Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Oronooko: The Royal Slave
    Oronooko: The Royal Slave
    Oronooko: The Royal Slave
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Oronooko: The Royal Slave

    By Aphra Behn

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this Royal Slave, to entertain my reader with adventures of a feigned hero, whose life and fortunes fancy may manage at the poet's pleasure; nor in relating the truth, design to adorn it with any accidents but such as arrived in earnest to him: and it shall come simply into the world, recommended by its own proper merits and natural intrigues; there being enough of reality to support it, and to render it diverting, without the addition of invention.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Classics
    Release dateFeb 13, 2015
    ISBN9781633558663
    Oronooko: The Royal Slave
    Author

    Aphra Behn

    Born in the first few decades of the seventeenth century, Aphra Behn is one of early literature’s best-known female writers. Behn had the lucky distinction of being able to support herself strictly by her “pen,” something unheard of for women of her time. Throughout her long career, she wrote in various forms—poetry, plays, prose—and is known as a member of the ‘fair triumvirate of wit’ alongside fellow scribes Eliza Haywood and Delarivier Manley. Although little is known about her early life, Behn’s father held a post as lieutenant governor of Surinam, and Behn’s experiences during her stay most likely formed the basis for her most famous work, Oroonoko. Behn was also a popular dramatist in her time, penning critical successes like The Rover and The Feigned Courtesans. Her literary exploits aside, Behn is also known to have acted as a political spy for King Charles II of England during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Behn died in 1689, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

    Read more from Aphra Behn

    Related to Oronooko

    Related ebooks

    Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Shakespeare And Women

      Apr 15, 2021

      Shakespeare And Women
      2 min read

    • Article

      Norwegian Wood

      Jul 25, 2019

      HENRIK IBSEN: THE MAN AND THE MASK By Ivo de Figueiredo, translated by Robert Ferguson. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 2019. 704 pp., $40 cloth. HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND HENRIK IBSEN? Theatrically, he was the Master Builder himself, setting the

      7 min read

    • Article

      Book Review

      Sep 17, 2023

      Book Review
      4 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      The painting is of a door, its wood so warpedwith moisture it cannot close. It stays ajar leaving a sliver of light—enough to suggestsomething sweet and almost unreachable behind the door—and you sit in yourroom working on the bills or those comforti

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Island (catullus 64)

      Mar 1, 2022

      Back then the evergreens tumbled downriverfrom the glaze-white runoff to the boot-stirred puddlesof amber young men who fulfilled our destiny,who clambered into ships, on horses, and in wagonspainting the newfound landscapes ours.Our calling was nobl

      9 min read

    • Article

      1887 Vrc Derby

      Sep 30, 2021

      1887 Vrc Derby
      7 min read

    • Article

      Write Us!

      Feb 14, 2023

      Write Us!
      3 min read

    • Article

      Readers' Letters

      Oct 16, 2024

      SIR: Gyles Brandreth’s remark (October issue) that the joy of visiting Frinton in 2024 is that you feel as if you are in 1958 again reminded me of the saying that was common in Essex during the time I lived there: Harwich for the Continent, Frinton f

      3 min read

    • Article

      Down The Decades: The 1900s

      Feb 16, 2022

      Next episode: March 16 issue SIR, I would draw your attention to the misleading report that appears in your paper this week on the Goldfinch Class at Pontefract, where your reporter credits my winning Goldfinch with being a Russian. Your scribe has e

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Twitch Upon The Thread

      Oct 17, 2019

      A Twitch Upon The Thread
      6 min read

    • Article

      Bard In The Woods

      Nov 30, 2020

      Bard In The Woods
      4 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Sep 1, 2021

      If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied. —Rudyard Kipling, “Epitaphs of the War,” The Years Between, 1919 She consulted me, a glance, and said: “I think not anything off the wagon. It arrives too quickly. Let’s have somethi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Hook, Line And Sinker

      Oct 18, 2018

      Hook, Line And Sinker
      4 min read

    • Article

      Looking The Part

      Jun 9, 2023

      Looking The Part
      3 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Herero

      Nov 29, 2022

      The Herero
      5 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Jun 4, 2018

      I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. —Fred Allen I have always wondered, in reading travels, at the childish joy travellers felt at meeting people they knew, and their sense of loneliness when they did not, in

      4 min read

    • Article

      Where Will Your Reading Take You?

