Page 62. “Represented the danger of letting an enemy live when in one's power.”—This unmerciful suggestion* ill accords with the humane precept of Hūshung, an early King of Persia, surnamed Pīshdād (the First Distributor of Justice), and dictated by him to Tahmuras, the heir apparent: “The sovereign extends the skirt of pardon and the robe of clemency over those who have erred; … acting according to this injunction: When thou hast prevailed over thy foe, pardon him, in gratitude for the power obtained over him. ‘Bind him,’ says the poet, ‘with the chains of forgiveness, that he may become your slave.’”
Page 62. “Advised him not to be precipitate.”—With more eloquence does a falsely accused lady plead to her husband in the Anvār-i Suhailī (p. 243 of Eastwick's translation): “The wise think deliberation requisite in all affairs, especially in shedding blood, since if it be necessary to take life, the opportunity of doing so is left; and if—which God forbid!—they should, through precipitation, put an innocent person to death, and it should afterwards be known that he did not deserve to be slain, the remedy would be beyond the circle of possibility, and the punishment thereof would hang to all eternity on the neck of the guilty party.” And elsewhere in the same charming work we are told that “the heart of a King ought to be like the billowy sea, so as not to be discoloured by the dirt and rubbish of calumny; and the centre of his clemency should be like the stately mountain, firm in a position of stability, so that the furious wind of anger cannot move it.”
Page 62. King Dādīn, or Dādiyān—a title formerly given to the Persian Kings of the first, or Pīshdādian, dynasty, and in a later age assumed also by the Princes of Mingrelia. (Chardin, vol. i, p. 82.)
Page 62. Kārdār signifies busy, a money lender, a prime minister, and is a compound of kār, work, occupation, and dãr, possessing, lord, master.—Kāmgār is composed of kām, desire, wish, and gār, a particle which, subjoined to a word, denotes agency.
Page 63. “Having reason to believe her father would not consent to bestow her on him.”—The text runs thus: “He said to himself, ‘Kāmgār is an ascetic (zāhid) and a religious man (pārsā), and would not give me his daughter.’”
Page 64. “Begged permission to inform his daughter”—the text adds, “and, in conformity with the law of Muhammad (sharī'at), obtain her consent.”—This is a proof that the lady had attained marriageable age, as the consent of a girl not arrived at the age of puberty is not required.
Page 64. “Related to her all that had passed.”—The text: “The daughter said, ‘I am not worthy of the King; besides, once in the King's service, I cannot [devote myself to the] worship [of] God the Most High; and for the least fault the King would punish me.’”
Page 65. “Sent her to his palace (sarāy-harem), and appointed servants—besides a cook.” Here there is a very remarkable difference between Ouseley's and the lithographed texts, and between these again and Lescallier and Habicht. This is what the lithographed text says: “And in the service i.e. [of the late vizier Kāmgār] there was a good man (khayyir) who had acted as a spiritual guide (buzurg), whom the King did not admit in the harem. This holy person, who had been constantly at the side of the daughter, wrote a letter [to this effect]: ‘Do thou confirm the reward of service, and speak to the King about my wish [in order] that he may admit me into thy service, [seeing] that I should perish from disappointment.’ … (the King gave his consent) … and the daughter continued her devotions in peace and tranquillity.” Thus, in place of a cook, as in our version, the lithographed text has, more appropriately, a holy man: but in Lescallier and in Habicht, this person is, strange to say, a jester, or merry-andrew—bouffon—lustigmacher!—while in Cazotte's rendering of the Arabic version, and in the Turkī version of this story (a translation of which is appended to the present notes), he is simply described as a slave.
Page 66. Discovered her sitting alone on the balcony (bāl-khāna) , viz. a latticed window on the upper storey of the harem —hence our word “balcony.”
Page 66. “Kārdār, fearing lest she should relate to the King what had passed,” &c.—Although many Oriental stories— Indian, Persian, Arabian—are designed to show the malice and craft of women, there are yet some, and the present tale is an example, in which men, when foiled in their attempts upon the chastity of women, are exhibited as equally adroit and unscrupulous. Another instance occurs in the Anvar - i -Suhailī , ii, 10, where a beautiful and virtuous wife is described in verses which are also applicable to the Vizier's daughter of our story:
To wordly matters she had closed her eye,
Sate curtained by the veil of chastity;
E'en to the glass her form would not display,
And from her shadow sank, alarmed, away.
This lady's husband had a slave, who cast the eye of desire upon her, and “when he despaired of success, as is the wont of evil men, he determined to assail her reputation, and employ a stratagem to secure her disgrace.” So he buys two parrots, and teaches them to say that the lady had been unfaithful to her husband; but he fails in his diabolical scheme.
Page 67. “He addressed her with the usual salutation, which she returned.”—That is: Es-salāmu 'alaykum, “Peace be on you!” to which she replied: 'Alaykum es-salām. But the lady devotee would probably “salute with a better salutation,” in accordance with the Kur'ān, iv, 88: “When ye are saluted with a salutation, salute the person with a better salutation, or at least, return the same.” “A better salutation” —that is, by adding rahmatu-'llāhi wa barakātuh, “and the mercy of God and His blessings!” In saluting a co-religionist, this addition is obligatory.
Page 67. “It was a maxim of the wise men: When you have killed the serpent, you should also kill its young.”—Can this “maxim” have been borrowed from Sa'dī, who says (Gulistan, i, 4): “To extinguish a fire and leave the embers, or to kill a viper and preserve its young, is not the act of wise men?” If so, this work, in its present form, must have been composed after the 13th century.
Page 68. “Ordered the unfortunate cook to be instantly cut in two.”—A horrible mode of putting a culprit to death, and peculiar, it is said, to the criminal law of Persia.
Page 69. “Being dissuaded by an attendant from killing a woman.”—The Persians seldom put women to death, as the shedding of their blood is supposed to bring misfortune on the country. But when found guilty and condemned, the injunction prescribed by the law, of another man's wife never being seen unveiled, is strictly respected, by conducting the culprit, enveloped in the veil habitually worn by her, to the summit of a lofty tower, and throwing her thence headlong.
Page 68. “Was turned into the dreary wilderness.”—In Indian Fairy Tales daughters who offend their fathers are frequently sent into the desert. For instance, in the Romance of the Four Dervishes (the Hindū version, Bāgh o Bahār), a king has seven daughters, and one day he impiously tells them that all their good fortune depends upon his life. Six of them profess to agree with him in this sentiment; but the seventh, and youngest, who has more sense and judgment than the others, dissents, saying that the destinies of every one are with oneself. The king, on hearing this, became angry. The reply displeased him highly, and he said in wrath: “What great words issue from a little mouth! Now let this be your punishment, that you strip off whatever jewels she has on her hands and feet, and let her be placed in a litter and set down in a wilderness, where no human traces are found; then shall we see what is written in her destinies.” She is accordingly carried into the desert, where she offers up fervent prayers to Heaven, and falls asleep. In this way, praying and sleeping, she passed three days without food or water, until on the fourth day a hermit appears, who relieves her wants, and, to be brief, she discovers a hidden treasure, causes a magnificent palace to be erected, and sends for her parents and sisters, who are naturally confounded at her good fortune. In like manner, Husn Bānū, in the Romance of Hatim Ta'ī, having justly accused a Dervish, who was a favourite of the King, of robbing her house, is expelled from the city, and in the desert she discovers, through a dream, the hidden treasure of the Seven Regions, underneath a tree.
Page 68. “Resigned herself to the will of Providence, conscious of her own innocence.”—The text states that she said this prayer: “O God! Creator! thou knowest I am innocent; if Thou hast foreordained* that I should die, vouchsafe at least a little water [inflow] in my mouth, that my tongue may testify to thine incomparable unity.” The text also says that when the fountain of water sprang up, she “performed the ablution” (prescribed by the Kur'ān), and “stood up in prayer.” This seems to imply that she turned her face towards the Kibla (that is, Mecca), and went through the different postures of prayer.—See Lane's Modern Egyptians, chapter iii.
Page 69. “The camel placed himself so as to afford her a shade from the sunbeams.”—Although our author was, no doubt, a pious believer in this miracle, including the part that was played in it by the camel, yet it can only appear ludicrous to Europeans, and those who have had the good fortune to read, either in the original Telūgū, or in Babington's translation, the Adventures of the Gūrū Paramartan, will probably be reminded by this of the story of the Gūrū, who, having hired an ox to ride upon, reposed under the shade of the animal during the heat of the day, and the owner demanded additional pay, alleging that he did not lend his ox as an umbrella against the sun's rays. The case was referred to the head-man of a village, who, after relating a somewhat similar case within his own experience, decided as follows: “For journeying hither on the ox, the proper hire is money; and for remaining in the ox's shadow, the shadow of the hire-money is sufficient.”†
Page 69. “It happened that one of the King's camel-keepers,” &c.—According to the text, “had lost a katar of camels,” that is, several linked together, and following one another.
Page 69. “At his request she prayed for the recovery of the camels.”—The text says: “The daughter, having raised her face towards heaven, said, ‘O God! Creator! thou knowest that these camels are not his own, and that he is a hired labourer (muzdar), but now is without resource and afflicted, through thy loving kindness and bounty, [be pleased to] restore to him the camels.’” Muhammadans often implore the intercession of saints (and the cameleer, of course, believed the lady to be nothing short of a saint), both living and dead, on their behalf. To be worthy of the dignity of a true saint requires self-denial, mortification, a perfect reliance on Providence, and the keeping aloof from the habitations of men; above all, that, while professing the unity of God (lā ilāha illa-'llāh), no living creature should see their lips move. Lane, in a note to his translation of the Thousand and One Nights (ch. xi, n. 37), states that “the Sayyida Nafīsa, the great-grandaughter of the Imām El-Hasan, was a very celebrated saint; and many miracles are related to have been performed by her. Her tomb, which is greatly venerated, is in a mosque in the southern suburb of Cairo.”
