by Aphra Behn
When he was well enough to speak, we talked to him, and asked him some questions about his wife, and the reasons why he killed her. And he then told us what I have related of that resolution and of his parting, and he besought us, we would let him die, and was extremely afflicted to think it was possible he might live. He assured us, if we did not dispatch him, he would prove very fatal to a great many. We said all we could to make him live, and gave him new assurances, but he begged we would not think so poorly of him, or of his love to Imoinda, to imagine we could flatter him to life again; but the chirurgeon assured him, he could not live, and therefore he need not fear. We were all (but Caesar) afflicted at this news, and the sight was ghashly. His discourse was sad; and the earthy smell about him was so strong that I was persuaded to leave the place for some time (being myself but sickly, and very apt to fall into fits of dangerous illness upon any extraordinary melancholy). The servants and Trefry and the chirurgeons promised all to take what possible care they could of the life of Caesar, and I, taking boat, went with other company to Colonel Martin’s, about three days’ journey down the river; but I was no sooner gone than the governor taking Trefry about some pretended earnest business a day’s journey up the river, having communicated his design to one Banister, a wild Irishman and one of the council, a fellow of absolute barbarity, and fit to execute any villainy, but was rich. He came up to Parham, and forcibly took Caesar, and had him carried to the same post where he was whipped, and causing him to be tied to it, and a great fire made before him, he told him, he should die like a dog as he was. Caesar replied, this was the first piece of bravery that ever Banister did, and he never spoke sense till he pronounced that word, and, if he would keep it, he would declare, in the other world, that he was the only man, of all the whites, that ever he heard speak truth. And turning to the men that had bound him, he said, My friends, am I to die, or to be whipped? And they cried, Whipped! no, you shall not escape so well. And then he replied, smiling, A blessing on thee, and assured them they need not tie him, for he would stand fixed like a rock, and endure death so as should encourage them to die. But if you whip me, said he, be sure you tie me fast.
He had learned to take tobacco, and when he was assured he should die, he desired they would give him a pipe in his mouth, ready lighted which they did, and the executioner came and first cut off his members and threw them into the fire. After that, with an ill-favoured knife, they cut his ears and his nose, and burned them; he still smoked on, as if nothing had touched him. Then they hacked off one of his arms, and still he bore up, and held his pipe. But at the cutting off the other arm, his head sunk, and his pipe dropped, and he gave up the ghost without a groan or a reproach. My mother and sister were by him all the while but not suffered to save him, so rude and wild were the rabble, and so inhuman were the justices who stood by to see the execution, who after paid dearly enough for their insolence. They cut Caesar in quarters, and sent them to several of the chief plantations. One quarter was sent to Colonel Martin, who refused it, and swore he had rather see the quarters of Banister and the governor himself than those of Caesar, on his plantations; and that he could govern his Negroes without terrifying and grieving them with frightful spectacles of a mangled king.
Thus died this great man, worthy of a better fate and a more sublime wit than mine to write his praise. Yet, I hope, the reputation of my pen is considerable enough to make his glorious name to survive to all ages, with that of the brave, the beautiful and the constant Imoinda.
FINIS.
BOCCACCIO · Mrs Rosie and the Priest
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS · As kingfishers catch fire
The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue
THOMAS DE QUINCEY · On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE · Aphorisms on Love and Hate
JOHN RUSKIN · Traffic
PU SONGLING · Wailing Ghosts
JONATHAN SWIFT · A Modest Proposal
Three Tang Dynasty Poets
WALT WHITMAN · On the Beach at Night Alone
KENKŌ · A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
BALTASAR GRACIÁN · How to Use Your Enemies
JOHN KEATS · The Eve of St Agnes
THOMAS HARDY · Woman much missed
GUY DE MAUPASSANT · Femme Fatale
MARCO POLO · Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls
SUETONIUS · Caligula
APOLLONIUS OF RHODES · Jason and Medea
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON · Olalla
KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS · The Communist Manifesto
PETRONIUS · Trimalchio’s Feast
JOHANN PETER HEBEL · How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher’s Dog
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN · The Tinder Box
RUDYARD KIPLING · The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows
DANTE · Circles of Hell
HENRY MAYHEW · Of Street Piemen
HAFEZ · The nightingales are drunk
GEOFFREY CHAUCER · The Wife of Bath
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE · How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing
THOMAS NASHE · The Terrors of the Night
EDGAR ALLAN POE · The Tell-Tale Heart
MARY KINGSLEY · A Hippo Banquet
JANE AUSTEN · The Beautifull Cassandra
ANTON CHEKHOV · Gooseberries
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE · Well, they are gone, and here must I remain
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE · Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
CHARLES DICKENS · The Great Winglebury Duel
HERMAN MELVILLE · The Maldive Shark
ELIZABETH GASKELL · The Old Nurse’s Story
NIKOLAY LESKOV · The Steel Flea
HONORÉ DE BALZAC · The Atheist’s Mass
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN · The Yellow Wall-Paper
C. P. CAVAFY · Remember, Body …
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY · The Meek One
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT · A Simple Heart
NIKOLAI GOGOL · The Nose
SAMUEL PEPYS · The Great Fire of London
EDITH WHARTON · The Reckoning
HENRY JAMES · The Figure in the Carpet
WILFRED OWEN · Anthem For Doomed Youth
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART · My Dearest Father
PLATO · Socrates’ Defence
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI · Goblin Market
Sindbad the Sailor
SOPHOCLES · Antigone
RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA · The Life of a Stupid Man
LEO TOLSTOY · How Much Land Does A Man Need?