      Jun 9, 2023

      The Yorkshire Coiners: the true story of the Cragg Vale by Steve Hartley In a remote West Yorkshire valley named Cragg Vale in the late 18th century, a gang of counterfeiters defaced coins of the realm and returned them to circulation, melting down

      3 min read

    • Article

      Chitchat

      Nov 24, 2023

      Chitchat
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Modest Man

      Oct 17, 2019

      The Modest Man
      5 min read

    • Article

      Make A Spectacle Of Oneself

      Oct 27, 2022

      AWARE THAT QUEEN Elizabeth I said to Robert Cecil, a much greater man than I, “Little man, little man: must is not a word to be used to princes,” I am hesitant to address my new Sovereign Lord with the word “must”. But the Coronation must not be a se

      3 min read

    • Article

      How The World Turns A Blind Eye To African Slavery

      Oct 27, 2022

      SINCE I WAS OLD ENOUGH TO READ ABOUT Africa, I have been fascinated by the Tuareg. For more than a thousand years they were the fierce, veiled, camel-riding, sword-wielding warlords of the Sahara until they were ruthlessly conquered in the late ninet

      18 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2019

      “My arm is so brown and so beautiful,” is a thought I haveas I’m about to turn off the lamp and go to sleep.I look at it a moment in the soft glow, and see it, briefly,as though it belonged to someone else. A reddishkind of brown, like a toasted almo

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Oronooko

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Oronooko - Aphra Behn

      Royal Slave

      by Aphra Behn

      1688

      Start Publishing LLC

      Copyright © 2012 by Start Publishing LLC

      All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

      First Start Publishing eBook edition October 2012

      Start Publishing is a registered trademark of Start Publishing LLC

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      ISBN 978-1-63355-866-3

      I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this Royal Slave, to entertain my reader with adventures of a feigned hero, whose life and fortunes fancy may manage at the poet's pleasure; nor in relating the truth, design to adorn it with any accidents but such as arrived in earnest to him: and it shall come simply into the world, recommended by its own proper merits and natural intrigues; there being enough of reality to support it, and to render it diverting, without the addition of invention.

      I was myself an eye-witness to a great part of what you will find here set down; and what I could not be witness of, I received from the mouth of the chief actor in this history, the hero himself, who gave us the whole transactions of his youth: and though I shall omit, for brevity's sake, a thousand little accidents of his life, which, however pleasant to us, where history was scarce and adventures very rare, yet might prove tedious and heavy to my reader, in a world where he finds diversions for every minute, new and strange. But we who were perfectly charmed with the character of this great man were curious to gather every circumstance of his life.

      The scene of the last part of his adventures lies in a colony in America, called Surinam, in the West Indies.