Page 70. “He would provide for her a retired apartment,” &c.—The text reads: “I will prepare an oratory (sawma'ā), and make ready for thy sake the means (asbāb: furniture) for devotion (asbāb-i-'ībāda);” such as a prayer-carpet (sajjāda), having a mark upon it pointing towards Mecca, the Kibla of Muslims, or point to which they direct their faces in saying their prayers, as Jerusalem is that of the Jews and Christians: within the mosque it is shown by a niche, and is called El-Mihrāb . The hypocritical saint is thus described by Sa'dī (Gulistān ii, 17):
Devotees who fix their eyes on the world,
Say their prayers with their backs to the Kibla.
There should also be a fountain of running water (for ceremonial ablution) and a copy of the Kur'ān.
Page 70. “Arrived at the city at the time of evening prayer.”—It is incumbent on every good Muslim (says Dr Forbes, in a note to his translation of Bāgh o Bahār) to pray five times in the 24 hours. The stated periods are rather capriciously settled: (1) The morning prayer is to be repeated between daybreak and sunrise; (2) The prayer of noon, when the sun shows a sensible declination from the meridian; (3) afternoon prayer, when the sun is so near the horizon that the shadow of a perpendicular object is twice its length; (4) evening prayer, between sunset and close on twilight; (5) the prayer of night, any time during darkness.
Page 71. “She begged that he would conceal himself in the apartment whilst she should converse with Kārdār.”—This, it seems to me, is quite after the manner of a modern European play or novel—when the “villain” is made to unmask himself, by a pious ruse of “injured innocence.” I cannot call to mind a similar scene in any other Eastern romance which I have read.
Page 72. “Concealed behind the hangings” (see also p. 67, line 8 from foot).—The use of hangings, pictured tapestry, and various coloured carpets has been from the earliest ages prevalent in the East. We read in the Book of Esther, chapter i, &c., of the magnificence of a Persian monarch, who made a feast unto his nobles of Persia and Media, and in his palace had hangings, white, green, and red, fastened with purple cords to silver rings, with beds of gold and silver; and Plutarch, in Themistocles, speaks of the rich Persian carpets, with highly-coloured figures; and in his life of Cato the Censor, he mentions some Babylonian tapestry sent to Rome as a present. The manufacture passed in very early times from Asia into Greece, part of which, indeed, was itself Asiatic. Iris found Helen employed on figured tapestry, and the web of Penelope is sufficiently known (Iliad iii).— Sir William Ouseley's Persian Miscellanies.
This story of King Dādīn and his Two Viziers is, perhaps, the best of the whole series; and it will doubtless interest the general reader to see a Turkī version of it, according to a unique manuscript, preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, written, in 1434, in the Uygur language and characters,* of which mention is made in the Second Section of the INTRO-DUCTION. M. Jaubert, who wrote an account of this manuscript in the Journal Asiatique, tom. x, 1827, remarks, that, “apart from the interest which the writing and phraseology of the work might possess for those who study the history of languages, it is rather curious for the history of manners to see how a Tātār translator sets to work to bring within the range of his readers stories embellished in the original with descriptions and images familiar, doubtless, to a learned and refined nation like the Persians, but foreign to shepherds.” The following rendering of M. Jaubert's translation of the Turkī version of “King Dādīn and his Two Viziers” is, I believe, the first that has yet appeared in English.
ONE of the Vezīrs advanced and said: “O King! command that they put this slave to death, for all the people murmur, indignant at his crime, and we ourselves are grieved at such a rumour.” Then the King commanded, and they made Bakht-yār approach, and he said to him: “Slave, wherefore madest thou that attempt? Of a truth I will not spare thee this day.” Bakhtyār replied: “O King, I am innocent, and I look from the Divine pity that thou deliver me from these bonds, in like manner as the guiltless bride of the King Dādīn was delivered from hers.” The King said: “What befell that woman?”
There was in Tātāristan (answered Bakhtyār), a King who had a beautiful wife and two Vezīrs.* One of these Vezīrs was called Kerdār, the other Kārdān.† Kerdār was father of a maiden of beauty so perfect that one could not find in the whole world anything to vie with it; and she was so pious that not only did she recite the Kur'ān all day, but she passed the nights in prayer. Impressed by the greatness of her devotion, King Dādīn became enamoured of this maiden without having seen her, and he demanded her of her father in marriage, and he promised to advise her. He did so, but she replied: “Passing my life in prayer, I cannot agree to become a great lady, and my ambition is limited to the service of God.” The Vezīr reported these words to the King, who, in the greatness of his anger, put him to death. Then he caused the maiden to be brought to the palace, and he said to her: “I desire to raise thee to the dignity of a princess; during the day thou shalt pray to God here, during the night thou shalt serve me.” Just then there arrived a courier, bearing important letters. The King ordered the maiden to pray for him; he confided the care of his city to his Vezīr Kārdān; and having mounted his horse, with a party of his nobles, went forth.
One day, when the Vezīr was repeating his prayers, his eyes fell upon the maiden. Dazzled by the splendour of her beauty, he became suddenly enamoured of her, and approached her and said: “O maiden, I am enamoured of thee; if thou fearest God have pity on my sufferings and reward my love!” The lady replied: “The King, in his trust, has left thee in his house, and thou seekest to make me betray him! Take heed that thou commit not this evil deed;—suffer not thyself to be taken in the snares of Satan for a woman, and think not that all of my sex are in nature alike. I pardon thee thy sin—beware of rushing on thy ruin.” When the Vezīr heard these words he perceived that he could not succeed in his design. Then he repented of his conduct, and said within himself: “If the King learns of this event, he will kill me; so let me invent some stratagem which will bring about the maiden's ruin instead of mine.”
Now the Vezīr, father of the lady, had brought from his nat ve country a slave who had been brought up with her, and in whose company she was accustomed to live.* When the King had finished his campaign, and returned [to his capital], he called the Vezīr before him, and asked of all that had happened during his absence, and particularly about the lady. The Vezīr said: “O King! I have something to say, and yet I dare not.” “Speak,” replied the King: “I know that thou art a good and faithful minister, and that thou canst not betray the truth.” Then the Vezīr replied: “Some one told me that a slave, brought from his native country by the father of that maiden, had had guilty connection with her. At first I regarded this imputation as a slander. ‘What is that?’ said I to myself. ‘The King loves that lady, so that with her the sorrows of this world seem light to him. Besides, if the fault had been committed, there would be witnesses—the thing cannot be.’ One day, however, an [other] individual sought me out, to bring me to see what was being done by the favourite of the King. I went, I listened, I recognised the maiden's voice, and that of the slave. She was saying to him: ‘In thus dishonouring me as thou hast done, thou hast put me in danger of perishing like my father, whose death I [involuntarily] caused. I must be thy portion.’ The slave replied: ‘But what is thy intention concerning the King?’ The maiden answered: ‘He must be killed by means of some stratagem; if we work well together we shall succeed in our design. Take thou measures concerning the King;—kill him, for he has slain my father unjustly, and I am bound to take vengeance.’ When I heard these words,” continued the Vezīr, “I felt my body tremble. The reality of the fact was made clear to me, as it was to the person who had informed me. Now it is yours, O King, to know what ought to be done.”
When the King heard this story he was very angry. He caused the slave's head to be cut off. He called the maiden before him, and asked what words she had used, and cruelly reproached her, for that, after being overwhelmed with honours, she had dared to conceive so guilty a design. She replied: “O King, deign to give full trust to my words, and if thou fearest God, slay me not on the report of my most cruel enemies.” But far from believing her sincerity, the King ordered his favourite to be put to death. Happily, this Prince had a faithful slave, who showed to him how the murder of a woman were a shameful deed; that it was enough to have killed her accomplice; that it were better to banish that unhappy woman to some wilderness far from the dwellings of man, where she must inevitably perish; and that at least by refraining from staining his hands with her blood, he should be doing an action pleasing to God. So the King ordered an old woman to mount the maiden upon a camel, to take her to a lonely desert and leave her there, and this was forthwith done And so that hapless one was left in the wilderness, with no other aid than the Divine compassion.
This desert lay on the boundaries of the realms of the King of Persia, one of whose cameleers* had lost a camel. He was seeking it vainly on every side, when suddenly he perceived a beautiful lady praying to God. Fearing to disturb her, the cameleer waited till she had finished her prayers, when he went up to her, saluted her, and asked her who she was. “I am,” said she, “a poor, weak handmaid of God.” “Who has brought thee here?” continued the cameleer. She replied: “God.” Then the cameleer said within himself: “This lady is indeed favoured with the grace of the Most High.” He said to her: “I am in the service of the King of Persia; if thou desirest, I shall marry thee, and have for thee the greatest regard.” “I cannot consent thereto,” replied she; “but for the love of God, lead me to some inhabited spot, where I may find water, and I will remember thee in my prayers.” The cameleer complied with her request; he mounted the maiden upon his camel, led her to a village, confided her to the care of the head - man of the village till he should return; and set out in quest of the camel he had lost, which he immediately found—a good fortune which he attributed to the maiden's prayers.
