The Internet Romance
He awakened hope
inside her, and she believed in a lucky lot.
Once again, she felt
beautiful, desirable - the contemporary Queen of Sheba.
For her, the flowers
bloomed in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
Roses diffused their
intoxicating perfume, and the nightingales sang at night.
The stars foretold
happiness, the moon plated her dreams with silver.
In the mornings she
would find a cup of coffee in the online
chat,
And a magnificent
bouquet of flowers with an attached love letter.
Magic carpets fell at
her feet, and silks enveloped her.
He left without a
word, melted into the ether like every mirage.
She awoke when he sent
a bill for the time they spent together.
An Internet identity is a social persona that has been created in online communities and websites, an actively constructed presentation of oneself which may be quite deceptive about the user's actual characteristics, though elements of genuine information may be provided (even in a confused and inconsistent manner).
ReplyDeleteA wealth of conflicting information exists (from ancient texts, traditions, anecdotes, imaginative elaboration, etc.) concerning the identities of the queen of Sheba and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, neither of which in fact has any firm historical existence.
For instance, The Alphabet of Ben Sira was an anonymous text that may have been composed sometime between the 8th and 101h centuries as a satirical parody of The Book of the All-Virtuous Wisdom of Joshua ben Sira, a work of ethical teachings from ca.200- 175 BCE written Shimon ben Yeshua ben Eliezer ben Sira, based on the sayings of his father, then translated into Greek by the author's unnamed grandson -- part of a virtual "email thread" that passes through infinity from one anonymous user to another.
According to the Alphabet, Nebuchadnezzar II was the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, though Solomon would have reigned in Judea ca..970 -931 (neither he nor his father David left behind any inscriptions attesting to their existence ).In about 290 BCE Berossus, a Babylonian priest of Marduk, may have claimed that Nebuchadnezzar constructed the Hanging Gardens around 600 BCE. However, no extant Babylonian text mentions the gardens, no inscription by Nebuchadnezzar describes any garden or engineering work commissioned by him (though numerous of his inscriptions exist), no definitive archaeological evidence for them has been found, and no text ascribed to Berossus has survived -- his writings are known only from quotations by later authors, especially Flavius Josephus (ca. 37–100), who was the only one to credit Nebuchadnezzar with their construction.
A surviving legend claims Nebuchadnezzar built the Gardens for Amuhia (attested only in the Greek form "Amytis," a name perhaps related to the old Persian *Umati—equivalent to Avestan humaiti. “having good thought.” ) in order to ease her homesickness by creating an architectural simulacrum of her native land. She may have been the illegitimate daughter of the Median king Cyaxares or his son Astyages and was married to Nebuchadnezzar to formalize the alliance between Babylonia and Media. No contemporary evidence of Amyitis (or any other wife of Nebuchadnezzar) exists.
The actual garden "of Bablyon" may indeed have been the one associated with a palace that the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704–681 BC) built in his pwn capital city, Nineveh, calling it "a wonder for all peoples." It was renowned not just for its beauty – a year-round oasis of lush green in a dusty summer landscape – but also for the marvelous feats of water engineering that maintained the garden, and the king's accounts of the construction and operations of the complex fit closely with those of later Greek and Roman writers who referred to the wonders of fabed Babylon. Parts of the palace were excavated by Austin Henry Layard in the 19th century: his citadel plan shows contours which would be consistent with Sennacherib's garden, but its position has not been confirmed. Sennacherib is also the only Mesopotamian king who left behind a record of his love for his wife: "And for Tashmetu-sharrat the palace woman, my beloved wife, whose features the Mistress of the Gods has made perfect above all other women, I had a palace of loveliness, delight and joy built..."