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proper noun
Tamerlane  n.  A Tatar conquerer, also called Timur or Timour or Timur Bey, also Timur-Leng or Timur-i-Leng ('Timur the Lame'), which was corrupted to Tamerlane. He was born in Central Asia, 1333, a member of the Barslas, a Turkish Mongol tribe which had converted to Islam. He died 1405. Though he claimed descent from Jenghiz Khan, it is believed that he was in fact descended from a follower of the Khan. By 1370, Tamerlane, a renowned warrior, began consolidating his power among the various nomadic tribes of Central Asia by conquering the entire region. He became a ruler about 1370 of a realm whose capital was Samarkand; conquered Persia, Central Asia, and in 1398 a great part of India, including Delhi; waged war with the Turkish Sultan Bajazet I. (Beyazid), whom he defeated at Ankara in 1402 and took prisoner; and died while preparing to invade China. By the end of his life in 1405, after 35 years of campaigns and wars that left hundreds of thousands dead and enslaved, he had successfully defeated Ottoman Turks, Hindus, The Golden Horde, and other peoples and controlled an empire stretching from the Aegean to the River Ganges and threatened the trembling Kingdoms of Europe and the Eastern Roman Empire. He is the Tamerlaine of the plays. "Just at the moment when the Sultan (Bajazet) seemed to have attained the pinnacle of his ambition, when his authority was unquestioningly obeyed over the greater part of the Byzantine Empire in Europe and Asia, when the Christian states were regarding him with terror as the scourge of the world, another and greater scourge came to quell him, and at one stroke all the vast fabric of empire which Bayezid (Beyazid) had so triumphantly erected was shattered to the ground. This terrible conquerer was Timur the Tatar, or as we call him, "Tamerlane". Timur was of Turkish race, and was born near Samarkand in 1333. He was consequently an old man of 70 when he came to encounter Bayezid in 1402. It had taken him many years to establish his authority over a portion of the numerous divisions into which the immense empire of Chingiz Khan had fallen after the death of that stupendous conqueror. Timur was but a petty chief among many others: but at last he won his way and became ruler of Samarkand and the whole province of Transoxiana, or 'Beyond the River' (Ma-wara-n-nahr) as the Arabs called the country north of the Oxus. Once fairly established in this province, Timur began to overrun the surrounding lands, and during thirty years his ruthless armies spread over the provinces of Asia, from Delhi to Damascus, and from the Sea of Aral to the Persian Gulf. The subdivision of the Moslem Empire into numerous petty kingdoms rendered it powerless to meet the overwhelming hordes which Timur brought down from Central Asia. One and all, the kings and princes of Persia and Syria succumbed, and Timur carried his banners triumphantly as far as the frontier of Egypt, where the brave Mamluk Sultans still dared to defy him. He had so far left Bayezid unmolested; partly because he was too powerful to be rashly provoked, and partly because Timur respected the Sultan's valorous deeds against the Christians: for Timur, though a wholesale butcher, was very conscientious in matters of religion, and held that Bayezid's fighting for the Faith rightly covered a multitude of sins." Note: Timour, Timur, or TAMERLANE, was the second of the great conquerers whom central Asia sent forth in the middle ages, and was born at Kesh, about 40 miles southeast of Samarkand, April 9, 1336. His father was a Turkish chieftain and his mother claimed descent from the great Genghis-Khan. When he became tribal chieftain, Timour helped the Amir Hussein to drive out the Kalmucks. Turkestan was thereupon divided between them, but soon war broke out between the two chiefs, and the death of Hussein in battle made Timour master of all Turkestan. He now began his career of conquest, overcoming the Getes, Khiva and Khorassin, after storming Herat. His ever-widening circle of possessions soon embraced Persia, Mesopotamia, Georgia, and the Mongol state, Kiptchak. He threatened Moscow, burned Azoo, captured Delhi, overran Syria, and stormed Bagdad, which had revolted. At last, July 20, 1402, Timour met the Sultan Bajazet of the Ottoman Turks, on the plains of Ankara, captured him and routed his army, thus becoming master of the Turkish empire. He took but a short rest at his capital, Samarkand, and in his eagerness to conquer China, led his army of 200,000 across the Jaxartes on the ice, and pushed rapidly on for 300 miles, when his death, Feb. 18, 1405, saved the independence of China. Though notorious for his acts of cruelty he may have slaughtered 80,000 in Delhi he was a patron of the arts. In his reign of 35 years, this chief of a small tribe, dependent on the Kalmucks, became the ruler of the vast territory stretching from Moscow to the Ganges. A number of writings said to have been written by Timour have been preserved in Persian, one of which, the Institutions, has been translated into English. Note: There is a story about an incident when an archaeologist opened Timur's tomb at the Gur-Amir mausoleum in Samarkand, which was erected in 1404. Timur and several of his descendants, including