Murdered by his Janissaries

We go time and again to the Old Seraglio, whose nooks and corners become as familiar to us as if we had lived there, the Old Seraglio whose every building, every kiosk, every room is still alive with the history of Turkey’s past grandeur, whose garden still glows with the life of all the great Sultans and of their courtiers who lived and died there.

From its outer court with its long alley of tall cypresses and poplars gently swaying to the breeze as if bewailing past splendors, from its outer Council Room where generations of grave Pashas robed in sable furs covered with silk brocades and with be jeweled turbans have discussed affairs of State and international policies while powerful Sultans were listening from behind the golden lattices of a small balcony, from the informal audience room from which a Sultan chased the Ambassador of Louis XIV, King of France, for having dared to sit in his presence.

to the court where another Sultan was murdered by his Janissaries, to the Kiosk of the Lilacs to the laboratory where learned doctors prepared drugs for their august masters, to the very trunk of the old plane tree in the shade of which a resentful Sultan signed the decree condemning to death one of his generals who had failed, to capture Vienna, and to the marble terrace of the Badged kiosk where a poet Sultan improvised his immortal verses to his Sultana, the place seems to be full of living shadows and remembrances. It seems as if it were only asleep and semiconsciously waiting a signal to people again all its buildings and its gardens with Princes and soldiers continuing their interrupted earthly existence.

City like Constantinople

We go time and again to all the different mosques of the neighborhood, places renowned the world over for their architecture and which are so impregnated by the prayers which generations of faithful believers have made within their walls five times a day for centuries and centuries, that they vibrate with spirituality and force you to meditation not a sad meditation with visions of everlasting fires to expiate earthly sins, but encouraging meditation which whispers into your ears that God who has created such beautiful surroundings for a city like Constantinople, God who has given the power to human beings to conceive and construct such cheerful and elevating temples of worship and prayer cannot and will not create another life where the miseries of this one are continued and multiplied eternally. A meditation which makes you realize that if winter comes, spring cannot be far behind!