and you will have rocks and mountains and precipices again. O miserable women, instead of being free, you shall be slaves, and you will exchange ruling for being ruled, and you will certainly learn to weave and to sweep, and finally, slave men, having first been deemed worthy of the noble, will defile your marriage beds. O common herd of the vulgar, for now you are no different from nothing; O soldiers, whom many feared at first, but now are mocked by all. O miserable farmers, it will be easy now for all to wrong you, and for you to be farmed for strangers, but not for yourselves; O multitude of craftsmen, might your tools perish now, as you have nowhere to use them. O miserable merchants, where now will you ply your trade without fear? For to those who possessed reverence and confidence from all, now, conversely, there shall be insult and fear from them. O choir of priests and monks, what will you ever suffer now? From whom will you receive honors, benedictions, the way of walking piously, the way of walking uprightly? And having stumbled, from whom will you receive reprimands? And being in need, from whom will you receive release? And having what head, how would you, when demanded, give an account concerning your sound reputation? Your boast has perished, the head, the high priest, the guardian. Or perhaps every good man, having ceased to exercise the priesthood, not wishing to play at what is not to be played with, will sit as some private individual, and certain wicked men and impostors will seize with violent hands the holy sacred ministry, being deceived and deceiving, according to Scripture, and because of this very many shepherds will act foolishly and will destroy the holy vine of Christ, for which He gave up His divine soul. Alas for the incurable disaster; alas for the blow of the heaviest blows; alas for the sword piercing the hearts of the Greeks; alas for the common day of doom! Alas for the complete destruction; alas for the fever scorning the bodies of all! Alas for the dizziness and darkness of eyes, passing through the minds of all! Come then, O miserable Greeks, brought to such terrible straits, let us lament ourselves, if it seems good, those who are living. O old men, wretches, where indeed will you have hopes, with every good anchor taken away? You will lie as a fall to all, and will shed very many tears, so that even your eyes will be filled; and you will achieve nothing but to possess a most miserable city, and a most wretched old age. O miserable young men, who will grant us to have succeeded, or who will teach us well, when all wickedness fills the earth, and justice is absent? For all turn away and will become useless, and there will be no one doing goodness, not even until one; now all things will be according to him who spoke thus, and it is a terrible night battle. But if it seems good, let us seek what hope will be for us concerning the future; alas, you know (sic)—truly, therefore, no hope comes to us; now, therefore, it is necessary to die; and I, before all, seek this. For what will you do, O wretched Andronicus; where will you go? To what city, under what master, having stretched out your own kinsmen and friends, what guides of the word will you use? O my wretched life, O bitter orphanage, O revolving time, what a pit you have brought me to, O kinsmen

and guides and friends, how did you endure leaving me, your friend, behind? But take me quickly with you; take me, and do not delay! For I hate the light, the air, life itself. O death, death, come visit me now; for that man is to be mourned ^A who did not come to those who were fortunate, but having been called, immediately became a servant to wretched mortals. O how you turn away your deaf ears from those who are suffering, and do not wish to listen to tearful cries! O divine Rome, what will you ever do now that your daughter has become a slave? O most blessed Father, how can you know of such a great evil? And you, most divine Father, gray-haired in both your locks and your senses, shepherd of that which is no more, how will you treat yourself now that the report has arrived? Or will you not send forth the lament of the pitiable nightingale, but instead mourn with sharp-toned songs? And let the servants and citizens beat their chests and tear their hair. O unhappy Peloponnese, now you, with the two brothers of the glorious Emperor, shall lament and send forth howls—worthy, indeed, rather than tears flowing from your eyes—since the Queen City has been corrupted and you have no expectation of any good for yourselves. O most divine and greatest city of the Venetians, what will you do now that your sister and friend has been corrupted? Where now are your triremes and ships sailing into the Euxine Sea? Where will they moor, and by whom will they be welcomed as is fitting? The harbor will surely be an abomination to you, and a Scylla and Charybdis. O my Cretan friends, what shall we suffer now that this bitter orphanage has come upon us? Shall we beat our breasts? Shall we tear our cheeks? Shall we make our