Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers Part 9

Here Long-ears superciliously answered: "Pusillanimous companion, I am the blossom of the city and the luminary of the people; my presence gives life to the plains, and my harmony cultivates the desert. If, when in vulgar prose I express the unpremeditated idea, every ear is filled with delight, and the fleeting soul, through ecstacy, flutters on the trembling lips--what must be the effect of my songs?"

The elk rejoined: "The ear must be deprived of sensation, the heart void of blood, and formed of the coa.r.s.est clay must be he who can attend your lays with indifference. But condescend, for once, to listen to advice, and postpone this music, in which you are so great a proficient, and suppress not only the song, but the sweet murmuring in your throat, prelusive to your singing, and shrink not up your graceful nostrils, nor extent the extremities of your jaws, lest you should have as much reason to repent of your singing as the f.a.ggot-maker had of his dancing." The a.s.s demanding how that came to pa.s.s, the elk made answer as follows:

_The f.a.ggot-maker and the Magic Bowl._

As a f.a.ggot-maker was one day at work in a wood, he saw four peris [or fairies] sitting near him, with a magnificent bowl before them, which supplied them with all they wanted. If they had occasion for food of the choicest taste, wines of the most delicious flavour, garments the most valuable and convenient, or perfumes of the most odoriferous exhalation--in short, whatever necessity could require, luxury demand, or avarice wish for--they had nothing more to do but put their hands into the bowl and pull out whatever they desired. The day following, the poor f.a.ggot-maker being at work in the same place, the peris again appeared, and invited him to be one of their party. The proposal was cheerfully accepted, and impressing his wife and children with the seal of forgetfulness, he remained some days in their company. Recollecting himself, however, at last, he thus addressed his white-robed entertainers:

"I am a poor f.a.ggot-maker, father of a numerous family; to drive famine from my cot, I every evening return with my f.a.ggots; but my cares for my wife and fireside have been for some time past obliterated by the cup of your generosity. If my pet.i.tion gain admission to the durbar of your enlightened auditory, I will return to give them the salaam of health, and inquire into the situation of their affairs."

The peris graciously nodded acquiescence, adding: "The favours you have received from us are trifling, and we cannot dismiss you empty-handed.

Make choice, therefore, of whatever you please, and the fervour of your most unbounded desire shall be slaked in the stream of our munificence."

The wood-cutter replied: "I have but one wish to gratify, and that is so unjust and so unreasonable that I dread the very thought of naming it, since nothing but the bowl before us will satisfy my ambitious heart."

The peris, bursting into laughter, answered: "We shall suffer not the least inconvenience by the loss of it, for, by virtue of a talisman which we possess, we could make a thousand in a twinkling. But, in order to make it as great a treasure to you as it has been to us, guard it with the utmost care, for it will break by the most trifling blow, and be sure never to make use of it but when you really want it."

The f.a.ggot-maker, overcome with joy, said: "I will pay the most profound attention to this inexhaustible treasure; and to preserve it from breaking I will exert every faculty of my soul." Upon saying this he received the bowl, with which he returned on the wings of rapture, and for some days enjoyed his good fortune better than might be expected.

The necessaries and comforts of life were provided for his family, his creditors were paid, alms distributed to the poor, the brittle bowl of plenty was guarded with discretion, and everything around him was arranged for the reception of his friends, who a.s.sembled in such crowds that his cottage overflowed. The f.a.ggot-maker, who was one of those choice elevated spirits whose money never rusts in their possession, finding his habitation inadequate for the entertainment of his guests, built another, more s.p.a.cious and magnificent, to which he invited the whole city, and placed the magic bowl in the middle of the grand saloon, and every time he made a dip pulled out whatever was wished for. Though the views of his visitors were various, contentment was visibly inscribed on every forehead: the hungry were filled with the bread of plenty; the aqueducts overflowed with the wine of Shiraz; the effeminate were satiated with musky odours, and the thirst of avarice was quenched by the bowl of abundance. The wondering spectators exclaimed: "This is no bowl, but a boundless ocean of mystery! It is not what it appears to be, a piece of furniture, but an inexhaustible magazine of treasure!"

