Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers Part 1

Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers.

by W. A. Clouston.

TO E. SIDNEY HARTLAND, ESQ.,

FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES; MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY, ETC.

MY DEAR HARTLAND,

Though you are burdened with the duties of a profession far outside of which lie those studies that have largely occupied my attention for many years past, yet your own able contributions to the same, or cognate, subjects of investigation evince the truth of the seemingly paradoxical saying, that "the busiest man finds the greatest amount of leisure." And in dedicating this little book to you--would that it were more worthy!--as a token of grat.i.tude for the valuable help you have often rendered me in the course of my studies, I am glad of the opportunity it affords me for placing on record (so to say) the fact that I enjoy the friendship of a man possessed of so many excellent qualities of heart as well as of intellect.

The following collection of essays, or papers, is designed to suit the tastes of a more numerous cla.s.s of readers than were some of my former books, which are not likely to be of special interest to many besides students of comparative folk-lore--amongst whom your own degree is high.

The book, in fact, is intended mainly for those who are rather vaguely termed "general readers"; albeit I venture to think that even the folk-lore student may find in it somewhat to "make a note of," as the great Captain Cuttle was wont to say--in season and out of season.

Leaving the contents to speak for themselves, I shall only say farther that my object has been to bring together, in a handy volume, a series of essays which might prove acceptable to many readers, whether of grave or lively temperament. What are called "instructive" books--meaning thereby "morally" instructive--are generally as dull reading as is proverbially a book containing nothing but jests--good, bad, and indifferent. We can't (and we shouldn't) be always in the "serious"

mood, nor can we be for ever on the grin; and it seems to me that a mental dietary, by turns, of what is wise and of what is witty should be most wholesome. But, of the two, I confess I prefer to take the former, even as one ought to take solid food, in great moderation; and, after all, it is surely better to laugh than to mope or weep, in spite of what has been said of "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind." Most of us, in this work-a-day world, find no small benefit from allowing our minds to lie fallow at certain times, as farmers do with their fields.

In the following pages, however, I believe wisdom and wit, the didactic and the diverting, will be found in tolerably fair proportions.

But I had forgot--I am not writing a Preface, and this is already too long for a Dedication; so believe me, with all good wishes,

Yours ever faithfully, W. A. CLOUSTON.

GLASGOW, February, 1890.

FLOWERS FROM A PERSIAN GARDEN.

I

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE PERSIAN POET SAADI--CHARACTER OF HIS WRITINGS--THE "GULISTaN"--PREFACES TO BOOKS--PREFACE TO THE "GULISTaN"--EASTERN POETS IN PRAISE OF SPRINGTIDE.

It is remarkable how very little the average general reader knows regarding the great Persian poet Saadi and his writings. His name is perhaps more or less familiar to casual readers from its being appended to one or two of his aphorisms which are sometimes reproduced in odd corners of popular periodicals; but who he was, when he lived, and what he wrote, are questions which would probably puzzle not a few, even of those who consider themselves as "well read," to answer without first recurring to some encyclopaedia. Yet Saadi was a.s.suredly one of the most gifted men of genius the world has ever known: a man of large and comprehensive intellect; an original and profound thinker; an acute observer of men and manners; and his works remain the imperishable monument of his genius, learning, and industry.

Maslahu 'd-Din Shaykh Saadi was born, towards the close of the twelfth century, at Shiraz, the famous capital of Fars, concerning which city the Persians have the saying that "if Muhammed had tasted the pleasures of Shiraz, he would have begged Allah to make him immortal there." In accordance with the usual practice in Persia, he a.s.sumed as his _takhallus_, or poetical name,[1] Saadi, from his patron Atabag Saad bin Zingi, sovereign of Fars, who encouraged men of learning in his princ.i.p.ality. Saadi is said to have lived upwards of a hundred years, thirty of which were pa.s.sed in the acquisition of knowledge, thirty more in travelling through different countries, and the rest of his life he spent in retirement and acts of devotion. He died, in his native city, about the year 1291.

[1] One reason, doubtless, for Persian and Turkish poets adopting a _takhallus_ is the custom of the poet introducing his name into every ghazal he composes, generally towards the end; and as his proper name would seldom or never accommodate itself to purposes of verse he selects a more suitable one.