He gave thanks therefor to God, and returned to the King of Persia, to whom he spoke of the maiden's beauty, piety, and of all the perfections with which she was adorned. “Such a lady,” said the King, “would suit well to be my wife.” Thereupon he mounted his horse, and with a great number of his servants proceeded to the village. When he saw the lady he was filled with admiration, and he said to her: “Maiden, I am the King of Persia; be my bride, and I will care for thee with the greatest of care.” “O King!” replied she, “may the Divine favour increase thy prosperity! Thou possessest a great number of women; and as for me, I have no need of a husband; for the love of God appears to me more desirable than the whole world.” And she continued her prayers. Then the King gave orders that his tents should be erected in that spot, and that they should cut there channels of running water; and he remained there some days. At the end of that time, moved by the sweet words and piety of the maiden, but hurried by the affairs of state, he mounted her in a litter, led her to his capital, gave her apartments in his own kiosk, and having ordered preparations for a brilliant nuptial feast, he married her. After that he gave her great riches, beautiful clothes, many servants, and a splendid palace. One night this lady related her adventures to the King of Persia; and on the morrow that prince assembled a vast army, set out, and took prisoner the King Dādīn, the Vezīr Kārdān, and also the faithful servant to whom the lady owed her life. She called King Dādīn before her, and said to him: “Though I was innocent and true, thou sentest me into a desert to die; but God has had compassion upon me, and has brought thee hither to me, loaded with chains.” Then addressing the Vezīr Kārdān, she said: “How is it that thou hast allowed thyself to be taken in the snare which thou didst prepare for me?” The Vezīr replied: “O maiden! thou wast not guilty, and all that I said was a lie; therefore hath God punished me!” “Praise be to Him!” replied the lady, “for He has granted that I should live, and that people should know my innocence! For the rest, I desire that they who slew my father should receive their due reward.” So the King of Persia ordered the Vezīr to be taken to the same desert whither the maiden had been sent. There he died of hunger and thirst. King Dādīn was beheaded as a punishment for the murder he had committed; and his dominions were given to the faithful servant [whose good advice aided the safety, the innocence, and the triumph of virtue].
Page 72. “Your Majesty can easily put to death a living man, but you cannot restore a dead man to life.”—Here again (see note on page 184) we have what seems to be an instance of borrowing from Sa'dī, who, in his Gulistān, viii, maxim 54, thus finely expresses this sentiment (Professor Eastwick's translation):
'Tis very easy one alive to slay;
Not so to give back life thou tak'st away:
Reason demands that archers patience show,
For shafts once shot return not to the bow.*
Were it possible, we might suppose that our English poet Cowley had simply paraphrased these couplets of Sa'dī in the following verses:
Easy it was the living to have slain,
But bring them, if thou canst, to life again:
The arrow's shot—mark how it cuts the air,
Try now to bring it back, or stay it there:
That way impatience sent it; but thou'lt find
No track of it, alas! is left behind.
Page 74. “Women, for their own purposes, often devise falsehoods, and are very expert in artifice and fraud.”—It was a saying of Muhammad that “women are deficient in judgment and religion,” which induces their co-religionists of the other sex to believe that they are more inclined than men to practise whatever is unlawful. When woman was created, the Devil, we are told, was delighted, and said: “Thou art half of my host, and thou art the depositary of my secret, and thou art my arrow, with which I shoot, and miss not.”† The Turkish Tales of the Forty Viziers (another romance of the Sindibād cycle— see INTRODUCTION) chiefly refer to the craft and malice of women. In the present story, however, female artifice is not employed for wicked ends.
Page 74. “The King of 'Irāk.”—There are two 'Irāks; one is a division of Arabia to the south of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Towards the north-east it is watered by the branches of the Euphrates, and is consequently fertile and well inhabited, having many cities and towns, of which Basra is the principal; to the south-west it is a barren desert. By Orientals it is called 'Irāk 'Arabi, to distinguish it from the other 'Irāk, ('Irāk 'Ajami) a province of Persia, bounded on the north by Ghilān and Mazinderān, on the east by Khurāsān, on the south by Farsistān, and on the west by 'Irāk 'Arabi. This province contains part of ancient Media and Parthia. It is nearly a hundred and fifty leagues in length, and one hundred and twenty in breadth; partly mountainous and sterile, having vast sandy plains; but the greater part fruitful and populous. Isfahān is the capital.* It is of Persian 'Irāk that the poet Nizāmī thus speaks:
'Irāk, the delightful, be thy darling,
For great is the fame of its redundancy;
And every rose which enraptureth the soul
Distilleth its balmy drops upon 'Irāk!
Page 74. Abyssinia, or Habashat (that is, “a mixture,” or “confusion”), forms an extensive country of Eastern Africa, the boundaries of which are not well defined. The natives call their country Manghesta Ityopia, or Kingdom of Ethiopia.
Page 75. “When they disclosed the object of their mission, he became angry”—at the presumption of an unbeliever (who attributed partners to God) asking in marriage the daughter of one of the faithful. The conversion of Abyssinia to Christianity was prior to the fourth and continued even as late as the twelfth century. The Coptic patriarch of Cairo is still the nominal head of the Church, but the episcopal office is confined to the Abūnā, the resident head, and author, of the Abyssinian priesthood.—Gibbon.
Page 76. “Caused so much money to be distributed among the soldiers that they were satisfied.”—So says Sa'dī, Gulistān i, 14 (Eastwick's translation):
Soldiers, from whom the State withholds its gold,
Will from the scimitar their hands withhold:
What valour in war's ranks will he display,
Whose hand is empty on the reckoning day?
Page 77. “The King of 'Irāk had some years previously given his daughter in marriage to another man, by whom she had a son.”—This concealment of a former marriage is incomprehensible. Lescallier's French rendering, made from other Persian texts, gives a different account of this affair: “She had had previously a lover, with whom, unknown to her father, she had intimate relations, and had given birth to a beautiful boy, whose education she secretly confided to some trusty servants.” Afterwards the Princess of 'Irāk contrived to introduce him to her father. who was so charmed with his beauty, grace of manner, and varied accomplishments, that he at once took him into his service. Habicht's Breslau edition of the Arabian version agrees with Lescallier on this point. In the version of this story in the Tūtī Nāma (Tales of a Parrot) of Nakshabī,* the lady is the daughter of the Emperor of Rūm (see Note, p. 158), and, as in our text, had a son by a former marriage, about whose existence her father charges her not to say a word to her second husband.
Page 78. “The name of the boy was Farrukh-zād”—that is, “fortunately-born”; from farrukh, happy, fortunate, and zād, born.
Page 81. “An old woman beheld the Queen, as she sat alone, weeping.”—In Eastern fiction old women—and especially hypocritical devotees—are useful go-betweens for lovers, and excellent, prudent procuresses. In the present case, however, the old woman plays an unusual rôle: employing her sage experience and skill in reconciling husband and wife.
Page 82. “I have a certain talisman,” &c.—The word talism is not in the lithographed text; the sentence is to this effect: “I have that which is precious, and possesses the same magical power as the precious things of Solomon, written in Greek characters and in the Syrian language”—which means, Syrian words disguised under the letters of the Greek alphabet. Among the Arabs and Persians it is a common belief that Solomon, the son of David, by virtue of a seal-ring (Muhr-i-Sulaymāni) sent down from heaven, had unlimited control over the good and evil spirits (jinn), and over birds, the winds, and beasts.*
The origin of Solomon's magical signet-ring, which is so often mentioned in Oriental poetry and romance, according to Muslim legends—borrowed or adapted from the Talmudic writers—is as follows: Eight angels appeared to Solomon in a vision, saying that Allah had sent them to surrender to him the power over them and the eight winds at their command. The most exalted of the angels presented him with a jewel with this inscription: To Allah belong greatness and might. Whenever he raised the stone towards heaven, they would appear and do his bidding. Next four others appeared, differing from each other in form and name. One resembled an immense whale, another an eagle, the third a lion, and the fourth a serpent. These were lords of all creatures living in the earth and in the water. The angel representing the kingdom of birds gave him a jewel on which was inscribed: All created things praise the Lord. An angel then appeared, whose upper part looked like the earth, and the lower like water, having power over both earth and sea, and gave him a jewel with the inscription: Heaven and Earth are servants of Allah. A third angel surrendered to him power over the kingdom of spirits, with a jewel on which was inscribed: There is no God but one, and Muhammad is His Messenger.* Solomon caused the four jewels to be set in a signet-ring, and the first purpose to which he applied its wondrous powers was the subjugation of the demons and jinn— all but the mighty Sakhr, who was concealed in an unknown island of the ocean, and Iblīs (Satan), the monster of all evil spirits, to whom God had promised the most perfect independence till the Day of Judgment.† In Oriental fictions the most solemn and binding oath with Fairies is to swear by the Seal of Solomon. Readers familiar with the Arabian Nights will recollect the Story of the Fisherman and the Genie (jinnī). A confidence in the virtue of Talismans, whether for the protection of persons, treasures, or cities, may be traced up to the earliest ages, when so many Eastern nations were of the Sabean faith, and adored the “host of heaven,” or the celestial bodies; and notwithstanding the change of religion and the prohibition of magic, even Muhammadans can reconcile to their consciences the preparation of certain amulets, after rules transmitted through the Chaldeans and Nabatheans.‡ The magic of Babylon is frequently alluded to by Muslim writers; the poets speak of the “Babylonian witchery” of a beautiful woman's eyes; and it is believed that the two wicked angels Harūt and Marūt, mentioned in the Kur'ān (see chap. ii, and Sale's note), are still hanging, head downwards, in a well at Babel, and will instruct any one in magic who is bold enough to go and solicit them. Setting idle legends aside, it is highly probable, as Sir William Ouseley remarks, in his Persian Miscellanies, that at Babylon the Persians learnt the arts of magical incantation from the conquered Chaldeans. “Time,” says Dr. Jonathan Scott, “has not eradicated in Asia belief in the magical powers of cabalistical characters engraven on gems, or embroidered on standards, or written upon small rolls of paper, which, enclosed in small boxes of gold and silver, and strung on silken cord, are worn round the arm or wrist, and sometimes as a pendant from the neck.”* The charms to which the greatest efficacy is ascribed are those consisting of passages of the Kur'ān; and Morier tells that such was Muhammad Riza Bey's faith in this species of talisman that he always wore the whole of the Kur'ān about his person; half of it tied on one arm, and half on the other, rolled up in small silver cases.† Next in estimation as potent charms are passages transcribed from the celebrated Burda (or Mantle-Poem) of El-Busīrī, in praise of the Prophet, written in the 13th century; which are framed and suspended on the walls of rooms, or, in cases, on the person. The whole poem is also recited in times of sickness and during the funeral procession.‡
Page 83. “Scrawled on it some unmeaning characters.”— The word in the text here rendered by “unmeaning” literally signifies “not known,” and should be translated “mysterious.”