Ulugh Beg, are interred in that magnificent structure in the south-western side of Samarkand. In the mausoleum, mosaics made out of light- and dark-blue glazed bricks decorate the walls and the drum, and the tiled geometrical designs of the cupola shine brightly in the sun. Restoration work was started in 1967; the exterior cupola and glazed decorations were restored before that, in the 1950s. The mausoleum holds tombstones made of marble and onyx, the tombstone of Timur is carved from a slab of nephrite. The burials proper are placed in a crypt under the mausoleum. In 1941, a distinguished Soviet scientist, M. Gerasimov, received permission to exhume Tamerlane's body. On June 22, 1941, working in the Samarkand crypt, he opened the sarcophagus to study the body and found the inscription: "Whoever opens this will be defeated by an enemy more fearsome than I". Hours later, Hitler invaded Russia. Five weeks after the great Emir was reinterred in 1942, the Germans surrendered at Stalingrad. Examination of the remains in Timur's tomb confirmed that the body was tall, as was reported in the histories, and had been wounded in the leg and arm. The actual inscription on the tomb has been reported variously: "He whomsoever shall disturb the earthly resting place of Timur-i-Lenk (Tamerlane), then his country shall suffer such terrible retribution as the Hand of Allah shall visit upon it." "When I rise, the World will Tremble". "Timur's Legacy: The Architecture of Samarkand Let he who doubt Our power and munificence look upon Our buildings Amir Timur, 1379 AD Timur, better known in the West as Tamerlane from his nickname Timur-i-leng or "Timur the Lame", was the last of the great nomadic warriors to sweep out of Central Asia and shake the world. As befits a man styled "World Conqueror", we know a lot about him and not all of it good. In 1336, at Shakhrisabz in present-day Uzbekistan, the wife of a minor chief of the Mongol Barlas clan gave birth to a son with blood-filled palms, a sure omen that the infant was predestined to cause the death of many. He was given an appropriate name Timur means "iron" in Turkish and raised in the Turkic-Islamic tradition of the surrounding steppe as a rider, archer and swordsman. Even by the harsh standards of the Mongol hordes, Timur excelled. Before he was twenty years old he had attracted a band of followers with whom he ranged across the steppe raiding caravans and rustling horses. In 1360 his skills as a commander were rewarded when he was recognised as chief of the Barlas clan. Over the next ten years he steadily extended his influence over Transoxiana the region between the Oxus and Jaxartes Rivers centred on present-day Uzbekistan acquiring wounds to his right arm and leg in the process, and hence his nickname. In 1370 he conquered Turkistan, the last surviving Mongol Khanate, and declared himself Amir or "Commander". He made the Silk Road city of Samarkand his capital, and then embarked on a series of military conquests that rocked Asia and Europe to their very foundations. For 35 years Timur's forces ranged far and wide, repeatedly sweeping across Central Asia, Iran, Turkey and northern India. In 1405 Timur was preparing his greatest expedition ever, aimed at conquering China, when he was struck down by fever. Despite the best efforts of his doctors, to the sound of massive thunderclaps and "foaming like a camel dragged backwards by the rein", Timur finally succumbed. The Ming Emperor must have breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief when he eventually heard the news. Historians estimate that Timur, who personally led his forces as far afield as Moscow and Delhi, may have been responsible for the death of as many as 15 million people. Yet he made little attempt to consolidate his conquests, preferring to mount regular, devastating attacks against his neighbours before returning to his native Transoxiana. As a consequence, the dynasty he established proved to be short-lived, though in 1526 Timur's great, great, great grandson Babur restored the family fortunes by conquering Delhi and founding the resplendent Mogul Empire. Timur must have been an enigma to his contemporaries. Brutal and utterly ruthless, he was nevertheless a man of culture. He is said to have been illiterate, but fluent in Turkish and Persian. Sources speak of his sharp wit and hunger for knowledge. When not out and about slaughtering his neighbours, he indulged in passionate debate with scholars of history, medicine and astronomy. He enjoyed playing chess. Above all, he seems to have loved his capital, Samarkand, and he spent much time between campaigns embellishing this previously undistinguished city. To help in this great enterprise, he plundered cities like Damascus, Baghdad, Isfahan and Delhi not just for the loot, but for their skilled artisans, who were brought back to make Samarkand a city worthy of the "World Conqueror". As a consequence the warlike Timur's most lasting and unlikely legacy remains the unsurpassed architectural jewel of Central Asia. With Timur's death Transoxiana began a long period of decline, culminating in gradual Russian conquest during the 19th century. Samarkand had long been inaccessible to outsiders because of the xenophobia and religious bigotry of the ruling amirs. This