At one period of his life Saadi took part in the wars of the Saracens against the Crusaders in Palestine, and also in the wars for the faith in India. In the course of his wanderings he had the misfortune to be taken prisoner by the Franks, in Syria, and was ransomed by a friend, but only to fall into worse thraldom by marrying a shrewish wife. He has thus related the circ.u.mstances:

"Weary of the society of my friends at Damascus, I fled to the barren wastes of Jerusalem, and a.s.sociated with brutes, until I was made captive by the Franks, and forced to dig clay along with Jews in the fortress of Tripoli. One of the n.o.bles of Aleppo, mine ancient friend, happened to pa.s.s that way and recollected me. He said: 'What a state is this to be in! How farest thou?' I answered: 'Seeing that I could place confidence in G.o.d alone, I retired to the mountains and wilds, to avoid the society of man; but judge what must be my situation, to be confined in a stall, in company with wretches who deserve not the name of men.

"To be confined by the feet with friends is better than to walk in a garden with strangers."' He took compa.s.sion on my forlorn condition, ransomed me from the Franks for ten dinars,[2] and took me with him to Aleppo.

[2] A dinar is a gold coin, worth about ten shillings of our money.

"My friend had a daughter, to whom he married me, and he presented me with a hundred dinars as her dower. After some time my wife unveiled her disposition, which was ill-tempered, quarrelsome, obstinate, and abusive; so that the happiness of my life vanished. It has been well said: 'A bad woman in the house of a virtuous man is h.e.l.l even in this world.' Take care how you connect yourself with a bad woman. Save us, O Lord, from the fiery trial! Once she reproached me, saying: 'Art thou not the creature whom my father ransomed from captivity amongst the Franks for ten dinars?' 'Yes,' I answered; 'he redeemed me for ten dinars, and enslaved me to thee for a hundred.'

"I heard that a man once rescued a sheep from the mouth of a wolf, but at night drew his knife across its throat. The expiring sheep thus complained: 'You delivered me from the jaws of a wolf, but in the end I perceive you have yourself become a wolf to me.'"

Sir Gore Ouseley, in his _Biographical Notices of Persian Poets_, states that Saadi in the latter part of his life retired to a cell near Shiraz, where he remained buried in contemplation of the Deity, except when visited, as was often the case, by princes, n.o.bles, and learned men. It was the custom of his ill.u.s.trious visitors to take with them all kinds of meats, of which, when Saadi and his company had partaken, the shaykh always put what remained in a basket suspended from his window, that the poor wood-cutters of Shiraz, who daily pa.s.sed by his cell, might occasionally satisfy their hunger.

The writings of Saadi, in prose as well as verse, are numerous; his best known works being the _Gulistan_, or Rose-Garden, and the _Bustan_, or Garden of Odours. Among his other compositions are: an essay on Reason and Love; Advice to Kings; Arabian and Persian idylls, and a book of elegies, besides a large collection of odes and sonnets. Saadi was an accomplished linguist, and composed several poems in the languages of many of the countries through which he travelled. "I have wandered to various regions of the world," he tells us, "and everywhere have I mixed freely with the inhabitants. I have gathered something in each corner; I have gleaned an ear from every harvest." A deep insight into the secret springs of human actions; an extensive knowledge of mankind; fervent piety, without a taint of bigotry; a poet's keen appreciation of the beauties of nature; together with a ready wit and a lively sense of humour, are among the characteristics of Saadi's masterly compositions.

No writer, ancient or modern, European or Asiatic, has excelled, and few have equalled, Saadi in that rare faculty for condensing profound moral truths into short, pithy sentences. For example:

"The remedy against want is to moderate your desires."

"There is a difference between him who claspeth his mistress in his arms, and him whose eyes are fixed on the door expecting her."

"Whoever recounts to you the faults of your neighbour will doubtless expose your defects to others."

His humorous comparisons flash upon the reader's mind with curious effect, occurring, as they often do, in the midst of a grave discourse.

Thus he says of a poor minstrel: "You would say that the sound of his bow would burst the arteries, and that his voice was more discordant than the lamentations of a man for the death of his father;" and of another bad singer: "No one with a mattock can so effectually sc.r.a.pe clay from the face of a hard stone as his discordant voice harrows up the soul."