Page 84. “Desired him to point out the spot where his body lay,” &c.—ziyārat, a visit, a pilgrimage. During the period of the great festivals, and also on other occasions, it is customary to visit the tomb of a relation, and place on it the leaves or broken branches of the palm-tree, also sweet-basil and other flowers. On arriving at the tomb the opening chapter of the Kur'ān, and sometimes a longer chapter, the xxxvi, is recited.— See Lane's Modern Egyptians, ii, pp. 209, 241, 253.
Page 86. “Government resembles a tree, the root of which is legal punishment”—siyāzat, that is, discretional punishment, such as the law has not provided, but may be inflicted.—The lithographed text thus proceeds: “And its extremity [i.e. of the root] is justice, and its bough, mercy, and its flower, wisdom, and its leaf, liberality, and its fruit, a degree of kindness, and the leaf of every tree, of which the root becomes dry, assumes a yellow [tint], and does not produce fruit. And as the root of government is legal punishment, delay on this point is not permissible; and as in this legal punishment there is postponement, I am apprehensive lest the root of the tree has become dry; after which reparation is impossible.”
Page 87. “In case she should give birth to a boy, to call his name Bihrūz”—an appropriate name for a jeweller's son, since it denotes “a species of blue crystal,” as well as “good day.” The lithographed text adds: “If it should be a daughter, give her a name suitable and proper;” alluding to the privilege accorded to a mother of naming her own daughter; the name of a son is given by the father.
Page 88. “The boys had learned to read the Kur'ān” (properly, as I have spelt it in the translation, Qur'ān).—Muslim children are not only taught to read the whole, but commit to memory portions, of the Kur'ān. After learning by heart the first chapter* —which is to the Muslim what the Lord's Prayer is to the Christian—the remaining chapters are learnt in their inverse order, and those who have learnt to repeat the whole of the Kur'ān may then claim the title of Hāfiz, or Hāfizu kalāmi 'llāh, “rememberer of the Word of God,” or “one who knows God's Word by heart.”—“Much merit,” says Torrens, “is attributed by the Muslims to recitations of the Kur'ān. On occasions of festivity persons are hired to repeat either the whole or the principal parts of it. These are fickees, a term usually applied to schoolmasters by modern Arabs, but signifying, ‘a person learned in the law.’ They know by heart the whole, or particular parts, of the Kur'ān, which each in turn recites. These recitations are introduced among the Egyptians as an entertainment at parties.”†
Page 88. “Were instructed in the art of penmanship.” —“Beautiful writing,” says Sir John Malcolm, “is considered as a high accomplishment. It is carefully taught in schools, and those who excel in it are almost classed with literary men. They are employed to transcribe copies of books, and some have attained such an eminence in this art that a few lines written by one of these celebrated penmen are often sold for a considerable sum. I have known seven pounds to have been given for four lines written by Dervish Musjīd, a famous Persian scribe.”* And a story is told of a celebrated Indian penman, in the course of his walks one day, being solicited for alms by a beggar, “Money,” he replied, “I have not;” but taking his pen and ink from his girdle, he wrote a few words on a small slip of paper, and handed it to the poor man, who received it with expressions of gratitude, and sold it to the first wealthy person he met for a gold mohur—about ten shillings.
Page 88. “And other accomplishments”: adab, that is, “good manners;” a decent and becoming behaviour at meals, a proper degree of respect to be shown to the father, greeting him affectionately in the morning by kissing his hand, and—as a well-bred son seldom sits in his father's presence—standing before him in a submissive attitude (Lane). Reverence for parents, which is still a marked characteristic of Eastern races, has ever been strongly inculcated by the Hebrew Rabbins; and the noble conduct of one Dama, the son of Nethuna, towards both his father and mother is adduced in the Talmud as an example for all times and every condition of life. “His mother was unfortunately insane, and would frequently not only abuse him, but strike him, in the presence of his companions; yet would this dutiful son not suffer an ill word to escape his lips, and all he used to say on such occasions was, ‘Enough, dear mother, enough.’ One of the precious stones attached to the High Priest's sacerdotal garments was once, by some means or other, lost. Learning that the son of Nethuna had one like it, the priests went to him, and offered him a very large price for it. He consented to take the sum offered, and went into the adjoining room to fetch the jewel. On entering the room he found his father asleep, his foot resting on the chest wherein the gem was deposited. Without disturbing his father, he went back to the priests, and told them that he must for the present forego the large profit he might make, as his father was asleep. The case being urgent, and the priests, thinking that he only said so to obtain a larger price, offered him more money. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I would not, even for a moment, disturb my father's rest for all the treasures in the world.’ The priests waited till the father awoke, when Dama brought them the jewel. They then presented to him the sum they had last offered, but the good man refused to take it. ‘I will not,’ said he, ‘barter for gold the satisfaction of having done my duty. Give me what you offered at first, and I shall be satisfied.’ This they did, and left him with a blessing.”
Page 89. “His clothes and money concealed in different places”—the words here printed in italics are not in the lithographed text.
Page 90. “With afflicted bosoms and bleeding hearts”—ba dil-i kabāb, wa sīna-i kharāb, ajingle of words, of which Orientals are very fond, as previously noticed, foot-note, p. 128.
Page 91. “I accept it as a favourable omen.”—Muslims are always on the watch for lucky or unlucky omens. On first going out of a morning, the looks and countenances of those who cross their path are scrutinised, and a frown or a smile is deemed favourable or the reverse. To encounter a person blind of the left eye, or with one eye, forebodes sorrow and calamity. While Sir John Malcolm was in Persia, as British Ambassador, he was told the following amusing story: When 'Abbās the Great was hunting, he met, one morning as the day dawned an uncommonly ugly man, at the sight of whom his horse started. Being nearly dismounted, and deeming it a bad omen, he called out in a rage to have his head struck off. The poor peasant, whom they had seized and were on the point of executing, prayed that he might be informed of his crime. “Your crime,” said the King, “is your unlucky countenance, which is the first object I saw this morning, and which has nearly caused me to fall from my horse.” “Alas!” said the man, “by this reckoning, what term must I apply to your Majesty's countenance, which was the first object my eyes met this morning, and which is to cause my death?” The King smiled at the wit of the reply, ordered the man to be released, and gave him a present instead of taking off his head.* Another Persian story to the same purpose: A man said to his servant, “If you see two crows together early in the morning, apprise me of it, that I may also behold them, as it will be a good omen, whereby I shall pass the whole day pleasantly.”† The servant did happen to see two crows sitting in one place, and informed his master; but when he came he saw only one, the other having in the meantime flown away. He was very angry, and began to beat the servant, when a friend sent him a present of choice viands. Upon this the servant exclaimed: “O my lord, you saw only one crow, and have received a fine present: had you seen two, you would have met with my fare.”‡ The old pagan Arabs never set out upon any important expedition before consulting their fortune, either by divining arrows or by the flight of birds; if a bird flew to the right, it was a good omen, but if to the left, they would postpone their intended enterprise. In allusion to this superstition the celebrated poet Bahā 'u-'d Dīn Zuhayr, of Egypt, says:
My love is like a young gazelle,
Appearing on the huntsman's right;
And oh! the bargain prospered well,
When she and I our troth did plight.
Page 91. “Heir to the crown.”—Bihrūz, no doubt, on being raised to the throne, assumed another name, or the imperial title.
Page 92. “Purchased a young boy at the slave-market.”— Repellent as even the name of slavery is to a European, and especially to a Briton, it must not be supposed that the condition of slaves in Muhammadan countries bears any resemblance to that of the slaves in the Southern States of North America, before their emancipation, with which such works as Uncle Tom's Cabin used to harrow up our souls. On the contrary, Muslims are enjoined by their religion to be, and, as a general rule, really are (all things considered), kind and even indulgent to their slaves. Sir John Malcolm (an excellent authority) remarks: “Slaves are not numerous [in Persia], and cannot be distinguished by any peculiar habits or usages from the other classes, further than that they are generally more trusted and more favoured by their superiors. The name of slave in this country may be said to imply confidence on one part and attachment on the other. They are mostly Georgians or Africans; and being obtained or purchased when young, they are usually brought up in the Muhammadan religion. Their master, who takes the merit of their conversion, appropriates the females to his own harem, or to the service of his wives; and when the males are at a proper age, he marries them to female slaves in the family, or to free women. Their children are brought up in the house, and have a rank only below relations. In almost every family of consequence the person in whom the greatest trust is reposed is a house-born slave; and instances of their betraying their charge, or abusing the confidence that is placed in them, are very rare.”* A curious story is related in the Talmud, of a man making his will in favour of his slave, although he had a son whom he loved fondly. This man, residing at some distance from Jerusalem, had sent his son to the Holy City to “complete his education” (to employ an absurd colloquial phrase for the nonce); and dying during his son's absence, he bequeathed his entire estate to one of his slaves, on the condition that he should allow his son to select any one article which pleased him for an inheritance. Surprised and naturally angry at such gross injustice on the part of his father, in preferring a slave for his heir instead of himself, the young man sought counsel of his preceptor, who, after carefully considering the terms of the will, thus explained its meaning and effect: “By this action thy father has simply secured thy inheritance to thee. To prevent his slaves from plundering the estate before thou couldst formally claim it, he left it to one of them, who, believing himself to be the owner, would take good care of the property. Now, what a slave possesses belongs to his master; choose, therefore, the slave for thy portion, and then possess all that was thy father's.” The young man followed this advice, took possession of the slave, and thus of his father's wealth, and then gave the slave his freedom, together with a considerable sum of money.* —“The manners of Asia,” says Richardson, “seem in all ages to have pointed to domestic slavery; and Muhammad, in Arabia, made that an article of religion which had anciently been only a custom. The captives of war were, in consequence, with few exceptions, constantly reduced to a state of servitude; and little distinction seems in general to have been made between a princess and her slave; excepting what she derived from a superiority of personal accomplishments. These ideas the Arabians entertained amidst their extensive conquests. Many instances might be given, but two will suffice, as they were daughters of the two greatest princes in the world. In an action after the siege of Damascus, in A.D. 635, amongst other prisoners was the daughter of Heraclius, emperor of Greece, and widow of the governor of that city. Rasi, the Arabian commander, to whose lot she fell, presented her without ceremony as a slave to Jonas, a Grecian, who had embraced the Muhammadan religion; but Jonas, from a principle of honour, returned her, with all her jewels, unransomed to her father. When the Arabians conquered Persia, Shīrīn Bānū, the daughter of the King Yazdejird, was one of the captives, and was publicly exposed to sale in the city of Madīna; but the liberal-minded 'Alī thought differently from his countrymen on this occasion; he declared that the offspring of princes ought not to be sold, and married her immediately to his son.”* —The lot of women in Arabia before the time of Muhammad was at the best a hard one, and it certainly underwent no improvement when they happened to be taken captive in any of the frequent tribal wars. (The brutal treatment of the beauteous Abla, in the Romance of 'Antar, when she fell into the hands of the chief of a tribe hostile to that of 'Abs, is doubtless a faithful picture of Arabian life in those times.) And there can be no question that the cruel and unnatural practice which prevailed among the pre-Islamite Arabs of burying alive their new-born female children had its origin in a desire to save them from the hardships they were so likely to encounter when grown up. This practice seems to have been at one time common to most of the nations of antiquity.
