ベン・ハー — ルー・ウォーレス
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ Author : Lew Wallace Release date : April 1, 2000 [eBook #2145] Most recently updated: August 29, 2023 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2145 Credits : an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer *** START OF Into the Desert II. Meeting of the Wise Men III. The Athenian Speaks—Faith IV. Speech of the Hindoo—Love V. The Egyptian’s Story—Good Works VI. The Joppa Gate VII. Typical Characters at the Joppa Gate VIII. Joseph and Mary Going to Bethlehem IX. The Cave at Bethlehem X. The Light in the Sky XI. Christ is Born XII. The Wise Men Arrive at Jerusalem XIII. The Witnesses before Herod XIV. The Wise Men Find the Child BOOK SECOND I. Jerusalem under the Romans II. Ben-Hur and Messala III. A Judean Home IV. The Strange Things Ben-Hur Wants to Know V. Rome and Israel—A Comparison VI. The Accident to Gratus VII. A Galley Slave BOOK THIRD I. Quintus Arrius Goes to Sea II. At the Oar III. Arrius and Ben-Hur on Deck IV. “No. 60” V. The Sea Fight VI. Arrius Adopts Ben-Hur BOOK FOURTH I. Ben-Hur Returns East II. On the Orontes III. The Demand on Simonides IV. Simonides and Esther V. The Grove of Daphne VI. The Mulberries of Daphne VII. The Stadium in the Grove VIII. The Fountain of Castalia IX. The Chariot Race Discussed X. Ben-Hur Hears of Christ XI. The Wise Servant and his Daughter XII. A Roman Orgie XIII. A Driver for Ilderim’s Arabs XIV. The Dowar in the Orchard or Palms XV. Balthasar Impresses Ben-Hur XVI. Christ is Coming—Balthasar XVII. The Kingdom—Spiritual or Political? BOOK FIFTH I. Messala Doffs his Chaplet II. Ilderim’s Arabs under the Yoke III. The Arts of Cleopatra IV. Messala on Guard V. Ilderim and Ben-Hur Deliberate VI. Training the Four VII. Simonides Renders Account VIII. Spiritual or Political?—Simonides Argues IX. Esther and Ben-Hur X. Posted for the Race XI. Making the Wagers XII. The Circus XIII. The Start XIV. The Race XV. The Invitation of Iras XVI. In the Palace of Idernee BOOK SIXTH I. The Tower of Antonia—Cell No. VI. II. The Lepers III. Jerusalem Again IV. Ben-Hur at his Father’s Gate V. The Tomb Above the King’s Garden VI. A Trick of Pilate’s—The Combat BOOK SEVENTH I. Jerusalem Goes out to a Prophet II. Nooning by the Pool—Iras III. The Life of a Soul IV. Ben-Hur Keeps Watch with Iras V. At Bethabara BOOK EIGHTH I. Guests in the House of Hur II. Ben-Hur Tells of the Nazarene III. The Lepers Leave their Tomb IV. The Miracle V. Pilgrims to the Passover VI. A Serpent of the Nile VII. Ben-Hur Returns to Esther VIII. Gethsemane—“Whom Seek Ye?” IX. The Going to Calvary X. The Crucifixion BOOK FIRST CHAPTER I The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north. Standing on its red-and-white cliffs, and looking off under the path of the rising sun, one sees only the Desert of Arabia, where the east winds, so hateful to vinegrowers of Jericho, have kept their playgrounds since the beginning. Its feet are well covered by sands tossed from the Euphrates, there to lie, for the mountain is a wall to the pasture-lands of Moab and Ammon on the west—lands which else had been of the desert a part. The Arab has impressed his language upon everything south and east of Judea, so, in his tongue, the old Jebel is the parent of numberless wadies which, intersecting the Roman road—now a dim suggestion of what once it was, a dusty path for Syrian pilgrims to and from Mecca—run their furrows, deepening as they go, to pass the torrents of the rainy season into the Jordan, or their last receptacle, the Dead Sea. Out of one of these wadies—or, more particularly, out of that one which rises at the extreme end of the Jebel, and, extending east of north, becomes at length the bed of the Jabbok River—a traveller passed, going to the table-lands of the desert. To this person the attention of the reader is first besought. Judged by his appearance, he was quite forty-five years old. His beard, once of the deepest black, flowing broadly over his breast, was streaked with white. His face was brown as a parched coffee-berry, and so hidden by a red kufiyeh (as the kerchief of the head is at this day called by the children of the desert) as to be but in part visible. Now and then he raised his eyes, and they were large and dark. He was clad in the flowing garments so universal in the East; but their style may not be described more particularly, for he sat under a miniature tent, and rode a great white dromedary. It may be doubted if the people of the West ever overcome the impression made upon them by the first view of a camel equipped and loaded for the desert. Custom, so fatal to other novelties, affects this feeling but little. At the end of long journeys with caravans, after years of residence with the Bedawin, the Western-born, wherever they may be, will stop and wait the passing of the stately brute. The charm is not in the figure, which not even love can make beautiful; nor in the movement, the noiseless stepping, or the broad careen. As is the kindness of the sea to a ship, so that of the desert to its creature. It clothes him with all its mysteries; in such manner, too, that while we are looking at him we are thinking of them: therein is the wonder. The animal which now came out of the wady might well have claimed the customary homage. Its color and height; its breadth of foot; its bulk of body, not fat, but overlaid with muscle; its long, slender neck, of swanlike curvature; the head, wide between the eyes, and tapering to a muzzle which a lady’s bracelet might have almost clasped; its motion, step long and ela