Talking of music reminds me of a remark of the learned Gentius, in one of his notes on the _Gulistan_ of Saadi, that music was formerly in such consideration in Persia that it was a maxim of their sages that when a king was about to die, if he left for his successor a very young son, his apt.i.tude for reigning should be proved by some agreeable songs; and if the child was pleasurably affected, then it was a sign of his capacity and genius, but if the contrary, he should be declared unfit.--It would appear that the old Persian musicians, like Timotheus, knew the secret art of swaying the pa.s.sions. The celebrated philosopher Al-Farabi (who died about the middle of the tenth century), among his accomplishments, excelled in music, in proof of which a curious anecdote is told. Returning from the pilgrimage to Mecca, he introduced himself, though a stranger, at the court of Sayfu 'd-Dawla, sultan of Syria, when a party of musicians chanced to be performing, and he joined them. The prince admired his skill, and, desiring to hear something of his own, Al-Farabi unfolded a composition, and distributed the parts amongst the band. The first movement threw the prince and his courtiers into violent laughter, the next melted all into tears, and the last lulled even the performers to sleep. At the retaking of Baghdad by the Turks in 1638, when the springing of a mine, whereby eight hundred jannisaries perished, was the signal for a general ma.s.sacre, and thirty thousand Persians were put to the sword, a Persian musician named Shah-Kuli, who was brought before the sultan Murad, played and sang so sweetly, first a song of triumph, and then a dirge, that the sultan, moved to pity by the music, gave order to stop the slaughter.

To resume, after this anecdotical digression. Saadi gives this whimsical piece of advice to a pugnacious fellow: "Be sure, either that thou art stronger than thine enemy, or that thou hast a swifter pair of heels."

And he relates a droll story in ill.u.s.tration of the use and abuse of the phrase, "For the sake of G.o.d," which is so frequently in the mouths of Muslims: A harsh-voiced man was reading the Kuran in a loud tone. A pious man pa.s.sed by him and said: "What is thy monthly salary?" The other replied: "Nothing." "Why, then, dost thou give thyself this trouble?" "I read for the sake of G.o.d," he rejoined. "Then," said the pious man, "_for G.o.d's sake don't read_."

The most esteemed of Saadi's numerous and diversified works is the _Gulistan_, or Rose-Garden. The first English translation of this work was made by Francis Gladwin, and published in 1808, and it is a very scarce book. Other translations have since been issued, but they are rather costly and the editions limited. It is strange that in these days of cheap reprints of rare and excellent works of genius no enterprising publisher should have thought it worth reproduction in a popular form.

It is not one of those ponderous tomes of useless learning which not even an Act of Parliament could cause to be generally read, and which no publisher would be so blind to his own interests as to reprint. As regards its size, the _Gulistan_ is but a small book, but intrinsically it is indeed a very great book, such as could only be produced by a great mind, and it comprises more wisdom and wit than a score of old English folios could together yield to the most devoted reader. Some querulous persons there are who affect to consider the present as a shallow age, because, forsooth, huge volumes of learning--each the labour of a lifetime--are not now produced. But the flood-gates of knowledge are now wide open, and, no longer confined within the old, narrow, if deep, channels, learning has spread abroad, like the Nile during the season of its over-flow. Shallow, it may be, but more widely beneficial, since its life-giving waters are within the reach of all.

Unlike most of our learned old English authors, Saadi did not cast upon the world all that came from the rich mine of his genius, dross as well as fine gold, clay as well as gems. It is because they have done so that many ponderous tomes of learning and industry stand neglected on the shelves of great libraries. Time is too precious now-a-days, whatever may have been the case of our forefathers, for it to be dissipated by diving into the muddy waters of voluminous authors in hopes of finding an occasional pearl of wisdom. And unless some intelligent and painstaking compiler set himself to the task of separating the gold from the rubbish in which it is imbedded in those graves of learning, and present the results of his labour in an attractive form, such works are virtually lost to the world. For in these high-pressure days, most of us, "like the dogs in Egypt for fear of the crocodiles, must drink of the waters of knowledge as we run, in dread of the old enemy Time."

Saadi, however, in his _Gulistan_ sets forth only his well-pondered thoughts in the most felicitous and expressive language. There is no need to form an abstract or epitome of a work in which nothing is superfluous, nothing valueless. But, as in a cabinet of gems some are more beautiful than others, or as in a garden some flowers are more attractive from their brilliant hues and fragrant odours, so a selection may be made of the more striking tales and aphorisms of the ill.u.s.trious Persian philosopher.

The preface to the _Gulistan_ is one of the most pleasing portions of the whole book. Now prefaces are among those parts of books which are too frequently "skipped" by readers--they are "taken as read." Why this should be so, I confess I cannot understand. For my part, I make a point of reading a preface at least twice: first, because I would know what reasons my author had for writing his book, and again, having read his book, because the preface, if well written, may serve also as a sort of appendix. Authors are said to bestow particular pains on their prefaces.