innards full of grief at the affliction, and spend all our time like those half-dead, dragging out a life which is painful and no different from death? O bitter agony, O cancer eating away at the bodies of all! Now the dances of the angels are downcast; now the divine soul of the Great Constantine, with all the choirs of the saints, is clothed in sadness and will look gloomy; for I am persuaded that even they are gripped by this passion. Now the heaven is unlovely. ^B Now the sun laments, now the moon darkens, now the stars cry out, now the air grows dark, now the earth quakes and groans, now the sea surges and shudders and feels disgust at the passion. Now mountains and hills and glens and plains and rivers suffer along with us. Now trees and shrubs and grasses wither and weep; now all birds send forth some mournful and lamentable strain; now the race of land animals, moaning piteously, show the excess of the passion; now even fish by the rocks, by their beating, show they are disgusted by the passion. For it is necessary that the whole world suffer along with such great calamities, and be downcast and gloomy, just as it happened in the passion of the Lord. For this, I rank as second after that, except for the fact that the former was the prelude to the salvation of the world, while the latter—as one can conjecture from the divine Scriptures, even if such signs are not seen by our own eyes, on account of their uselessness, for our own reach is so extensive—for indeed to men altogether, they do not appear; but the end itself is expected to appear suddenly. ^C Woe for this irremediable calamity! Any man would have hoped for anything rather than to suffer this, and even if a prophet or one moved by divine fate had predicted it to us, he would not have departed without sorrow. Woe! Now for the first time I have known suffering from a calamity, and I have no strength to philosophize in the face of the passion; now for the first time I know that passion is able to cloud the mind, and does not allow reason to come forth, and makes a man, as it were, stony. Now I have wrapped myself in the tragic Muses, and they stand around me, persuading me to send forth howls and wails, and to scream bitterly. Woe! What Daedalus will now give me wings to lead me to the city, and turn me back quickly? For I wish to see it, but not to linger; the one so that I might be poured out over the children who are fallen, the other so that I might not dwell on it for a long time, nor even be able to perceive it. Woe! Now all histories and myths and poets will certainly be silent, by which everyone used to demonstrate the evil befalling that man; and from this, they would most easily demonstrate the excess of the evil. For Troy was indeed captured, but justly, fighting for an insolent coward, and it was not so great, and moreover, it was not barbarous like the Greeks; Jerusalem [was captured], but though it was worthy of countless penalties for having committed the murder of the Lord and ruling only over Palestine, Babylon, yet it was not so great in reputation, nor did it rule from the ends [of the earth], even if it had a great wall; Rome, however, [offered] hope of being relieved by its daughter, which indeed followed in doing well, but [here is] one that ruled from the West, overcoming all in beauty, adorned with all kinds of virtues, wronging no one, but being wronged most of all by the Barbarian, to be brought down, and not even to hope to rise again. And this is the calamity of calamities, and the passion of passions, and the grief of griefs, encompassing all things. The rule of the city was perishing long ago, and was being diminished, and was helped by no one, but now it has fallen entirely and has become, as you might say, having taken a beautiful body, it cuts off first the extremities, but at the last it has brought down the head itself. Or like a great tree, it prunes first the branches, and then the root; it would have been the same thing if it had taken the city before its power was removed—just as if one were to behead a man and the root of a tree before its limbs and branches were cut; for it is the same for the whole and the city, as for a man and a tree, the head and the root. Come then, let every man who has any feeling of the passion (and there is no one who does not suffer this) join in lamenting our common fatherland and nurse. The old men [lament] the one who cared for their old age; the young, the one who bridled the irrational impulses of the soul; the children, the one who educated them well; the women, the one who gave them temperance; the rulers, the one who gave them honor; the soldiers, [the one who gave them] their commander; the farmers, [the one who gave them] justice; the artisans, the one who employed them; the merchants, their profit; the sailors, their harbor; the travelers, their rest; the poor, the one who provided; the needy, the one who fed them; the captives, the one who ransomed them; the orphans, their mother; the widows, their protectress; the priests, their guide; the...