Page 93. “Several of the soldiers returned.”—They probably came to report to the King that the enemy were in superior force, and that more troops must be despatched to oppose them.
Page 94. “Day was beginning to dawn.” The text adds: “He performed the morning-prayer (namāz-i sabā), at the time when [teaches the Kur'ān] ‘you can plainly distinguish a white thread from a black thread.’” The Persians, who are shī'a (unorthodox), prefer to “distinguish a white horse from a gray horse.”
Page 94. “Say, King, shall I strike or not?”—It was customary, if I am not mistaken, at the courts of some of the Khalifs or other Eastern monarchs, for the executioner, after being ordered to decapitate a culprit, to ask the King three times: “Shall I strike?”
Page 95. “It was the will of Heaven that they should fall into the sea, where one of them perished, but the other was restored to us.”—The unhappy couple could not bring themselves to confess that the father had with his own hand tossed them into the water. There is something in this that bears a resemblance to the answer of Joseph's brethren when they went down to Egypt to buy corn, and were arrested on suspicion of being spies: “Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not.” (Gen. xlii, 13.)
Page 96. “Set at liberty all those who had been confined with him.”—To the point is the following extract from the Times newspaper, of September 23, 1882, p. 8, col. 2: “The coronation of Czars is always signalised by acts of imperial clemency, and in this respect the ukase of Alexander II, on the 7th of September, 1856, remains honourable. It granted a complete amnesty to all the political offenders of 1825-6, and of the Polish rebellion of 1831, who were still in exile, or in prison; also pardons to Press offenders, military defaulters, and to about five thousand other individuals in gaols.”
Page 97. “The history of Abū Temām, and the envy of the envious.”—The Muslim, in his daily prayers, says: “I fly for refuge unto the Lord of the Daybreak; that He may deliver me from the mischief of the envious, when he envieth.”—Kur'an cxiii. 5.
Page 97. Abū Temām.—Abū—literally, “Father”—has often the sense of “endowed with,” or “possessed of,” and forms the figure called “metonymy.” Thus, Abū Bakr, “father of the maid”—Muhammad's father-in-law and successor; Abū Hurayrat, “father of the kitten,” one of Muhammad's companions, so nicknamed by the Prophet, on account of his having a pet cat.—Abū Temām signifies, “possessed of integrity.”
Page 98. “Any one possessed of above five direms”—equivalent to “any one who had a sixpence.”—It is related of Mūlī Isma'īl, Emperor of Morocco (who died in 1714), that when any of his subjects grew rich, in order to keep him from being dangerous to the state, he used to send for his goods and chattels. His governors of towns and provinces formed themselves on the example of their dread monarch, practised rapine, violence, extortion, and all the art of despotic government, that they might the better send him their yearly presents: for the greatest of his viceroys was in danger of being recalled or hanged if he did not remit the bulk of his plunder to his sovereign. That he might make a right use of these treasures, he took care to bury them under ground, by the hands of his most trusty slaves, and then cut their throats, as the most effectual method of securing secrecy. The following story will illustrate his notions of property: Being upon the road, amidst his life-guards, a little before the Ram feast, he met one of his kāzīs at the head of his servants, who were driving a great flock of sheep to market. The Emperor asked whose they were. The kāzī, with a profound submission, answered: “They are mine, O Isma'īl, son of El-Sherīf.” “Thine! thou wretch!” exclaimed Mūlī Isma'īl; “I thought I had been the only proprietor in this country.” Upon which he ran him through the body with his lance, and piously distributed the sheep among his guards for the celebration of the feast. His determination of justice between man and man will evince the blessings of his administration: A kāzī complaining to him of a wife (whom he had received from his Majesty's hands, and therefore could not divorce her), that she used to pull him by the beard, the Emperor ordered his beard to be plucked out by the roots, that he might not be liable to any more such affronts. A farmer, having accused some of his guards of having robbed him of a drove of oxen, the Emperor shot the offenders; but afterwards demanding reparation of the accuser for the loss of so many brave fellows, and finding him insolent, he compounded the matter with him by taking away his life.—One good thing he was celebrated for in the course of his long reign, the clearing of the roads of robbers, with which they used to be infested; but his method was to flay man, woman, and child that lived within a certain distance of the district where a robbery was committed.
Page 99. “The erection of bridges, caravanserais, and mosques.”—It is doubtful whether “caravanserais” be the correct rendering of the word ribāt. It may denote one of the dome-shaped buildings (kubba), having an oratory annexed, and an institution endowed for the maintenance of students (tālibān-i-'ilm), who are to pass their lives in reading and devotion.—Sa'dī, in his Bustān, b. i, says: “No one hath come into the world for continuance, save him who leaveth behind him a good name; nor hath any one died who hath left as an inheritance a bridge, a mosque, a hostel, or an hospital. Whoever hath left no such memorial behind him, his existence has been but that of a tree which never bore fruit; and whoever hath departed and left no mark, his name after his death will never be lauded.” The “erection of mosques” may remind the reader of a passage in Hamlet, iii, 2: “There's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year; but, by'r Lady, he must build churches then.”
Page 99. “His advice was followed in all matters of importance.”—The text says: “he appointed him Grand Vizier” (wazīr-i a'zam).
Page 99. “This King had Ten Viziers, who conceived a mortal hatred against Abū Temām,” &c.—See Note, pp. 137-9. —So too in Norse and other European Folk - Tales, envious courtiers endeavour to ruin or destroy a King's favourite by inciting the monarch to set him to perform some difficult and dangerous exploit, in which, however, he always succeeds.
Page 100. “Princess of Turkistān.”—Turān, Turkomania (or Transoxiana), is the country which lies beyond the Jihūn, or Oxus. Under the names of Irān and Turān the Eastern historians comprehend all the higher Asia, excepting India and China; and sometimes they imply “the whole world.” The Tātār nations in general have fine countenances, with large black eyes. Of all the towns in Turkistān, Chighil is the most famous for handsome men, expert archers, and beautiful maidens:
Page 100. “When the King heard the extravagant praises of her beauty he became enamoured.”—See Note pp. 157-8.The ringlets of the idols of ChighilAre altogether the abode of the soul, and the dwelling of the heart.”*
Page 101. “When the King of Turkistān heard of Abū Temām's arrival, he sent proper officers to receive and compliment him.”—See third note, p. 131.—In Lescallier's version the interview between the King and Abū Temām is related in more detail, to the following effect:
Abū Temām, after presenting his credentials and paying his respects to the King, informed him of the subject of his embassy. “The request which the King your master makes for my daughter,” said the King of Turkistān, “is for me a source of joy and happiness. But as it is to be feared that my daughter is unworthy of the King your master, I desire you to enter my harem to see her and to hear her speak, and to assure yourself if she is capable of pleasing the sovereign who sends you. I will prepare my daughter to receive you.” Abū Temām, who was full of cleverness and discretion, replied to the King with the greatest politeness: “God forbid, your Majesty, that my eyes should behold the Princess, or my ears should dare to hear her voice! If she were not in all respects worthy of the King my master, the Divine will would not have inspired him with the desire of possessing her, nor enslaved his heart to her perfections. My King did not send me with such instructions.” Abū Temām had no sooner spoken these words than the King of Turkistān clasped him in his arms with affection, and cried: “I regard thee as a father, for thou freest my existence from a great burthen.” “O great King!” replied Abū Temām, “since my happy star made me enter the service of my sovereign, I have never experienced anything save benefits, kindness, and peculiar favours. What is the difficulty that I can solve for your Majesty? Let him command me.” “I was even now,” said the King, “busy with the project of thy death, and thou hast happily escaped the severity of my sharp sword. I shall tell thee the motive which urged me to put thee to death, and how thou hast been delivered from that danger. All the ambassadors who have come from different princes to ask my daughter have received the same proposal which I made to thee, to enter my harem, to judge of the beauty and perfections of the Princess; and they all went in. I regarded the prudence and wisdom of these sovereigns according to those of their ambassadors, and to punish their audacity I put them all to death. This year four hundred ambassadors have been beheaded. I preserve their heads in the room which thou wilt see.” Then the King drew from his girdle a key, with which he opened the door of that room, and showed to Abū Temām the four hundred heads of ambassadors. He afterwards added: “The prudence which thou hast shown has saved thy life. It has given me a good opinion of thy sovereign, and I will grant him my daughter.”
Lescallier's texts were probably in error in stating that the four hundred ambassadors had all been put to death within a year. The lithographed text, like that of Sir William Ouseley, gives us to understand that the envoys had been beheaded in the course of years. In Habicht's Arabian text the King is represented as saying: “‘Come and look into this well;’ and Abū Temām beheld a well filled with the heads of the sons of Adam.”