Cervantes, for instance, tells us that the preface to the first part of _Don Quixote_ cost him more thought than the writing of the entire work.

"It argues a deficiency of taste," says Isaac D'Israeli, "to turn over an elaborate preface unread; for it is the essence of the author's roses--every drop distilled at an immense cost." And, no doubt, it is a great slight to an author to skip his preface, though it cannot be denied that some prefaces are very tedious, because the writer "spins out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument,"

and none but the most _hardy_ readers can persevere to the distant end.

The Italians call a preface _salsa del libro_, the _salt_ of the book. A preface may also be likened to the porch of a mansion, where it is not courteous to keep a visitor waiting long before you open the door and make him free of your house. But the reader who pa.s.ses over the preface to the _Gulistan_ unread loses not a little of the spice of that fascinating and instructive book. He who reads it, however, is rewarded by the charming account which the author gives of how he came to form his literary Rose-Garden:

"It was the season of spring; the air was temperate and the rose in full bloom. The vestments of the trees resembled the festive garments of the fortunate. It was mid-spring, when the nightingales were chanting from their pulpits in the branches. The rose, decked with pearly dew, like blushes on the cheek of a chiding mistress. It happened once that I was benighted in a garden, in company with a friend. The spot was delightful: the trees intertwined; you would have said that the earth was bedecked with gla.s.s spangles, and that the knot of the Pleiades was suspended from the branch of the vine. A garden with a running stream, and trees whence birds were warbling melodious strains: that filled with tulips of various hues; these loaded with fruits of several kinds. Under the shade of its trees the zephyr had spread the variegated carpet.

"In the morning, when the desire to return home overcame our inclination to remain, I saw in my friend's lap a collection of roses, odoriferous herbs, and hyacinths, which he intended to carry to town. I said: 'You are not ignorant that the flower of the garden soon fadeth, and that the enjoyment of the rose-bush is of short continuance; and the sages have declared that the heart ought not to be set upon anything that is transitory.' He asked: 'What course is then to be pursued?' I replied: 'I am able to form a book of roses, which will delight the beholders and gratify those who are present; whose leaves the tyrannic arm of autumnal blasts can never affect, or injure the blossoms of its spring. What benefit will you derive from a basket of flowers? Carry a leaf from my garden: a rose may continue in bloom five or six days, but this Rose-Garden will flourish for ever.' As soon as I had uttered these words, he flung the flowers from his lap, and, laying hold of the skirt of my garment, exclaimed: 'When the beneficent promise, they faithfully discharge their engagements.' In the course of a few days two chapters were written in my note-book, in a style that may be useful to orators and improve the skill of letter-writers. In short, while the rose was still in bloom, the book called the Rose-Garden was finished."

Dr. Johnson has remarked that "there is scarcely any poet of eminence who has not left some testimony of his fondness for the flowers, the zephyrs, and the warblers of the spring." This is pre-eminently the case of Oriental poets, from Solomon downwards: "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away," exclaims the Hebrew poet in his Book of Canticles: "for lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone: the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green fruits, and the vines with the tender grapes give forth a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away."

In a Persian poem written in the 14th century the delights of the vernal season are thus described: "On every bush roses were blowing; on every branch the nightingale was plaintively warbling. The tall cypress was dancing in the garden; and the poplar never ceased clapping its hands with joy. With a loud voice from the top of every bough the turtle-dove was proclaiming the glad advent of spring. The diadem of the narcissus shone with such splendour that you would have said it was the crown of the Emperor of China. On this side the north wind, on that, the west wind, were, in token of affection, scattering dirhams at the feet of the rose.[3] The earth was musk-scented, the air musk-laden."

[3] Referring to the custom of throwing small coins among crowds in the street on the occasion of a wedding. A dirham is a coin nearly equal in value to sixpence of our money.

But it would be difficult to adduce from the writings of any poet, European or Asiatic, anything to excel the charming ode on spring, by the Turkish poet Mesihi, who flourished in the 15th century, which has been rendered into graceful English verse, and in the measure of the original, by my friend Mr. E. J. W. Gibb, in his dainty volume of _Ottoman Poems_, published in London a few years ago. These are some of the verses from that fine ode:

Hark! the bulbul's[4] lay so joyous: "Now have come the days of spring!"