Dream Tales and Prose Poems Part 23

Who in Bagdad knows not Jaffar, the Sun of the Universe?

One day, many years ago (he was yet a youth), Jaffar was walking in the environs of Bagdad.

Suddenly a hoa.r.s.e cry reached his ear; some one was calling desperately for help.

Jaffar was distinguished among the young men of his age by prudence and sagacity; but his heart was compa.s.sionate, and he relied on his strength.

He ran at the cry, and saw an infirm old man, pinned to the city wall by two brigands, who were robbing him.

Jaffar drew his sabre and fell upon the miscreants: one he killed, the other he drove away.

The old man thus liberated fell at his deliverer's feet, and, kissing the hem of his garment, cried: 'Valiant youth, your magnanimity shall not remain unrewarded. In appearance I am a poor beggar; but only in appearance. I am not a common man. Come to-morrow in the early morning to the chief bazaar; I will await you at the fountain, and you shall be convinced of the truth of my words.'

Jaffar thought: 'In appearance this man is a beggar, certainly; but all sorts of things happen. Why not put it to the test?' and he answered: 'Very well, good father; I will come.'

The old man looked into his face, and went away.

The next morning, the sun had hardly risen, Jaffar went to the bazaar. The old man was already awaiting him, leaning with his elbow on the marble basin of the fountain.

In silence he took Jaffar by the hand and led him into a small garden, enclosed on all sides by high walls.

In the very middle of this garden, on a green lawn, grew an extraordinary-looking tree.

It was like a cypress; only its leaves were of an azure hue.

Three fruits--three apples--hung on the slender upward-bent twigs; one was of middle size, long-shaped, and milk-white; the second, large, round, bright-red; the third, small, wrinkled, yellowish.

The whole tree faintly rustled, though there was no wind. It emitted a shrill plaintive ringing sound, as of a gla.s.s bell; it seemed it was conscious of Jaffar's approach.

'Youth!' said the old man, 'pick any one of these apples and know, if you pick and eat the white one, you will be the wisest of all men; if you pick and eat the red, you will be rich as the Jew Rothschild; if you pick and eat the yellow one, you will be liked by old women. Make up your mind! and do not delay. Within an hour the apples will wither, and the tree itself will sink into the dumb depths of the earth!'

Jaffar looked down, and pondered. 'How am I to act?' he said in an undertone, as though arguing with himself. 'If you become too wise, maybe you will not care to live; if you become richer than any one, every one will envy you; I had better pick and eat the third, the withered apple!'

And so he did; and the old man laughed a toothless laugh, and said: 'O wise young man! You have chosen the better part! What need have you of the white apple? You are wiser than Solomon as it is. And you've no need of the red apple either.... You will be rich without it. Only your wealth no one will envy.'

'Tell me, old man,' said Jaffar, rousing himself, 'where lives the honoured mother of our Caliph, protected of heaven?'

The old man bowed down to the earth, and pointed out to the young man the way.

Who in Bagdad knows not the Sun of the Universe, the great, the renowned Jaffar?

_April 1878._

TWO STANZAS

There was once a town, the inhabitants of which were so pa.s.sionately fond of poetry, that if some weeks pa.s.sed by without the appearance of any good new poems, they regarded such a poetic dearth as a public misfortune.

They used at such times to put on their worst clothes, to sprinkle ashes on their heads; and, a.s.sembling in crowds in the public squares, to shed tears and bitterly to upbraid the muse who had deserted them.

On one such inauspicious day, the young poet Junius came into a square, thronged with the grieving populace.

With rapid steps he ascended a forum constructed for this purpose, and made signs that he wished to recite a poem.

The lictors at once brandished their fasces. 'Silence! attention!' they shouted loudly, and the crowd was hushed in expectation.

'Friends! Comrades!' began Junius, in a loud but not quite steady voice:--

'Friends! Comrades! Lovers of the Muse!

Ye worshippers of beauty and of grace!

Let not a moment's gloom dismay your souls, Your heart's desire is nigh, and light shall banish darkness.'

Junius ceased ... and in answer to him, from every part of the square, rose a hubbub of hissing and laughter.

Every face, turned to him, glowed with indignation, every eye sparkled with anger, every arm was raised and shook a menacing fist!

'He thought to dazzle us with that!' growled angry voices. 'Down with the imbecile rhymester from the forum! Away with the idiot! Rotten apples, stinking eggs for the motley fool! Give us stones--stones here!'

Junius rushed head over heels from the forum ... but, before he had got home, he was overtaken by the sound of peals of enthusiastic applause, cries and shouts of admiration.

Filled with amazement, Junius returned to the square, trying however to avoid being noticed (for it is dangerous to irritate an infuriated beast).

And what did he behold?

High above the people, upon their shoulders, on a flat golden shield, wrapped in a purple chlamys, with a laurel wreath on his flowing locks, stood his rival, the young poet Julius.... And the populace all round him shouted: 'Glory! Glory! Glory to the immortal Julius! He has comforted us in our sorrow, in our great woe! He has bestowed on us verses sweeter than honey, more musical than the cymbal's note, more fragrant than the rose, purer than the azure of heaven! Carry him in triumph, encircle his inspired head with the soft breath of incense, cool his brow with the rhythmic movement of palm-leaves, scatter at his feet all the fragrance of the myrrh of Arabia! Glory!'

Junius went up to one of the applauding enthusiasts. 'Enlighten me, O my fellow-citizen! what were the verses with which Julius has made you happy?

I, alas! was not in the square when he uttered them! Repeat them, if you remember them, pray!'

'Verses like those I could hardly forget!' the man addressed responded with spirit. 'What do you take me for? Listen--and rejoice, rejoice with us!'

'Lovers of the Muse!' so the deified Julius had begun....

'Lovers of the Muse! Comrades! Friends Of beauty, grace, and music, worshippers!

Let not your hearts by gloom affrighted be!

The wished-for moment comes! and day shall scatter night!'

'What do you think of them?'

'Heavens!' cried Junius; 'but that's my poem! Julius must have been in the crowd when I was reciting them; he heard them and repeated them, slightly varying, and certainly not improving, a few expressions.'

'Aha! Now I recognise you.... You are Junius,' the citizen he had stopped retorted with a scowl on his face. 'Envious man or fool!... note only, luckless wretch, how sublimely Julius has phrased it: "And day shall scatter night!" While you had some such rubbish: "And light shall banish darkness!" What light? What darkness?'

'But isn't that just the same?' Junius was beginning....