Page 103. “The Ten Viziers finding … their own importance and dignity reduced,” &c.—How true to human nature, and how applicable to the case of Abū Temām as well as to that of our young hero Bakhtyār, is the “saying of the sage,” as cited in the Anvār-i Suhailī (ii, 3): “Whoever is unceasingly zealous in the service of the King quickly reaches the rank of admission to his favour, and whoever has become the intimate of the Sultan, all the friends and foes of the monarch become his enemies: the friends, through envy of his post and dignity; and the foes, by reason of his advising the King sincerely in matters of state and religion.”
Page 103. “Whose office was to rub the King's feet.”—The Arabs (says Lane) are very fond of having their feet, and especially the soles, slowly rubbed with the hand; and this operation, which is one of the services commonly required of a wife or a female slave, is a usual mode of waking a person; as it is also of lulling a person to sleep. Thus, in the story of Maaroof (Lane's Arabian Nights, iii, 721), “the damsel then proceeded to rub and press gently the soles of his feet until sleep overcame him.”
Page 105. “The King drew his scimitar, and cut off his head.”—Surely, an instance of “haste and precipitancy”—with a vengeance! This despot did not even acquaint his victim of the crime of which the lads had accused him. It had been probably otherwise with Abū Temām had his royal master shaped his conduct in “affairs of moment” after that of another king, of whom we read, in the Anvār-i Suhailī (xiii, 3), that in order to moderate his anger, and judge cases like a king, a recluse gave him three letters, which he was to place in the hands of a faithful and confidential officer, who was to be permitted to read one of them to the King when he beheld symptoms of anger in his countenance, and should that not suffice to soothe his mind, the officer was to read the second letter, and the third, if the second did not tame his rebellious spirit. The contents of the three letters were to this effect: (1) While thou still retainest the power, do not place the reins of choice in the grasp of thy passions, for they will plunge thee into the whirlpool of everlasting destruction. (2) In the time of wrath be merciful to those in thy power, in order that in the hour of retribution thy superiors may be merciful to thee. (3) In issuing thy commands do not overstep the bounds of the law, and under no circumstances abandon what is just.
Page 106. “Their houses levelled with the ground.”—When a city was solemnly destroyed by the Romans, the plough was drawn along where the walls had stood. Thus Horace (Ode i, 16): “Rage has been the final cause … that an insolent army has driven the hostile ploughshare over their walls.” Thus also we read in the sacred writings (Micah iii, 12): “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field;” and likewise of salt being sown on the ground where cities stood (see Judges ix, 45), indicating the last insult of a triumphant enemy. In allusion to the usual practice of absolute Eastern monarchs wreaking their vengeance not only on an offending minister, but also on his wife and family, Sa'dī, in his Bustān, b. i, directs a king, in dealing with a criminal, to slay him, if the law pronounce its decree; “but if thou hast those who belong to his family, them forgive, and extend to them thy mercy: the iniquitous man it was who committed the crime;—what was the offence of his helpless wife and children?”
In Cazotte's rendering of this story, under the corrupted title of Abou Talmant, for a King of Turkistān is substituted a King of Cochin-China. The plot for destroying the prudent minister by means of the prattle of two young slaves in the King's hearing is considerably amplified: the malicious viziers having taught them to repeat some harem gossip while the King was reposing, but not asleep, which, proving to be true, prepared him to believe the false story of the Queen's love for Abū Temām. The King's discovery of his favourite's innocence is differently related;— instead of his overhearing the two pages quarrel over the division of the money, a day or two after Abū Temām had been put to death, as in the Persian version—the King immediately returns to his private chamber, and seeing the pieces of gold scattered on the floor, sends for the pages, and compels them to tell the truth regarding their possession of so much money. He then causes the two Viziers to be beheaded.
Page 107. The King of Persia (Shāh 'Ajam).—The term 'Ajam includes all who cannot speak Arabic, or who do not speak it with elegance. Among the Arabs it applies to all people not of Arab descent, and carries the same idea as Barbarians with the Greeks, Gentiles with the Hebrews. Hence Persia is called 'Ajamistān, the land of the stranger, or barbarian. And so two famous Arabian poems are distinguished respectively by the nationalities of their authors: Lāmiyyatu-'l-'Arab , by the Arabian brigand-poet Shanfará, and Lāmiyyātu-'l-'Ajam , by Et Tugrā'ī, a native of Isfahān: that is, the L-Poem (from its rhyming in lam, or L) of the Arab, and the L-Poem of the Foreigner.
Page 108. “Not having any child,” &c.—The desire of offspring, and especially of male children, seems to have always been very strong among Asiatics of all classes, and by Jews the want of children was considered sufficient ground for divorce, as the following beautiful rabbinical story will show: A man, it is related, brought his wife before Rabbi Simon, expressing his desire to be divorced, since he had been married over ten years without being blessed with children. The Rabbi at first endeavoured to dissuade the man from his purpose, but finding him resolute, he gravely addressed the pair thus: “My children, when you were married did ye not make a feast and entertain your friends? Well, since you are determined to be divorced, do likewise: go home, make a feast, entertain your friends, and on the following day come to me and I will comply with your wishes.” They returned home, and, in accordance with the good Rabbi's advice, the husband caused a splendid feast to be prepared, to which were invited their friends and relations. In the course of the entertainment, the husband, being gladdened with wine, said to his wife: “My beloved, we have lived many happy years together; it is only the want of children that makes me wish for a separation. To convince thee, however, that I still love thee, I give thee leave to take with thee out of my house whatever thou likest best.” “Be it so,” answered his wife. The wine-cup was freely plied by the guests, and all became merry, until at length many had fallen asleep, and amongst these was the master of the house, which his wife perceiving, she caused him to be carried to her father's house and put to bed. Having slept off the effects of his carouse, he awoke, and, finding himself in a strange house, exclaimed: “Where am I?—how came I here?” His wife, who had placed herself behind a curtain to await the issue of her little stratagem, came up to him, and told him that he had no cause for alarm, since he was in her father's house. “In thy father's house!” echoed the astonished husband—“how should I come hither?” “I will soon explain, my dear husband. Didst thou not tell me last night that I might take out of thy house whatever I most valued? Now, my beloved, believe me, amongst all thy treasures there is none I value so much as I do thyself.” The sequel may be readily imagined: overcome by such devotion, the husband affectionately embraced his wife, was reconciled to her, and they lived happily together ever afterwards.*—Throughout the East, indeed, the want of children is considered as a great disgrace. Readers of Oriental romances, such as those contained in Elf Layla wa Layla, or The Thousand and One Nights; Bahār-i Dānish, or the Spring of Knowledge, and Kissa-i Chehār Darvīsh, or Tale of the Four Dervishes, will easily call to mind the many stories of Khalīfs, Sultāns, Shāhs, Viziers, &c. being childless, and of the pious and even magical means they adopted to obtain the blessing of a son and heir.
Page 108. “In a dream.”—Muslims consider dreams as the predictions of future events. Good dreams are believed to be from God, and false ones from the Devil. “Whoever seeth me,” said the Prophet, “in his sleep, seeth me truly; for Satan cannot assume the similitude of my form.”—Lane's Thousand and One Nights, iii, p. 512, note.
Page 108. “Was addressed by an old man,” &c.—According to Lescallier, “by a genie, resplendent with light.”
Page 109. “The top of a mountain, from which he shall fall, rolling in blood and clay.”—Lescallier's rendering goes on to say: “He shall yet escape the murderous teeth of that lion; and when he has attained his twentieth year, he shall give you a wound, and put you to death.”
Page 109. “One of his Viziers eminently skilled in astrology” —Lescallier adds, “assisted by many other astronomers.”—In Eastern courts an astronomer would be held in disrespect if he did not debase the truth of his science to the vain predictions of astrology (‘ilmu-’n-nujūn). Every professional astrologer hangs an astrolabe—which is not larger than the hollow of the hand—in a neat case, at his girdle. Some have an astrolabe two or three inches in diameter, which at a distance looks like a medal conferred on the wearer as a mark of honour, or as an order of merit.* “A very slight knowledge of astronomy,” says Sir John Malcolm, “is sufficient to allow a Persian student to profess the occult science of judicial astrology. If a person can take an altitude with an astrolabe, knows the names of the planets and their different mansions, and a few technical phrases, and understands the astrological almanacs that are annually published, he deems himself entitled to offer his services to all who wish to consult him; and that includes every person in Persia who has the means to reward his skill. Nothing is done by a man of any consequence or property without reference to the stars. If any measure is to be adopted, if a voyage or journey is to be commenced, if a new dress is to be put on—the lucky or unlucky moment must be discovered, and the almanac and astrologer are consulted. A person wishing to commence a journey will not allow a fortunate day to escape, even though he is not ready to set out. He leaves his own house at the propitious moment, and remains, till he can actually proceed, in some incommodious lodging in its vicinity, satisfied that, by quitting his house, he has secured all the benefit which the influence of good stars can afford him.”† When Sir John Malcolm entered Tehrān as British Ambassador, the King's astrologer so timed the progress of the cavalcade that the “Elchī's” charger should put his foot over the threshold of the gate at the precise lucky moment, which he had previously ascertained.
The Chaldeans were the first astrologers, and the so-called science was sedulously cultivated and in high estimation among the Hindūs, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and their Alexandrian disciples. Even the illustrious Tycho Brahe was devoted to astrology from his early youth until within a few years of his death, when he finally abandoned it as a fallacy. At first, and for a very long period afterwards, astrology was not separated into the two divisions or departments of natural astrology, or observations of the regular motions of the heavenly bodies (which is now termed astronomy), and judicial astrology, or the pretended science of foretelling events from observation of the relative positions of the planets. Isidore of Seville, it is said, was the first to distinguish between astronomy and astrology. The professors of judicial astrology in Europe pretended—as those in Asiatic countries still pretend—to be able to predict the destiny of any one who came to consult them, by a process called casting his horoscope, which was done by first ascertaining the precise hour of the person's birth, and the sign the sun was in at that time, and then drawing conclusions from observation of the conjunction and relative position of the planets towards each other. But European astrologers very frequently—probably as a general rule—did not trouble themselves to “read the stars;” they were for the most part accomplished physiog-nomists, and it may be said that they usually contented themselves with telling fortunes by faces rather than by the appearance of the heavenly bodies. There can be little doubt that, with the exception of a few deluded individuals who thoroughly believed in their own skill, those who professed a knowledge of astrology were arrant impostors—cunning knaves, who traded on the prevalent superstition and credulity of mankind in the days before science began to shed its pure light.