situation was compounded in 1920, when the Red Army seized control of the region and began a process of Sovietisation. In 1924 Samarkand was included within the frontiers of the new Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, and a curtain of silence fell across the region with Westerners, in particular, being rigorously excluded. Only in the 1980s did the veil begin to rise, and then within a few short years the former USSR disintegrated, resulting in the birth of independent Uzbekistan in 1991. Although ruled by a suspicious and innately cautious former Soviet aparatchik, Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan is today slowly opening to foreign tourism. It should do well. The cities of Bukhara and Khiva, together with Timur's capital at Samarkand, are truly magnificent. In places, it's as though time stood still. It didn't of course. The Soviets worked long and hard to restore what remained of Timurid Samarkand, and Uzbekistan stands to benefit greatly as a result. Moreover, the process continues apace, both in spiritual terms Timur is now an Uzbek national hero and at a more mundane level. Everywhere the chip of stonemasons' hammers is to be heard, and a whole new generation of skilled craftsmen is being trained to restore the architectural legacy of the "Iron Limper". The historic heart of Samarkand is the Registan, an open square dominated by three great madrassa, or Islamic colleges. George Curzon, later to become Viceroy of India, visited in 1899 and was moved enough to describe the Registan as "the noblest public square in the world". He continues: "No European spectacle can be adequately compared to it, in our inability to point to an open space in any western city that is commanded on three of its four sides by Gothic cathedrals of the finest order". The architecture is distinctively Timurid, being characterised by an extraordinarily lavish use of colour, especially emerald, azure, deep blue and gold. The great domes are fluted, the vast porticoes richly decorated with corkscrew columns and intricately-patterned glazed tiles. Astonishingly, the fa?ade of the Shir Dor Madrassa on the east side of the square is decorated with half-tiger, half-lion creatures stalking deer, whilst a blazing sun with a human face rises behind the beast of prey's back. In Islam, such representational art is generally forbidden, and it is wonderful that these clearly heretical images have survived through the long centuries since they were created. Samarkand let alone Uzbekistan has too many Timurid gems to describe in one short article, but after the Registan, the monumental Bibi Khanum Mosque is perhaps the most extraordinary sight in the city. Built for Timur's chief wife, Saray Mulk Khanum, this magnificent building was financed by the plunder brought back from Delhi in 1398; it is said that 95 elephants were used in hauling marble for the mosque. On Bibi Khanum's completion a chronicler was moved to write: "Its dome would have been unique had it not been for the heavens, and unique would have been its portal had it not been for the Milky Way". Even so, historians have shown that in his plans for the Bibi Khanum, Timur's vision exceeded the architectural possibilities of the time. Quite simply, the lofty iwan (portico) and the towering minarets were too ambitious for the technology of the time especially in a land prone to violent earthquakes. By all accounts, parts of the giant mosque began to collapse within months of its consecration. Today all three massive azure domes have been restored, and work still continues, though this time with ferro-concrete supports hidden behind the elaborate glazed tilework, on the lofty iwan and minarets. When the restoration is complete in around 2002, Uzbekistan will have yet another architectural marvel to draw visitors. Finally and fittingly we turn to the Gur-i Amir, or "Tomb of the Ruler", Timur's own last resting place. This fabulous structure, which was completed in 1404, is dominated by the octagonal mausoleum and its peerless fluted dome, azure in colour, with 64 separate ribs. Within lie the remains not only of Timur, but also of various members of his family, including his grandson the scholar-king Ulugh Beg. Timur's tomb is protected by a single slab of jade, said to be the largest in the world. Brought back by Ulugh Beg from Mongolia in 1425, it was broken in half in the 18th century by the Persian ruler Nadir Shah, who tried to remove it from the chamber. Carved into the jade is an inscription in Arabic: "When I rise, the World will Tremble". Coincidence, no doubt, but on the night of June 22, 1941, the Russian Scientist M. Gerasimov began his exhumation of Timur's remains. Within hours Hitler's armies crashed across the Soviet frontier signalling the beginning of the Nazi invasion. Gerasimov's investigations showed that Timur had been a tall man for his race and time, lame, as recorded, in his right leg, and with a wound to his right arm. Surprisingly, red hair still clung to the skull from which Gerasimov reconstructed a bronze bust. Eventually Timur's remains were reinterred with full Muslim burial rites, giving truth to the message thundered in Arabic script three metres high from the cylindrical drum of the great conqueror's mausoleum: "Only God is Immortal"."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tamerlane" Quotes from Famous Books



