History of Vardan and the Armenian War

Just as Eghishe does not tire or weaken in his long descriptions, he is equally effective in his shorter ones. Compare his description of the ladies, which belongs to the first type, to what he says about these others.

"We are all the more astonished that people as delicate as they, residents of the expansive snow-capped mountains, became inhabitants of the scorching, heat-bearing plains. Those who appeared free among the flower-filled mountains were cast into the flame-burning land of the east, bound by their feet and bound by their hands."

As we have seen, moving and trembling emotions are not lacking in Eghishe, but the sublime and the powerful are much more frequent. The first seven chapters, excluding a few argumentative or didactic passages, possess high and vigorous meanings from beginning to end, with elegant and elevated expressions. The similes are sublime; the personifications, antitheses, and various other rhetorical forms are full of poetic divinity; the explanations never diminish in quality.

It is impossible to list the beauties of Eghishe’s writing one by one. Let us only recall that when he speaks of Yazkert Yazdegerd II, Sassanid King, or presents his commands and threats, the meanings rise higher than usual.

Nebuchadnezzar, while walking on the walls of his city one day, said, "Is this not the great Babylon that I have built as a house for the kingdom by the establishment of my power, for the honor of my glory?" When the Armenian tanuter lords/house masters reject his command and declare to him that they are ready to die..., Yazkert says, "You cannot destroy my impregnable ramparts, nor can you quickly find for yourselves that which you desire."

Beyond the character and customs, the nobility of thought and feeling, and the elegance of style, Eghishe’s History of Vardan has one more marvelous quality: it is a true-to-life portrait of the circumstances of the time, the attendant events, and the customs.

Although history and Eghishe himself tell us that after the removal of the Arshakuni Arsacid kingdom, "the authority fell to the nakharars noble lords/princes," the ruler of the Armenian land was neither the nakharars nor even the marzpan governor, but the Church, which