GIORGIO VASARI · Leonardo da Vinci
OSCAR WILDE · Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
SHEN FU · The Old Man of the Moon
AESOP · The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon
MATSUO BASHŌ · Lips too Chilled
EMILY BRONTË · The Night is Darkening Round Me
JOSEPH CONRAD · To-morrow
RICHARD HAKLUYT · The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe
KATE CHOPIN · A Pair of Silk Stockings
CHARLES DARWIN · It was snowing butterflies
BROTHERS GRIMM · The Robber Bridegroom
CATULLUS · I Hate and I Love
HOMER · Circe and the Cyclops
D. H. LAWRENCE · Il Duro
KATHERINE MANSFIELD · Miss Brill
OVID · The Fall of Icarus
SAPPHO · Come Close
IVAN TURGENEV · Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands
VIRGIL · O Cruel Alexis
H. G. WELLS · A Slip under the Microscope
HERODOTUS · The Madness of Cambyses
Speaking of Siva
The Dhammapada
JANE AUSTEN · Lady Susan
JEAN-JACQUES ROSSEAU · The Body Politic
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE · The World is Full of Foolish Men
H. G. WELLS · The Sea Raiders
LIVY · Hannibal
CHARLES DICKENS · To Be Read at Dusk
LEO TOLSTOY · The De
ath of Ivan Ilyich
MARK TWAIN · The Stolen White Elephant
WILLIAM BLAKE · Tyger, Tyger
SHERIDAN LE FANU · Green Tea
The Yellow Book
OLAUDAH EQUIANO · Kidnapped
EDGAR ALLAN POE · A Modern Detective
The Suffragettes
MARGERY KEMPE · How To Be a Medieval Woman
JOSEPH CONRAD · Typhoon
GIACOMO CASANOVA · The Nun of Murano
W. B. YEATS · A terrible beauty is born
THOMAS HARDY · The Withered Arm
EDWARD LEAR · Nonsense
ARISTOPHANES · The Frogs
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE · Why I Am so Clever
RAINER MARIA RILKE · Letters to a Young Poet
LEONID ANDREYEV · Seven Hanged
APHRA BEHN · Oroonoko
LEWIS CARROLL · O frabjous day!
JOHN GAY · Trivia: or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London
E. T. A. HOFFMANN · The Sandman
DANTE · Love that moves the sun and other stars
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN · The Queen of Spades
ANTON CHEKHOV · A Nervous Breakdown
KAKUZO OKAKURA · The Book of Tea
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE · Is this a dagger which I see before me?
EMILY DICKINSON · My life had stood a loaded gun
LONGUS · Daphnis and Chloe
MARY SHELLEY · Matilda
GEORGE ELIOT · The Lifted Veil
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY · White Nights
OSCAR WILDE · Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast
VIRGINIA WOOLF · Flush
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE · Lot No. 249
The Rule of Benedict
WASHINGTON IRVING · Rip Van Winkle
Anecdotes of the Cynics
VICTOR HUGO · Waterloo
CHARLOTTE BRONTË · Stancliffe’s Hotel
littleblackclassics.com
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN CLASSICS
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Penguin Classics is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
This selection first published in Penguin Classics 2016
ISBN: 978-0-241-25163-8
* ell: The English ell measured 45 inches.
* bating: Except for.
* despites: Insults.
* a rest of: A remainder.
* maugre: In spite of.
* constitute: Appoint.
* parole: Word or pledge.
* raced: Incised.
* jealousies: Suspicions.
* blowing: Flowering.
* stuff: Woven woollen material.
* mess: Portion of a meal.
* ill used and baffled with: Abused and deceived.
* basket-hilts: Swords with rounded protective hilts.
* abounded his own wit: Was secure in his own opinion.
* In fine: To conclude.
* chirurgeon: Surgeon.
* nemine contradicente: Unanimously (Latin).
* mobile: The mob, rabble (Latin).
