"Gene Wolfe - The Soldier 01. Soldier of the Mist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

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SOLDIER OF THE MIST
Gene Wolfe
This book is dedicated--with the greatest respect and affection to Herodotos of
Halicarnassos

First there was a struggle at the barricade of shields; then, the barricade down,
a bitter and protracted fight, hand to hand, at the temple of Demeter ...
--Herodotos

Although this book is fiction, it is based on actual events of 479 B.C.


FOREWORD
About two years ago, an urn containing scrolls of papyrus, all apparently unused, was found behind a
collection--of Roman lyres in the basement of the British Museum. The museum retained the urn and
disposed of the scrolls, which were listed in Sotheby's catalogue as Lot 183. Various blank papyrus
rolls, possibly the stock of an Egyptian stationer.
After passing through several hands, they became the property of Mr. D___ A___, a dealer and
collector in Detroit. He got the notion that something might be concealed in the sticks on which the
papyrus was wound and had them X-rayed. The X-rays showed them to be solid; but they also showed
line after line of minute characters on the sheet (technically the protokollon) gummed to each stick.
Sensing himself on the verge of a discovery of real bibliotic importance, he examined a scroll under a
powerful lens and found that all its sheets were covered on both sides with minute gray writing, which the
personnel of the museum, and of Sotheby's, had apparently taken for dust smears. Spectrographic
analysis has established that the writing instrument was a sharp "pencil" of metallic lead. Knowing my
interest in dead languages, the owner has asked me to provide this translation.
With the exception of a short section in passable Greek, this first scroll is written in archaic Latin,
without punctuation. The author, who called himself "Latro" (a word that may mean brigand, guerrilla,
hired man, bodyguard, or pawn), had a disastrous penchant for abbreviation--indeed, it is rare to find
him giving any but the shortest words in full; there is a distinct possibility that some abbreviations have
been misread. The reader should keep in mind that all punctuation is mine; I have added details merely
implied in the text in some instances and have given in full some conversations given in summary.
For convenience in reading, I have divided the work into chapters, breaking the text (insofar as
possible) at the points at which "Latro" ceased to write. I have employed the first few words of each
chapter as its title.
In dealing with place names, I have followed the original writer, who sometimes wrote them as he
heard them but more often translated them when he understood (or believed he understood) their
meanings. "Tower Hill" is probably Corinth; "the Long Coast" is surely Attica. In some cases, Latro was
certainly mistaken. He seems to have heard some taciturn person referred to as having Laconic manners
(Greek Лбкщнйемьт) and to have concluded that Laconia meant "the Silent Country." His error in deriving
the name of the principal city of that region from a word for rope or cord (Greek уффЬсфпн) was one
made by many uneducated speakers of his time. He appears to have had some knowledge of Semitic
languages and to have spoken Greek fairly fluently, but to have read it poorly or not at all.
 A few words about the culture in which Latro found himself soon after he began to write may be in
order. The people no more called themselves Greeks than do the people of the nation we call Greece
today. By our standards they were casual about clothes, though in most cities it was considered improper
for a woman to appear in public completely naked, as men often did. Breakfast was not eaten; Unless he
had been drinking the night before, the average Greek rose at dawn and ate his first meal at noon; a