El-Hajjāj, a general under the Khalīf El-Walīd I, consulted, in his last illness, an astrologer, who predicted to him his approaching death. “I rely so completely on your knowledge,” said El-Hajjāj to him, “that I wish to have you with me in the next world, and I shall therefore send you thither before me, in order that I may be able to employ your services from the time of my arrival.” He then ordered the soothsayer to be put to death, although the time fixed for this event by the planets had not yet arrived.—Abū-'l-Ma'shar, the oracle of astrology, left in writing, that he found the Christian religion, according to the indications of the stars, should last but fourteen hundred years—he has been belied by nearly five hundred years already.—Tiberias, when he was at Rhodes, wished to satisfy his curiosity with respect to judicial astrology. He sent, in succession, for all those who pretended to foretell future events. One of his enfranchised slaves, of great stature and extraordinary strength, conducted them to him through the intricacies of the precipices. If Tiberius discovered that the astrologer was a cheat, the slave, upon a given signal, immediately cast him into the sea. At that time there was at Rhodes a man named Trasullus, who was deeply skilled in astrology, and of a cunning disposition. He was taken, in the same manner as the others, to this retired spot, assured Tiberius that he should be Emperor, and revealed to him many other events that should take place. Tiberius asked him if he knew his own destiny, and if he had consulted his own horoscope. Trasullus—who had had some suspicions when he did not see any of his companions return, and felt his fears increase on viewing the countenance of Tiberius, the man who had been his conductor (who did not quit him for a moment), the elevated place where he stood, and the precipice which lay beneath him—turned his eyes up to heaven, as if to consult the stars; he immediately appeared fear-stricken, turned pale, and exclaimed, in an apparent agony of terror, that he was menaced with death. Tiberius was full of joy and admiration on hearing this reply, ascribing to astrology what was only presence of mind and cunning, cheered the spirits of Trasullus, embraced him, and from that time regarded him as an oracle.—An astrologer foretold the death of a lady whom Louis XI passionately loved. She did, in fact, die, and the King imagined that the prediction of the astrologer was the cause of it. He sent for the man, intending to have him thrown out of the window as a punishment. “Tell me,” said the King, “thou who pretendest to be so clever and learned a man, what thy own fate will be?” The soothsayer, who suspected the intentions of the King, and knew his foible, replied: “Sire, I foresee that I shall die three days before your Majesty.” Louis believed him, and was careful of the astrologer's life.—An astrologer, fixing his eyes upon the Duke of Milan, said to him: “My Lord, arrange your affairs, for you have not long to live.” The Duke asked: “How dost thou know this?” “By my acquaintance with the stars,” answered the astrologer. “And pray, how long art thou to live?” “My planet promises me a long life.” “Well, thou shalt shortly discover that we ought not to trust the stars.” And the Duke ordered him to be hanged instantly.—Our own King Henry VIII asked an astrologer if he knew where he should pass the festivities at Christmas. The astrologer answered that he knew nothing on the subject. “Then,” said the King, “I am wiser than thou art; for I know that thou shalt pass them in the Tower of London;” and the unlucky astrologer was at once conducted thither.—William, Duke of Mantua, had in his stables a brood mare which gave birth to a mule. He immediately sent to the most famous astrologers in Italy the hour of the birth of this animal, requesting them to inform him what should be the fortune of a bastard that had been born in his palace; he took care, however, not to intimate that he was speaking of a mule. The soothsayers used their best endeavours to flatter the Prince, not doubting that the bastard belonged to himself. Some declared that it should be a general; others made it a bishop; some raised it to the rank of cardinal; and there were even some who elevated it to the papal chair!
It is truly marvellous that the same age which produced a Newton should also have seen flourish that arch-astrologer William Lilly (inimitably satirised by Butler under the name of Sidrophel,* whose preposterous predictions were credited even by persons of education. Swift may be said to have dealt the death-blow to astrology by his celebrated squib, entitled “Prediction for the year 1718, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.,” in which he ridiculed the prophetic almanac-makers of the day. Astrology having permeated all science and literature, it is not surprising that many of its peculiar terms should have become embodied in our language, as, for example, in the words consider and contemplate, disaster and disastrous; and we still speak of jovial, mercurial, and saturnine men.—Kepler, in the preface to his Rudolphine tables, observes that Astrology, though a fool, was the daughter of a wise mother, to whose support and life the foolish daughter was indispensable.*
Page 109. “In the meantime he caused a subterraneous dwelling to be constructed, to which he sent the boy, with a nurse.”—Sir William Ouseley has omitted to mention that the boy was born—on the following day, according to Lescallier. —Many instances of a father trying to belie the predictions of soothsayers occur in Eastern fiction, and also in classical and European legends. The story of Danae, the daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos, by Eurydice, who was confined in a brazen tower by her father, who had been told by an oracle that his daughter's son should put him to death, is well known. The underground dwelling of our present tale may be compared with that described in chapter 79 of the English Gesta Romanorum; also that in the Arabian Nights (Story of the Second Kalender); and in the Bāgh o Bahār (Tale of the Second Dervish), a young prince, in consequence of the prediction of astrologers that he is menaced with great danger until his fourteenth year, is confined in a vault, lined with felt, so that he should not behold the sun or moon. In Mr Ralston's Tibetan Tales, under the title of “The Fulfilled Prophecy,” the diviners declare that “a son should be born who should take the King's life and usurp the royal power, setting the diadem on his own head.” In the Norse story of “Rich Peter the Pedlar,”* a prediction that his daughter should one day wed a poor man's son is fulfilled in spite of many efforts to defeat it—a story which seems to have been adapted from the Gesta Romanorum, Tale xx of Swan's translation. And in the Netherlandish Legend of “St Julian the Ferryman,” it is predicted that Julian shall one day put his own father and mother to death; and although the unhappy youth flies into a far distant country, he cannot flee from his terrible destiny, for many years afterwards the prediction proves only too true.†
Page 110. “Keeper [of pen and ink] to the secretary” (dav dari).—The Orientals are great admirers of caligraphy. Jamshīd, the Pīshdādian king, in respect to scribes and writers, thus expressed himself: “As the monarch's sword establishes the foundation of his kingdom, so the tongue of the scribe's pen transacts the concerns of the faith:
“The sharp-edged sword and pen are twins; the reigning monarch,
By reliance on these two supporters, elevates his neck on high.”
And the Persian Vizier Nizām declared that his cap and inkhorn, the badges of his office, were connected by the divine decree with the throne and diadem of the Sultan (Gibbon, ch. lvii). It is worthy of remark that Mīrzā placed before a person's name means “a man of the pen;” but if it follow, it means Shāh-Zāda, a prince. For different styles of writing see A.F.S. Herbin's Essai de Calligraphie Orientale, Paris, 1803, 4to; Chardin's Voyages en Perse, et autres lieux de l'Orient, t. ii, ch. iv, pp. 107-110; and Lane's Modern Egyptians, vol. i, ch. ix. (See also second Note, page 202.)
Page 113. “His hair stand on end.”—Thus Job, iv, 15: “The hair of my flesh stood up;” and Homer, speaking of Priam, when terrified at the appearance of Mercury: “His hair stood upright on his bending limbs;” and the Ghost, addressing H amlet, i, 4:
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
Page 114. “Assembled all the people by proclamation”— that they might take warning from the young man's fate. But the Persians require no invitation to scenes of this nature. “The curiosity,” says Dr. Chodzko,* “which gathers crowds of people to witness the execution of culprits in Europe is very feeble in comparison with what can be seen in Asia on similar occasions. There many of those present are not only fond of looking at, but even take an active part in tormenting the condemned, though they never saw him before, or have any motive of revenge. To stab the poor dying wretch with a knife, or at least to spit in his face, is an innocent pleasure, which even the women do not refuse themselves. Those who are moved by revenge are still more savage. Riza Kūlī Khān, the governor of Yezd, having expelled from that town one of the sons of the Shāh (in 1830), was afterwards taken prisoner and sent to Tehrān. The Shāh gave the culprit up to the offended prince, who, after promising to pardon and forget all, invited him to supper in the harem, and there stabbed him with his own hands. His wives, and the maid-servants of the harem, cut to pieces the body, weltering in blood, with scissors, and pricked and tortured him till he gave up his last breath!—I can see no reason for this but their brutalising education. A child begins by wringing off the heads of living sparrows. When he grows up they buy him a little sword, and exercise the boy in cutting in two halves, first living fowls, then lambs, sheep, and so on. Grown-up people consider it as a very fashionable pastime to snatch a ram from the flock, order two of their servants to hold it by the head and feet, and placing a bundle of straw underneath, in order to prevent the sword from striking against the ground, to cut the bleating animal to pieces while it is alive. The most famous of such swordsmen in Persia was Sulaymān Mīrza, son of Fatah 'Alī Shāh. He has often, in the presence of the Shāh and numerous witnesses, with one blow of his huge scimitar cut in two an ass, and severed the head of a camel from its neck.”
