Salammbô
Gustave Flaubert
MP3 CD
(IDB Productions, July 6, 2019)
Salammbô I FEAST It was at Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in the gardens of Hamilcar. The soldiers he had commanded in Sicily were giving themselves a big feast to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Eryx, and as the master was absent and they were numerous, they ate and drank in complete freedom. The captains, wearing bronze buskins, had placed themselves in the middle path, under a veil of purple with gold fringes, which extended from the wall of the stables to the first terrace of the palace; the common soldiers were scattered under the trees, where one distinguished a number of buildings with flat roofs, presses, cellars, shops, bakeries and arsenals, with a yard for elephants, pits for ferocious beasts, a prison for slaves. Fig trees surrounded the kitchens; a sycamore wood extended to masses of greenery, where grenades shone among the white tufts of cotton trees; vineyards, charged with bunches, mounted in the branches of the pines; a field roses blossomed under plane trees; from place to place on lawns swayed lilies; black sand, mixed with gunpowder coral, strewed the paths; and, in the middle, the cypress avenue from one end to the other like a double colonnade of obelisks green.