... son of Malic Jemaluddin Firozkohi, a nobleman of high rank and fortune as well as great literary attainments, was born in Sebzwar, A. H. 786. He passed a part of his life at the courts of Baisankar (the son of Shahrukh Mirza, and grandson of Tamerlane) and of his son Abul Kasim Baber, during which time he held appointments of the highest trust and emolument, and was universally caressed. But, taking offense at an expression of Sultan Baber's, which he conceived reflected on his ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... my little man; I never yet saw him kneel. Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils of the chase. So Tamerlane's soldiers often argued with tears in their eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried into the thickest of the fight. But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Considering that with ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... Montreal submitted to General Amherst, and that extensive country fell totally under the power of Great Britain; a larger territory than ever was subject to the Roman empire. The prodigious march of Amherst, on this occasion, can be compared only to that of Jenghiz Can, or Tamerlane, who over-ran all Asia ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... old, each with a helmet on his head, Practiced their inconclusive feud Upon no battlefield of unfeeling dew— But on the prostrate stillness of the multitude! Even their knightliest prowess they must rear, Tamerlane, Alexander, Arthur, every king, Upon the common clay from which they spring. For see how slaves, on whom war falls, renew The strength of war and disappear Year after year Into the earth—fulfilling it to form and bear Democracy! ...
— The New World • Witter Bynner

... Nadir Shah, in 1739. And how many have taken the route I mean to take between the two epochs! Let us count them. After Mahmoud of Ghazni came Mohammed Ghori, in 1184, with one hundred and twenty thousand men; after him, Timur Tang, or Timur the Lame, whom we call Tamerlane, with sixty thousand men; after Tamerlane, Babar; after Babar, Humajan, and how many more I can't remember. Why, India is there for whoever will go ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... the coverts of Mount Sinai, Massachusetts, and just before dawn of a summer morning they caught and killed and buried him. Shakers are spiritualists, and they believe their numbers to have been augmented by distinguished dead, among whom they already number Washington, Lafayette, Napoleon, Tamerlane, and Pocahontas. The two first named of these posthumous communists are still seen by members of the faith who pass Satan's grave at night, for they sit astride of white horses and watch the burial spot, lest the enemy of ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... rupture soon came, and Poe went to Boston, the city of his physical birth and destined to become the place of his birth into the tempestuous world of authorship. Forty copies of "Tamerlane and Other Poems" appeared upon the shelf of the printer—and nowhere else. It is said that seventy-three years later a single copy was sold for $2,250. Had this harvest been reaped by the author in those early days, who can estimate the gain to the ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... Tamerlane ("Timur the Lame"), was born in Central Asia—probably in the village of Sebzar, near Samarkand, in Transoxiana (Turkestan). He is supposed to have been descended from a follower of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol empire; or, as some say, directly, by the mother's ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Observatories of the City of Mexico and of Puebla. Word came back that the bodies were not visible there. Because of this parallax, M. Bonilla placed the bodies "relatively near the earth." But when we find out what he called "relatively near the earth"—birds or bugs or hosts of a Super-Tamerlane or army of a celestial Richard Coeur de Lion—our heresies rejoice anyway. His estimate is "less ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... thirteenth century, and broke, at the two ends of the known world, through two great Chinese walls—that which protected the ancient empire of the Center, and that which made a barrier of ignorance and superstition round the little world of Christendom. Attila, Genghis, Tamerlane, ought to range in the memory of men with Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon. They roused whole peoples into action, and stirred the depths of human life, they powerfully affected ethnography, they let loose rivers of blood, and renewed the face of things. The Quakers will not see that ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... extraordinary mildness towards the conquered. The book before me will prove to your Lordships that the head of this government (who is falsely supposed to have a despotic authority) is absolutely elected to his office. Tamerlane was elected; and Genghis Khan particularly valued himself on improving the laws and institutions of his own country. These laws we only have imperfectly in this book; but we are told in it, and I believe the fact, that he forbade, under pain of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... is not Mongolia, but Tamerlane, though born there, was a Mongol. His descendants were the Moguls of India. At different epochs peoples called Turks and Huns have wandered over the Mongolian plateau, and Mongols have swept over Turkestan. To ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... "And I knew Tamerlane, the lame Timour, sir, very well. I saw him at Keghut and at Zaranj. He was a little man no larger than yerself, with hair the colour of an amber pipe stem. They buried him at Samarkand. I was at the ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry

