King Arthur’s Castle- Dungeon
Mark Twain Version: While Mark Twain didn’t describe the
dungeon at all, going on reference from other medieval castles, here is how I
would have described the dungeon.
Clarence led me down a spiraling, narrow stone staircase to
the darkest, lowest part of the castle. When we got down, I had trouble seeing.
It was very dark in the dungeons, and the only light came through tiny barred
windows only big enough for a cat to walk through. The floor was ice cold, and
as I walked through the dungeon to my cell, I could hear rats squeaking and I
could smell rotting hay and dead rats. When I got to my cell, I was locked in.
It was a relatively small cell, maybe 12 feet by 12 feet. In the cell across
from me and all around me, I could hear the whimpers of prisoners. I felt more
and more closed in. The only thing keeping me company was a wet, moldy pile of
hay that I was supposed to sleep on. I preferred the stone floor.
King Arthur’s Castle- Courtyard
Mark Twain Version: I was lost. There was no help for me. I
was dazed, stupefied; I had no command over myself; I only wandered purposelessly
about like one out of his mind; so the soldiers took hold of me, and pulled me
along with them, out of the cell and along the maze of underground corridors,
and finally into the fierce glare of daylight and the upper world. As we
stepped into the vast enclosed court of the castle I got a shock; for the first
thing I saw was the stake, standing in the centre, and near it the piled fagots
and a monk. On all four sides of the court the seated multitudes rose rank
above rank, forming sloping terraces that were rich with color.
My Version: The guards dragged me from my cell early in the
morning and told me I was to be burned at the stake. Upon hearing this, I
laughed. They couldn’t be serious. I was dragged roughly up the stairs and into
the blinding sunshine. The day was breezy and the sky was bright blue. I was
walked to the large courtyard. I looked around me and saw hundreds of people
staring at me. There were large, high up bleachers all around, all in bright
colors. The grass was burned and brown from the sun. A muddy path led up to the
stake. Near to the stake was a pile of dried wood. The bleachers cast a shadow
over the courtyard as everyone stood up to see who was being burned. Everything
seemed so big; it felt like I was as little as a mouse.
Valley of Holiness
Mark Twain Version: We made good time; and a couple of hours
before sunset we stood upon the high confines of the Valley of Holiness, and
our eyes swept it from end to end and noted its features. That is, its large
features. These were the three masses of buildings. They were distant and idle temporalities
shrunken to toy constructions in the lonely waste of what seemed a desert- and
was.
My Version: We were very tired when we finally reached the
cliff overlooking the Valley of Holiness. It was a deep gap with a few
buildings scattered in it. It was a desert, with bones of animals that had gone
without water for too long scattered across it. The sun was setting behind this
desolate scene. As we made our way down into the valley, it grew very cold. The
sky darkened and the stars came out. If you looked up from the Valley, you felt
like you could see all the stars in the sky. It was such a difference from the
bone dry ground and empty desert we were walking through. Nothing could be seen
for miles from level ground, and the buildings that seemed so close from above
were not.
The Small Pox Hut
Mark Twain Version: Mark Twain did not describe the hut very
well, only stating that it smelled foul and that it had a thatched roof, making
it obviously the home of a peasant.
My Version: When we first saw the cabin, we both knew it was
the home of a peasant. It was in shambles, the roof was caving in almost, there
was but one dusty window on the whole house and the door stood ajar all the
way. We entered the cabin and smelled death. It smelled like corpses that were
a week old. A thin layer of dust covered everything in the room, which wasn’t
much. A small straw bed was crammed into a corner near a ladder that was
missing a few rungs. On the bed was the corpse of a man, and it had flies all
around it. Upon climbing the ladder we entered a small loft, where light was
coming in from the window. There were 3 straw beds lined up along the wall. The
floor creaked underneath us as we explored. There wasn’t much to see, as the
beds were the only thing in the room except a threadbare rug.
The Death Cave (Cave where Hank dies)
Mark Twain Version: Everywhere dead men were lying outside
the second fence- not plainly visible, but still visible; and we counted
fifteen of those pathetic statues- dead knights standing with their hands on
the upper wire.
My Version: I and Clarence entered the cave without our
army, fearing that they would make too much noise. As we walked, the
stalagmites and stalactites got so long that they almost touched tips in
places. A long, chain-link fence ran through the cave, and hung up on in were
many dead bodies of knights. They smelled of rot. But farther ahead in the cave
was a far different smell. Smoke! Ahead we could see the dim glow of a small
campfire. Around it sat many knights, polishing their armor and boasting. In the
ceiling above the fire there was a large hole so that the smoke could get out
and not trap the knights in a cave filled with smoke.
No comments:
Post a Comment