After the f.a.ggot-maker had thus paraded his good fortune and circulated the wine-cup with very great rapidity, he stood up and began to dance, and, to show his dexterity in the art, placed the brittle bowl on his left shoulder, which every time he turned round he struck with his hand, crying: "O soul-exhilarating goblet, thou art the origin of my ease and affluence--the spring of my pomp and equipage--the engineer who has lifted me from the dust of indigence to the towering battlements of glory! Thou art the nimble berid [running foot-man] of my winged wishes, and the regulator of all my actions! To thee am I indebted for all the splendour that surrounds me! Thou art the source of my currency, and art the author of our present festival!"

With these and similar foolish tales he entertained his company, as the genius of nonsense dictated, making the most ridiculous grimaces, rolling his eyes like a fakir in a fit of devotion, and capering like one distracted, till the bowl, by a sudden slip of his foot, fell from his shoulder on the pavement of ruin, and was broken into a hundred pieces. At the same instant, all that he had in the house, and whatever he had circulated in the city, suddenly vanished;--the banquet of exultation was quickly converted into mourning, and he who a little before danced for joy now beat his breast for sorrow, blamed to no purpose the rigour of his inauspicious fortune, and execrated the hour of his birth. Thus a jewel fell into the hands of an unworthy person, who was unacquainted with its value; and an inestimable gem was entrusted to an indigent wretch, who, by his ignorance and ostentation, converted it to his own destruction.

"Melodious bulbul of the long-eared race," continued the elk, "as the wood-cutter's dancing was an unpardonable folly which met with the chastis.e.m.e.nt it deserved, so I fearfully antic.i.p.ate that your unseasonable singing will become your exemplary punishment."

His a.s.s-ship listened thus far with reluctance to the admonition of his friend, without intending to profit by it; but arose from the carpet of spinach, eyed his companion with a mortifying glance of contempt, p.r.i.c.ked up his long snaky ears, and began to put himself into a musical posture. The nimble, small-hoofed elk, perceiving this, said to himself: "Since he has stretched out his neck and prepared his pitch-pipe, he will not remain long without singing." So he left the vegetable banquet, leaped over the garden wall, and fled to a place of security. The a.s.s was no sooner alone than he commenced a most loud and horrible braying, which instantly awoke the gardeners, who, with the noose of an insidious halter, to the trunk of a tree fast bound the affrighted musician, where they belaboured him with their cudgels till they broke every bone in his body, and converted his skin to a book, in which, in letters of gold, a munshi [learned man] of luminous pen, with the choicest flowers of the garden of rhetoric, and for the benefit of the numerous fraternity of a.s.ses, inscribed this instructive history.

Magical articles such as the wonderful wishing-bowl of our unlucky friend the f.a.ggot-maker figure very frequently in the folk-tales of almost every country, a.s.suming many different forms: a table-cloth, a pair of saddle-bags, a purse, a flask, etc.; but since a comprehensive account of those highly-gifted objects--alas, that they should no longer exist!--is furnished in the early chapters of my _Popular Tales and Fictions_, I presume I need not go over the same wide field again.--In the _Katha Sarit Sagara_ (Ocean of the Streams of Story), a very large collection of tales and apologues, composed, in Sanskrit, by Somadeva, in the 12th century, after a much older work, the _Vrihat Katha_ (or Great Story), the tale of the f.a.ggot-maker occurs as a separate recital.

It is there an inexhaustible pitcher which he receives from four yakshas--supernatural beings, who correspond to some extent with the peris of Muslim mythology--and he is duly warned that should it be broken it departs at once. For a time he concealed the secret from his relations until one day, when he was intoxicated, they asked him how it came about that he had given up carrying burdens, and had abundance of all kinds of dainties, eatable and drinkable. "He was too much puffed up with pride to tell them plainly, but, taking the wish-granting pitcher on his shoulder, he began to dance; and, as he was dancing, the inexhaustible pitcher slipped from his shoulder, as his feet tripped with over-abundance of intoxication, and, falling on the ground, was broken in pieces. And immediately it was mended again, and reverted to its original possessor; but Subadatta was reduced to his former condition, and filled with despondency." In a note to this story, Mr.