... which blew up the inventor. It requires to be wisely managed. English experience will tell you, more to the purpose, that 'perseverance is power;' for with it, all things can be done, without it nothing. I remember, in the history of Tamerlane, an incident which, to me, has always had the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... has often been argued whether, considering the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils of the chase. So Tamerlane's soldiers often argued with tears in their eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried into the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... watched it, and affirms that for 204 days it partook of no food or water. It showed no emaciation, and appeared as active and strong as at first until within a very few days of its death on May 7, 1882. Tamerlane learned patience from a spider; perhaps Tanner was taught by them how to fast. The Hour, from which we take this item, also has the following: Another spider story is sent from California by the Rev. Dr. McCook, of honey-ant fame. He found a small cocoon of eggs and young spiders, which had no ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... Not that little Tamerlane, as his father called him, should die just to be out of her path. It was no fault of his that he was his father's son, with—how could she doubt after what Sally had just said?—the curse of his father's form of manhood or beasthood upon him. And yet, might it not have been better that he should ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... appears even to influence his manner of composition. While all the other assailants of the Roman empire, whether warlike or religious, the Goth, the Hun, the Arab, the Tartar, Alaric and Attila, Mahomet, and Zengis, and Tamerlane, are each introduced upon the scene almost with dramatic animation—their progress related in a full, complete, and unbroken narrative—the triumph of Christianity alone takes the form of a cold and critical disquisition. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... Poland, and prepare to wrangle over the dominions of the Crescent. To maintain the balance of power is a plea for the obliteration of States. Carthage, Genoa, and Venice, commercial Cities only, must acquire territory by force or fraud, and become States. Alexander marches to the Indus; Tamerlane seeks universal empire; the Saracens conquer ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... has been generally practised by the greatest warriors and generals; and some have even supposed that it was necessary to be well skilled in it. Tamerlane the Great was engaged in a game during the very time of the decisive battle with Bajazet, the Turkish emperor, who ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various

... a great many things. I can read some Latin, and I know about Greece and its splendid heroes who conquered a good deal of the world. There was Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon. And Tamerlane, who conquered nearly all Asia. And—and Confucius, the great man of China, who was a wise philosopher, and wrote ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... it seems not always to good purpose. We had need of some general visitor in our age, that should reform what is amiss; a just army of Rosy-cross men, for they will amend all matters (they say) religion, policy, manners, with arts, sciences, &c. Another Attila, Tamerlane, Hercules, to strive with Achelous, Augeae stabulum purgare, to subdue tyrants, as [596]he did Diomedes and Busiris: to expel thieves, as he did Cacus and Lacinius: to vindicate poor captives, as he did Hesione: to pass the torrid zone, the deserts of Libya, and purge the world ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... and Pericles, this under-estimate of our own, comes from a neglect of the fact of an identical nature. Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the good player. The poet uses the names of Caesar, of Tamerlane, of Bonduca, of Belisarius; the painter uses the conventional story of the Virgin Mary, of Paul, of Peter. He does not therefore defer to the nature of these accidental men, of these stock heroes. If the poet write a true drama, then he is Caesar, and not the ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... the highest and holiest of the Buddhists. He had great fame in the district as a prophet and worker of miracles—hence the hubbub when he was cut down. They tell me that he was living in this very cave when Tamerlane passed this way in 1399, with a lot ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle

... aristocracy, which is very fierce, makes him a favourite of mine. Recollect that those 'little factions' comprised Lord Chatham and Fox, the father, and that we live in gigantic and exaggerated times, which make all under Gog and Magog appear pigmean. After having seen Napoleon begin like Tamerlane and end like Bajazet in our own time, we have not the same interest in what would otherwise have appeared important history. But I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... was in no sense independent. Its position in India was analogous to that of British capitalists in America who are operating a mine or factory and have been authorized to police their property. The mighty house of Tamerlane had become a political nonentity, the empire of the Great Mogul was divided among nominal viceroys who were really independent sovereigns, gorgeous but indolent. The teeming millions of India were, for the most part, as unfitted by nature and occupation for the fatigues of war, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... Poe the enthusiastic admiration of Charles Dickens, although they made him many enemies among the over-puffed minor American writers so mercilessly exposed by him; such poems of beauty and melody as "The Bells," "The Haunted Palace," "Tamerlane," "The City in the Sea" and "The Raven." What delight for the jaded senses of the reader is this enchanted domain of wonder-pieces! What an atmosphere of beauty, music, color! What resources of imagination, construction, analysis and absolute art! One might almost sympathize ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... of submission to Tartar rule. Elsewhere the vast empire of Genghis still held firm. Russia lay under the vassalage of the khans. Central and Southern Asia trembled at the Mongol name. And at the very time that the Chinese were rising against and expelling their invaders, Timour, or Tamerlane, the second great conqueror of his race, was setting out from Central Asia on that mighty career of victory that emulated the deeds of the founder of the Mongol empire. Years afterwards Timour, after having drowned Southern Asia in a sea of blood, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... of wild Mahratta chiefs. Between the fierce invaders from the northern hills who ravaged, and levied tribute, and established dominion of their own, and such still powerful viceroys as held their own, and offered a nominal allegiance to the Mogul line, the glory of the race of Tamerlane was dimmed indeed. It occurred to one man, watching all the welter of the Indian world, where Mussulman and Hindoo struggled for supremacy—it occurred to Dupleix that in this struggle lay the opportunity for some European power—for his European power—for France—to ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... Reade, the chroniclers speak in the highest praise of Major Gorriquer. The officers and soldiers of the garrison, as well as the men of the navy, extended their touching sympathy to the hero who described his imprisonment as being worse than "Tamerlane's iron cage." Captain Maitland, in his narrative, relates a story which indicates the magnetic power of this great soldier. Maitland was anxious to know what his men thought of Napoleon, so he asked his servant, who told him that he had heard several ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... don't believe in the Bible. Then look at history, and see if this law is not true. Maxentine built a false bridge to drown Constantine, but was drowned himself. Bajazet was carried about by Tamerlane in an iron cage which he intended for Tamerlane. Maximinus put out the eyes of thousands of Christians; soon after a fearful disease of the eyes broke out among his people, of which he himself died in great agony. Valens caused about eighty Christians to be sent to sea in a ship and burnt alive: ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody

... he wishes to treat with deference and respect, he always introduces the subject with some such apology as we make in Europe, when we are obliged to speak of things which are regarded as disgusting or obscene. Conformably with this Asiatic prejudice, Tamerlane was highly affronted with the vanquished Turkish emperor Bajazet, for mentioning, in his presence, such impure creatures as women are considered by ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... carriage-wheels I trace; And see at every turn how they efface Whole villages of sand-roofed tents, That rise like golden domes Above the cavernous and secret homes Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants. Ah, cruel little Tamerlane, Who, with thy dreadful reign, Dost persecute and overwhelm These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm! What! tired already! with those suppliant looks, And voice more beautiful than a poet's books, Or murmuring sound of water ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... assaults of war, the ravages of fire, and the wear and tear of time. Kief and Vladimir, prior to that reign, had each served in turn as the capital of the empire. After the removal of the capital to Moscow, that city was besieged and ravaged by Tamerlane, and suffered from time to time during every succeeding century all the horrors of war, fire, pestilence, and