Descending from the palace by a staircase, called, I thought, the
Giant's--I had some imaginary recollection of an old man
abdicating, coming, more slowly and more feebly, down it, when he
heard the bell, proclaiming his successor--I glided off, in one of
the dark boats, until we came to an old arsenal guarded by four
marble lions. To make my Dream more monstrous and unlikely, one of
these had words and sentences upon its body, inscribed there, at an
unknown time, and in an unknown language; so that their purport was
a mystery to all men.
There was little sound of hammers in this place for building ships,
and little work in progress; for the greatness of the city was no
more, as I have said. Indeed, it seemed a very wreck found
drifting on the sea; a strange flag hoisted in its honourable
stations, and strangers standing at its helm. A splendid barge in
which its ancient chief had gone forth, pompously, at certain
periods, to wed the ocean, lay here, I thought, no more; but, in
its place, there was a tiny model, made from recollection like the
city's greatness; and it told of what had been (so are the strong
and weak confounded in the dust) almost as eloquently as the
massive pillars, arches, roofs, reared to overshadow stately ships
that had no other shadow now, upon the water or the earth.
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