“It is past seven o’clock,” said Nicephorus “and there is a church procession which I must attend. Let us keep to the business before us. We will give you a reply at some convenient season.”
I think that I shall have as much pleasure in describing this procession as my masters will have in reading of it. A numerous company of tradesmen and low-born persons, collected on this solemn occasion to welcome and honor Nicephorus, lined the sides of the road, like walls, from the palace to Saint Sophia, tricked out with thin little shields and cheap spears.-As an additional scandal, most of the mob assembled in his honor had marched there with bare feet, thinking, I suppose, that thus they would better adorn the sacred procession.
His nobles for their part, who with their master passed through the plebeian and barefoot multitude, were dressed in tunics that were too large for them and were also because of their extreme age full of holes. They would have looked better if they had worn their ordinary clothes. There was not a man among them whose grandfather had owned his tunic when it was new.
More disgusting than ever
No one except Nicephorus wore any jewels or golden ornaments, and the emperor looked more disgusting than ever in the regalia that had been designed to suit the persons of his ancestors. By your life, sires, dearer to me than my own, one of your nobles’ costly robes is worth a hundred or more of these. I was taken to the procession and given a place on a platform near the singers.
As Nicephorus, like some crawling monster, walked along, the singers began to cry out in adulation: “Behold the morning star approaches: the day star rises: in his eyes the sun’s rays are reflected: Nicephorus our prince, the pale death of the Saracens.” And then they cried again: “Long life, long life to our prince Nicephorus. Adore him, ye nations, worship him, bow the neck to his greatness.”
How much more truly might they have sung:-“Come, you miserable burnt-out coal; old woman in your walk, wood-devil in your look; clodhopper, haunter of byres, goat-footed, horned, double-limbed; bristly, wild, rough, barbarian, harsh, hairy, a rebel, a Cappadocian!” So, puffed up by these lying ditties, he entered St. Sophia, his masters the emperors following at a distance and doing him homage on the ground with the kiss of peace. His amour bearer, with an arrow for pen, recorded in the church the era in progress since the beginning of his reign. So those who did not see the ceremony know what era it is.
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