famine, till 1812, when it was laid in ashes by the Russians themselves, who by this great ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... to dwell on the fact that these victories of what they so oddly called peace were usually purchased at a cost in human life and suffering quite as great as—yes, often greater than—those of so-called war. We have all read of Tamerlane's pyramid at Damascus made of seventy thousand skulls of his victims. It may be said that if the victims of the various inventions connected with the introduction of steam had consented to contribute their skulls ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... deny that Christ was crucified, he answered abruptly by telling him he was a witness to the truth of that event. He related also that he was in Rome when Nero set it on fire; he had known Saladin, Tamerlane, Bajazeth, Eterlane, and could give minute details of ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... now, when there was no war on hand, only Indian skirmishes, it would grow common-place. There were no breathless romances about it, as there were about Europe and Asia, where such conquerors as Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Alexander and Philip and Attila, Charlemagne and Napoleon had stalked across the world as it was known then. Not that Ben had any soldierly ambitions, but to youth everyday plodding along ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... English and French Crowns; but there arose between the English and French Companies trading to the East a war most eventful and important, a war in which the prize was nothing less than the magnificent inheritance of the house of Tamerlane. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... say, however fantastical. And yet I believe the absurdity of that barber to be among the great evils that have brought death nearer to man; whimsical and farcical as it was, yet a thing deadlier than Helen's beauty or Tamerlane's love of skulls. For just as character is outwardly shown so outward things react upon the character; and who, with that daring barber's ludicrous fancy visible always on his face, could quite go the sober ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany

... this elegy in so particular a manner that he must have seen it. "Marlovius (Christopherus), quondam in academia Cantabrigiensi musarum alumnus; postea actor scenicus; deinde poeta dramaticus tragicus, paucis inferior Scripsit plurimas tragedias, sc. Tamerlane.-Tragedie of Dido Queen of Carthage. Pr. Come gentle Ganymed. Hanc perfecit edidit Tho. Nash Lond. 1594. 4^to.—Petrarius in praefatione ad Secundam partem Herois et Leandri multa in Marlovii commendationem adfert; hoc etiam facit Tho. Nash in Carmine Elegiaco ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe

... practically undisturbed. Thus they spread themselves thin over a wide area. How lasting are the results of such conquests depends upon the degree of social evolution attained by the herdsmen. Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, after the manner of overlords, organized their conquered nations, but left them under the control of local princes,[1099] while their tribute gatherers annually swept the country like typical nomad marauders. The Turks are still only encamped in Europe. They too make taxation ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... (ilderim), sultan of Turkey. After subjugating Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Asia Minor, he laid siege to Constantinople, but was taken captive by Tamerlane emperor of Tartary. He was fierce as a wolf, reckless, and indomitable. Being asked by Tamerlane how he would have treated him had their lots been reversed, "Like a dog," he cried. "I would have made you my footstool when I mounted ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... penetrated farther south. Six of these Moguls reigned, and no dynasty in history has six consecutive names of equal power to boast. Hereditary genius has strong support in the careers of these illustrious men; besides this, Baber was a lineal descendant of Tamerlane himself, on his father's side, and of a scarcely less able Tartar leader on his mother's side. So ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... the instrument of his victories? Where is his country? it is the earth which is subject to him. His fellow citizens? they are the slaves who obey his orders. He complained one day of not having had under his command, like Tamerlane, nations to whom reasoning was unknown. I imagine that by this time he is satisfied with Europeans: their manners, like their armies, now bear a sufficient ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... eighty cashmere shawls of all kinds; a great quantity of fine pearls of various sizes, a few of them very large; an Eastern bridle, the curb adorned with pearls, turquoise, emeralds, etc.; and finally the sword of Tamerlane, and that of Thamas-Kouli-Khan, the former covered with pearls and precious stones, the second very simply mounted, both having Indian blades of fabulous value with arabesques of ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant



Words linked to "Tamerlane" :   Timur, Tamburlaine



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