Monday, 28 July 2025

List Descriptions And Three Senses

Conan The Rebel, XII

See previous list descriptions (scroll down).

Traffic into the Stygian capital, Luxur:

foot
cart
litter
chariot
horse
ox
donkey
camel
loinclothed labourers
ragged-tunic-clad drovers
robed desert nomads
colourfully garbed merchants
gossamer-clad courtesans
soldiers
hawkers
strolling performers
housewives
children
foreigners

They:

crowd
jostle
chatter
quarrel
scream curses
yelp laughter
importune
haggle
intrigue
shout
wail
croon

Dirty, littered, cobbled streets smell of:

smoke
grease
dung
roast meat
oils
perfumes
drugs
humanity 
beasts

This is all in Poul Anderson's continuous prose. I have merely extracted lists of nouns and verbs.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Paul!

These lists give good descriptions of what real cities were/are like. The Stygian setting made me think of one of the greatest cities of Pharaonic Egypt, No-Amon (Thebes), often the capital of Egypt and the seat of many dynasties. The real Thebes must have almost exactly matched these lists.

The Book of Nahum gives us a good example of the shock felt thru out the ancient Near East when the Assyrians of the merciless King Esarhaddon plundered and sacked No-Amon.

Ad astra! Sean