Tawney remarks that in Bartsch's Meklenburg Tales a man possesses himself of an inexhaustible beer-can, but as soon as he tells how he got it the beer disappears.--The story of the Foolish Thieves noisily carousing in the house they had just plundered occurs also in Saadi's _Gulistan_ and several other Eastern story-books.

In Kadiri's abridgment of the Parrot-Book, the Elk is taken prisoner as well as his companion the a.s.s, and the two subordinate stories, of the Foolish Thieves and of the f.a.ggot-maker, are omitted. They are also omitted in the version of the Singing a.s.s found in the _Panchatantra_ (B. v, F. 7), where a jackal, not an elk, is the companion of the a.s.s, and when he perceives the latter about to "sing" he says: "Let me get to the door of the garden, where I may see the gardener as he approaches, and then sing away as long as you please." The gardener beats the a.s.s till he is weary, and then fastens a clog to the animal's leg and ties him to a post. After great exertion, the a.s.s contrives to get free from the post and hobbles away with the clog still on his leg. The jackal meets his old comrade and exclaims: "Bravo, uncle! You would sing your song, though I did all I could to dissuade you, and now see what a fine ornament you have received as recompense for your performance." This form of the story reappears in the _Tantrakhyana_, a collection of tales, in Sanskrit, discovered by Prof. Cecil Bendall in 1884, of which he has given an interesting account in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xx, pp. 465-501, including the original text of a number of the stories.--In Ralston's _Tibetan Tales_, translated from Schiefner's German rendering of stories from the _Kah-gyur_ (No. x.x.xii), the story is also found, with a bull in place of a jackal. An a.s.s meets the bull one evening and proposes they should go together and feast themselves to their hearts' content in the king's bean-field, to which the bull replies: "O nephew, as you are wont to let your voice resound, we should run great risk." Said the a.s.s: "O uncle, let us go; I will not raise my voice." Having entered the bean-field together, the a.s.s uttered no sound until he had eaten his fill. Then quoth he: "Uncle, shall I not sing a little?" The bull responded: "Wait an instant until I have gone away, and then do just as you please." So the bull runs away, and the a.s.s lifts up his melodious voice, upon which the king's servants came and seized him, cut off his long ears, fastened a pestle on his neck, and drove him out of the field.--There can be no question, I think, as to the superiority, in point of humour, of Nakhshabi's version in _Tuti Nama_, as given above.

IV

THE COVETOUS GOLDSMITH--THE KING WHO DIED OF LOVE--THE DISCOVERY OF MUSIC--THE SEVEN REQUISITES OF A PERFECT WOMAN.

To quit, for the present at least, the regions of fable and magic, and return to tales of common life: the 30th recital in Kadiri's abridged text is of

_The Goldsmith who lost his Life through his Covetousness._

A soldier finds a purse of gold on the highway, and entrusts it to the keeping of a goldsmith (how frequently do goldsmiths figure in these stories--and never to the credit of the craft!), but when he comes to demand it back the other denies all knowledge of it. The soldier cites him before the kazi, but he still persists in denying that he had ever received any money from the complainant. The kazi was, however, convinced of the truth of the soldier's story, so he goes to the house of the goldsmith, and privately causes two of his own attendants to be locked up in a large chest that was in one of the rooms. He then confines the goldsmith and his wife in the same room. During the night the concealed men hear the goldsmith inform his wife where he had hidden the soldier's money; and next morning, when the kazi comes again and is told by his men what they had heard the goldsmith say to his wife about the money, he causes search to be made, and, finding it, hangs the goldsmith on the spot.

Kazis are often represented in Persian stories as being very shrewd and ingenious in convicting the most expert rogues, but this device for discovering the goldsmith's criminality is certainly one of the cleverest examples.