      But before I give you the story of this gallant slave, 'tis fit I tell you the manner of bringing them to these new colonies; those they make use of there not being natives of the place: for those we live with in perfect amity, without daring to command 'em; but, on the contrary, caress 'em with all the brotherly and friendly affection in the world; trading with them for their fish, venison, buffalo's skins, and little rarities; as marmosets, a sort of monkey, as big as a rat or weasel, but of marvelous and delicate shape, having face and hands like a human creature; and cousheries, a little beast in the form and fashion of a lion, as big as a kitten, but so exactly made in all parts like that noble beast that it is it in miniature. Then for little paraketoes, great parrots, mackaws, and a thousand other birds and beasts of wonderful and surprising forms, shapes, and colors. For skins of prodigious snakes, of which there are some threescore yards in length; as is the skin of one that may be seen at his Majesty's Antiquary's; where are also some rare flies, of amazing forms and colors, presented to 'em by myself; some as big as my fist, some less; and all of various excellencies, such as art cannot imitate. Then we trade for feathers, which they order into all shapes, make themselves little short habits of 'em and glorious wreaths for their heads, necks, arms, and legs, whose tinctures are unconceivable. I had a set of these presented to me, and I gave 'em to the King's Theater, and it was the dress of the Indian Queen, infinitely admired by persons of quality; and was unimitable. Besides these, a thousand little knacks and rarities in nature; and some of art, as their baskets, weapons, aprons, etc. We dealt with 'em with beads of all colors, knives, axes, pins, and needles; which they used only as tools to drill holes with in their ears, noses, and lips, where they hang a great many little things; as long beads, bits of tin, brass or silver beat thin, and any shining trinket. The beads they weave into aprons about a quarter of an ell long, and of the same breadth; working them very prettily in flowers of several colors; which apron they wear just before 'em, as Adam and Eve did the fig-leaves; the men wearing a long stripe of linen, which they deal with us for. They thread these beads also on long cotton threads, and make girdles to tie their aprons to, which come twenty times, or more, about the waist, and then cross, like a shoulder-belt, both ways, and round their necks, arms, and legs. This adornment, with their long black hair, and the face painted in little specks or flowers here and there, makes 'em a wonderful figure to behold. Some of the beauties, which indeed are finely shaped, as almost all are, and who have pretty features, are charming and novel; for they have all that is called beauty, except the color, which is a reddish yellow; or after a new oiling, which they often use to themselves, they are of the color of a new brick, but smooth, soft, and sleek. They are extreme modest and bashful, very shy, and nice of being touched. And though they are all thus naked, if one lives forever among 'em there is not to be seen an undecent action, or glance: and being continually used to see one another so unadorned, so like our first parents before the Fall, it seems as if they had no wishes, there being nothing to heighten curiosity; but all you can see, you see at once, and every moment see; and where there is no novelty, there can be no curiosity. Not but I have seen a handsome young Indian dying for love of a very beautiful young Indian maid; but all his courtship was to fold his arms, pursue her with his eyes, and sighs were all his language: while she, as if no such lover were present, or rather as if she desired none such, carefully guarded her eyes from beholding him; and never approached him but she looked down with all the blushing modesty I have seen in the most severe and cautious of our world. And these people represented to me an absolute idea of the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin. And 'tis most evident and plain that simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive, and virtuous mistress. 'Tis she alone, if she were permitted, that better instructs the world than all the inventions of man. Religion would here but destroy that tranquillity they possess by ignorance; and laws would but teach 'em to know offense, of which now they have no notion. They once made mourning and fasting for the death of the English Governor, who had given his hand to come on such a day to 'em, and neither came nor sent; believing, when a man's word was past, nothing but death could or should prevent his keeping it: and when they saw he was not dead, they asked him what name they had for a man who promised a thing he did not do. The Governor told them, such a man was a liar, which was a word of infamy to a gentleman. Then one of 'em replied, Governor, you are a liar, and guilty of that infamy. They have a native justice, which knows no fraud; and they understand no vice, or cunning, but when they are taught by the white men. They have plurality of wives; which, when they grow old, serve those that succeed 'em, who are young, but with a servitude easy and respected; and unless they take slaves in war, they have no other attendants.

      Those on that continent where I was had no king; but the oldest war-captain was obeyed with great resignation.

      A war-captain is a man who has led them on to battle with conduct and success; of whom I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter, and of some other of their customs and manners, as they fall in my way.

      With these people, as I said, we live in perfect tranquillity and good understanding, as it behoves us to do; they knowing all the places where to seek the best food of the country, and the means of getting it; and for very small and unvaluable trifles, supply us with that 'tis impossible for us to get: for they do not only in the woods, and over the savannahs, in hunting, supply the parts of hounds, by swiftly scouring through those almost impassable places, and by the mere activity of their feet run down the nimblest deer and other eatable beasts; but in

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1