In Lescallier's version, for the King of Persia we have the King of Arabia.—In Cazotte's rendering, under the title of “The Sultan Hebraim [Ibrahīm] and his Son, or The Predestined,” is found a considerably amplified but very interesting version of this story. After the young prince has been discovered and carried away from the underground palace by a huntsman (not the King's secretary, but “a man of rank and fortune”), the incidents are totally different from those of our version. Abaquir—the young prince—is carefully brought up by his master, and in course of time becomes accomplished in all the exercises befitting a noble youth. One day he accompanies his master to the chase, when they are suddenly attacked by robbers, who slay the elder of the hunters, and having severely wounded Abaquir, leave him for dead. Recovering after a long period of insensibility, he rises and walks onwards through the forest, till he meets with a dervish, who takes him to his cave and treats him with kindness and hospitality. This dervish proves to be a wicked magician, who prevails upon Abaquir to descend into the bowels of a mountain to bring up precious stones, which the false dervish having drawn safely up, the poor youth is then cruelly abandoned to his fate. From this cavern Abaquir escapes, and after a long journey he reaches a city, where a kind-hearted man receives him into his house, and he remains with him some time. Weary at length of inaction, he resolves to go out to hunt, and meets with a party of robbers, whose real avocation he does not know, and joins them—the robbers binding him to fidelity by a solemn oath. Too late he discovers the true character of his companions, but is compelled to accompany them on their plundering expeditions. The daring outrages perpetrated by this gang of robbers become so notorious that the Sultan Hebraim marches against them at the head of some chosen troops. The robbers are utterly defeated, but the Sultan himself is grievously wounded. On returning to his capital he sends for his astrologers, and angrily asks them whether in their predictions they had foreseen that he should die by the hand of a robber. They affirm that what the stars had predicted could not prove false, and suggest that the Sultan should ascertain who it was, among the robbers, that wounded him, and then inquire into his birth and history. Abaquir, his own son, is the robber who inflicted the fatal wound; and after he has given the best account he could of his early years, and shown the scars of the lion's claws on his breast, the Sultan submits to the decree of Fate, and dies shortly after declaring Abaquir his successor.—In Habicht's Arabian text (which agrees with Cazotte in nearly all the details) it is stated that the King went once every month to the opening of the underground dwelling, let down a rope, and drew up his son, embraced and kissed and played with him awhile, then let him down again.
Page 116. “Sent an order to the Viziers,” &c. The lithographed text says: “Instantly he commanded Bakhtyār to be fetched. The King with his own hands drew off the fetters, brought him before the Queen, and put on him a kabā [see Note p. 135] and a kulāh”—that is, a robe and a turban. —Certain officers of the King of Persia's household who wear gold tiaras are called Zarrin-Kullāhān, Golden Caps.
Page 117. “Resigned the throne to Bakhtyār.”—In Hindū stories a very usual conclusion is the King's abdication of his throne in favour of his son; and it is highly probable that such was actually the custom formerly. In the European mediæ-val romance of “The Knight with the Swan,” King Oriant abdicates in favour of his son Helias.—See Mr W. J. Thoms' Early English Prose Romances.
Page 117. “Dignity of Chief Vizier.”—The text reads: “He conferred on Farrukhsuwār, with complete honour and reverence, the Vizier's Khil'at [see Note p. 136], and appointed him Commander-in-chief (Sipahsālār).”
The lithographed text thus concludes: “This book is finished by the aid of the King the Giver [i.e. God]”: tamma-'l-kitāb bi ‘awni-’l-Māliki-'l-Wahhāb.
As a few notes remain to be added to the foregoing, I take the opportunity of correcting in this place some errors which have occurred while these sheets were passing through the press.
Page 157, line 1, for Berica read Berœa.
Page 160, line 19 for chemy read cheraiy, or sheraiy.
Page 167, lines 7 and 8.—It may be as well to explain that the words tavakkul bar Khudā are a Persian translation (in the text) of the Arabic tawakkal ‘ala-’llāhi of the Kur'ān, ch. xxxiii (not xxxvii), 3—“put thy trust in God.”
Page 169, line 19, for Trinchinopoli read Trichinopoli.
The following note, by mischance, has been omitted in its proper place (Notes on Chapter VIII):
Page 93. “The King graciously received the present which Rūzbih offered.”—It is well known that, in all parts of the East, whoever visits a great person must carry him a present. “It is counted uncivil,” says Maundrell, p. 26, “to visit in this country without an offering in hand. All great men expect it as a tribute due to their character and authority; and look upon themselves as affronted, and indeed defrauded, when the compliment is omitted.” In the sacred writings we find mention made of this custom. For instance, 1 Samuel ix, 7: “But behold, if we go, what shall we bring the man? for the bread is spent in our vessels, and there is not a present (teshurah) to bring to the man of God—what have we?” Menachem explains teshurah to signify “an offering or gift, which is presented in order to be admitted into the presence of a King or some great man.” See also Isaiah lvii, 9, lit: “And thou hast visited the King with a present of oil.”
“The King of Yemen and his Slave”—see page 56, and last note, page 174.—This story in Habicht's Arabian text is entitled “The History of King Bihkard,” and the following passages may be compared with those of our text and with Lescallier, above referred to: On a certain day he went on a hunting excursion, and one of his servants shot an arrow, and it struck the King's ear, and cut it off. The King asked: “Who shot this arrow?” The attendants instantly conducted the bowman to the front, and his name was Yatrū. Fainting from fear, he threw himself on the ground, and the King said: “Put him to death.” But Yatrū said: “O King, this fault is not of my own choice or knowledge—pardon me, then, out of thy kindness, since grace is the most gracious of actions, and oftentimes on some future day becomes a treasure and a benefit, and in the sight of God a recompense at the last day. Pardon me, then: as you avert evil from me, so will God ward off from thee a similar evil.” When the King heard these words, he admired and forgave Yatrū, yet never had he before pardoned any one.
Now this servant was of royal extraction, and had fled from his country, by reason of some transgression, and had entered the service of King Bihkard. And this is what happened to him. By chance a person who knew him passed that way, and gave information to his father, who sent him a letter, which gratified his heart and disposition; and he returned to his father, who inclined indulgently towards him. Yatrū rejoiced, and his affairs were rectified.—Compare also Lescallier and Cazotte, cited in pp. 178, 179.
(Comp. pp. 101-103, and 212, 213.)
According to Habicht's text, the account of Abū Temām's delicate—not to say dangerous—mission to the King of Turkistān is very different from that of the Persian version. The King desires him to enter the harem, and see and converse with the Princess; and he proceeds thither, reflecting on the way that “Wise men have averred that whoever deprives his sight [that is, closes his eyes] no evil can attach to him; and whoever bridles his tongue hears nothing disagreeable; and whoever restrains his hand, it can neither be shortened nor lengthened.” He accordingly enters the chamber of the Princess, and sits down on the floor, gathering together the extremities of his robe. When the King's daughter requests him to raise his head, look upon and converse with her, Abū Temām remains mute, and with downcast eyes. She then requests him to take the pearls, and the gold and silver which lie near him, but he does not extend his hand towards anything. At this the Princess is vexed, and tells her father that they have sent a blind, and deaf, and foolish ambassador; whereupon the King of Turkistān demands of Abū Temām why he had not looked upon and conversed with his daughter: he replies that he had seen everything [he should see]; and in answer to the inquiry, why he had not taken the proffered pearls, he says that it was not proper for him to extend his hand to aught that belongs to another. The King, overjoyed at his prudence, embraces him, shows him the heads of former ambassadors (see page 214, line 4), consents to give his daughter in marriage to Abū Temām's royal master, and presents him with a robe of honour, after which Abū Temām departs, and in due course the Princess is sent to the palace of Īlan Shāh.
In Habicht's Arabian text the conclusion is as follows (comp. pp. 115-117):
When the youth had finished his narrative, the King said: “Still thou wouldest bewilder us with thy discourses, but the time is now come for your execution.”—At the moment when they were conducting the youth to the gallows, the robber-chief who had educated him arrived in the town. When he observed the people assembling together, he inquired the cause, and they said to him: “The King has commanded a young culprit to be executed.” The robber-chief, who wished to see the youth, immediately recognised him, and kissed him on the mouth, and said: “This youth, when a child, I found near a fountain. I adopted him, and brought him up. One day we attacked a caravan, and were driven into flight, and he was taken prisoner. Since then I have sought everywhere for him, and never could gain any news respecting him.” When the King heard this he cried aloud, threw himself on the youth, embraced and kissed him, and said: “I should have put my own son to death, and in consequence should have died of grief.” The King then unfettered the Prince, took the crown from his own head, and placed it on that of his son. The news was made public by the beating of drums and the braying of trumpets, the town was illuminated, and there arose such a shouting of joy that the birds could scarcely support themselves in the air. All prisoners were released by order of the King, and a seven days' festival proclaimed throughout the kingdom.
On the eighth day the King placed his son at his side, and summoned all his friends, the city notables, and the viziers. To these last the Prince said: “You see now the work of God's providence—you now perceive His aid was near.” The Viziers were struck dumb, and the King added: “I observe that on this day all the people rejoice, even the birds of the air—ye only are downcast; that is truly a proof of rancour against me. Had I listened to your advice, I should have died from the effects of despair and repentance.” The King then summoned to his presence the robber-chief, made him many presents, and said: “Whoever loves the King, let him lavish gifts on this man.” Whereupon he was so overwhelmed with presents that he could not take any more; and the King then conferred upon him the governorship of the province in which he had dwelt.
Soon afterwards the King ordered nine sets of gallows to be erected near the one already set up, and said to his son: “Thou wast guiltless—these wicked Viziers slandered thee in my eyes.” The Prince rejoined: “My crime consisted of my loyalty to thee—seeing that I removed their hands from thy treasures, they envied me, and wished my death.” “On that account,” said the King, “let their punishment now be near, for their crime is great: to destroy thee, they did not scruple to disgrace my house in the opinion of all sovereigns.” He then turned to the Viziers, and said to them: “Woe be to you! Wherewith can you excuse yourselves?” They replied: “O King, there is no excuse for us—we were unkind to the youth, and wished his misfortune, which has recoiled on us;—for him we dug a grave, and have fallen into it ourselves.” Hereupon the King issued an order for their execution—“for,” said he, “God is just, and all His judgments are true.” The King afterwards lived in happiness and peacefully with his spouse and his son, until the disturber of all earthly friends reached them likewise.
PRAISE be to God, the Lord of all creatures; the most merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, and of thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray.
↩That deals in Destiny's dark counsels,
And sage opinions of the moon sells.—Hudibras. ↩