On the 36th Night of MS. (26th of Kadiri) the loquacious bird relates the story of

_The King who died of Love for a Merchant's beautiful Daughter._

A merchant had a daughter, the fame of whose beauty drew many suitors for her hand, but he rejected them all; and when she was of proper age he wrote a letter to the king, describing her charms and accomplishments, and respectfully offering her to him in marriage. The king, already in love with the damsel from this account of her beauty, sends his four vazirs to the merchant's house to ascertain whether she was really as charming as her father had represented her to be. They find that she far surpa.s.sed the power of words to describe; but, considering amongst themselves that should the king take this bewitching girl to wife, he would become so entangled in the meshes of love as totally to neglect the affairs of the state, they underrate her beauty to the king, who then gives up all thought of her. But it chanced one day that the king himself beheld the damsel on the terrace of her house, and, perceiving that his vazirs had deceived him, he sternly reprimanded them, at the same time expressing his fixed resolution of marrying the girl. The vazirs frankly confessed that their reason for misrepresenting the merchant's daughter to him was their fear lest, possessing such a charming bride, he should forget his duty to the state; upon which the king, struck with their anxiety for his true interests, resolved to deny himself the happiness of marrying the girl. But he could not suppress his affection for her: he fell sick, and soon after died, the victim of love.

This story forms the 17th of the Twenty-five Tales of a Demon (_Vetala Panchavinsati_), according to the Sanskrit version found in the _Katha Sarit Sagara_; but its great antiquity is proved by the circ.u.mstance that it is found in a Buddhistic work dating probably 200 years before our era--namely, Buddhaghosha's Parables. "Dying for love," says Richardson, "is considered amongst us as a mere poetical figure, and we can certainly support the reality by few examples; but in Eastern countries it seems to be something more, many words in the Arabic and Persian languages which express love implying also melancholy; madness, and death." Shakspeare affirms that "men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love." There is, however, one notable instance of this on record, in the story (as related by Warton, in his _History of English Poetry_) of the gallant troubadour Geoffrey Rudel, who died for love--and love, too, from hearsay description of the beauty of the Countess of Tripoli.

On the 14th Night the Parrot entertains the Lady with a very curious account of

_The Discovery of Music._

Some attribute, says the learned and eloquent feathered sage (according to Gerrans), the discovery to the sounds made by a large stone against the frame of an oil-press; and others to the noise of meat when roasting; but the sages of Hind [India] are of opinion that it originated from the following accident: As a learned Brahman was travelling to the court of an ill.u.s.trious raja he rested about the middle of the day under the shade of a mulberry tree, on the top of which he beheld a mischievous monkey climbing from bough to bough, till, by a sudden slip, he fell upon a sharp-pointed shoot, which instantly ripped up his belly and left his entrails suspended in the tree, while the unlucky animal fell, breathless, on the dust of death. Some time after this, as the Brahman was returning, he accidentally sat down in the same place, and, recollecting the circ.u.mstance, looked up, and saw that the entrails were dried, and yielded a harmonious sound every time the wind gently impelled them against the branches. Charmed at the singularity of the adventure, he took them down, and after binding them to the two ends of his walking-stick, touched them with a small twig, by which he discovered that the sound was much improved. When he got home he fastened the staff to another piece of wood, which was hollow, and by the addition of a bow, strung with part of his own beard, converted it to a complete instrument. In succeeding ages the science received considerable improvements. After the addition of a bridge, purer notes were extracted; and the different students, pursuing the bent of their inclinations, constructed instruments of various forms, according to their individual fancies; and to this whimsical accident we are indebted for the tuneful ney and the heart-exhilarating rabab, and, in short, all the other instruments of wind and strings.

Having thus discoursed upon the discovery of music, the Parrot proceeds to detail

_The Seven Requisites of a Perfect Woman._

1 She ought not to be always merry.

2 She ought not to be always sad.

3 She ought not to be always talking.

4 She ought not to be always thinking.

5 She ought not to be constantly dressing.

6 She ought not to be always unadorned.

7 She is a perfect woman who, at all times, possesses herself; can be cheerful without levity, grave without austerity; knows when to elevate the tongue of persuasion, and when to impress her lips with the signet of silence; never converts trifling ceremonies into intolerable burdens; always dresses becoming to her rank and age; is modest without prudery, religious without an alloy of superst.i.tion; can hear the one s.e.x praised without envy, and converse with the other without permitting the torch of inconstancy to kindle the unhallowed fire in her breast; considers her husband as the most accomplished of mortals, and thinks all the sons of Adam besides unworthy of a transient glance from the corner of her half-shut eyes.

Such are the requisites of a perfect woman, and how thankful we should be that we have so many in this highly-favoured land who possess them all! These maxims are a.s.suredly of Indian origin--no Persian could ever have conceived such virtues as being attainable by women.