ADDITIONAL NOTES.
‘WAMIK AND ASRA,’ p. [289].
This is the title of an ancient Persian poem, composed in the reign of Núshírván, A.D. 531-579, of which some fragments only now remain, incorporated with an Arabian poem. In 1833, Von Hammer published a German translation, at Vienna: Wamik und Asra; das ist, Glühende und die Blühende. Das älteste Persische romantische Gedicht. Jun fünftelsaft abgezogen, von Joseph von Hammer (Wamik and Asra; that is, the Glowing and the Blowing. The most ancient Persian Romantic Poem. Transfer the Fifth, etc.) The hero and heroine, namely, Wamik and Asra, are personifications of the two great principles of heat and vegetation, the vivifying energy of heaven and the correspondent productiveness of earth.—This noble poem is the subject of a very interesting article in the Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xviii, 1836-7, giving some of the more striking passages in English verse, of which the following may serve as a specimen:
‘The Blowing One’ Asra was justly named,
For she, in mind and form, a blossom stood;
Of beauty, youth, and grace divinely framed,
Of holiest spirit, filled with heavenly good.
The Spring, when warm, in fullest splendour showing,
Breathing gay wishes to the inmost core
Of youthful hearts, and fondest influence throwing,
Yet veiled its bloom, her beauty’s bloom before;
For her the devotee his very creed forswore.
Her hair was bright as hyacinthine dyes;
Her cheek was blushing, sheen as Eden’s rose;
The soft narcissus tinged her sleeping eyes,
And white her forehead, as the lotus shows
’Gainst Summer’s earliest sunbeams shimmering fair.
A curious story is related by Dawlat Sháh regarding this poem, which bears a close resemblance to the story of the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, by order of the fanatical khalíf ‘Umar: One day when Amír Abdullah Tahir, governor of Khurasán under the Abbasside khalífs, was giving audience, a person laid before him a book, as a rare and valuable present. He asked: “What book is this?” The man replied: “It is the story of Wamik and Asra.” The Amír observed: “We are the readers of the Kurán, and we read nothing except that sacred volume, and the traditions of the Prophet, and such accounts as relate to him, and we have therefore no use for books of this kind. They are besides compositions of infidels, and the productions of worshippers of fire, and are therefore to be rejected and contemned by us.” He then ordered the book to be thrown into the water, and issued his command that whatever books could be found in the kingdom which were the composition of the Persian infidels should be immediately burnt.
ANOTHER FAMOUS ARABIAN LOVER.
Scarcely less celebrated than the story of Majnún and Laylá—among the Arabs, at least—is that of the poet Jamíl and the beauteous damsel Buthayna. It is said that Jamíl fell in love with her while he was yet a boy, and on attaining manhood asked her in marriage, but her father refused. He then composed verses in her honour and visited her secretly at Wádi-’l Kura, a delightful valley near Medína, much celebrated by the poets. Jamíl afterwards went to Egypt, with the intention of reciting to Abdu-’l Azíz Ibn Marwán a poem he had composed in his honour. This governor admitted Jamíl into his presence, and, after hearing his eulogistic verses and rewarding him generously, he asked him concerning his love for Buthayna, and was told of his ardent and painful passion. On this Abdu-’l Azíz promised to unite Jamíl to her, and bade him stay at Misr (Cairo), where he assigned him a habitation and furnished him with all he required. But Jamíl died there shortly after, A.H. 82 (A.D. 701).
The following narrative is given in the Kitabal-Aghání, on the authority of the famous poet and philologist Al-Asma’í, who flourished in the 8th century:
A person who was present at the death of Jamíl in Egypt relates that the poet called him and said: “If I give you all I leave after me, will you perform one thing which I shall enjoin you?” “By Allah, yes,” said the other. “When I am dead,” said Jamíl, “take this cloak of mine and put it aside, but keep everything else for yourself. Then go to Buthayna’s tribe, and when you are near them, saddle this camel of mine and mount her; then put on my cloak and rend it, and mounting on a hill, shout out these verses: ‘A messenger hath openly proclaimed the death of Jamíl. He hath now a dwelling in Egypt from which he will never return. There was a time when, intoxicated with love, he trained his mantle proudly in the fields and palm-groves of Wádi-’l Kura! Arise, Buthayna! and lament aloud: weep for the best of all thy lovers!’” The man did what Jamíl ordered, and had scarcely finished the verses when Buthayna came forth, beautiful as the moon when it appears from behind a cloud. She was muffled in a cloak, and on coming up to him said: “Man, if what thou sayest be true, thou hast killed me; if false, thou hast dishonoured me!” [i.e. by associating her name with that of a strange man, still alive.] He replied: “By Allah! I only tell the truth,” and he showed her Jamíl’s mantle, on seeing which she uttered a loud cry and smote her face, and the women of the tribe gathered around, weeping with her and lamenting her lover’s death. Her strength at length failed her, and she swooned away. After some time she revived, and said [in verse]: “Never for an instant shall I feel consolation for the loss of Jamíl! That time shall never come. Since thou art dead, O Jamíl, son of Mamar! the pains of life and its pleasures are alike to me.” And quoth the lover’s messenger: “I never saw man or woman weep more than I saw that day.”—Abridged from Ibn Khallikan’s great Biographical Dictionary as translated by Baron De Slane, vol. i, pp. 331-326.
APOCRYPHAL LIFE OF ESOP, THE FABULIST.
The origin of the Beast-Fable is still a vexed question among scholars, some of whom ascribe it to the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of human souls into different animal forms; others, again, are of the opinion that beasts and birds were first adopted as characters of fictitious narratives, in order to safely convey reproof or impart wholesome counsel to the minds of absolute princes, who would signally resent “plain speaking.”[127] Several nations of antiquity—notably the Greeks, the Hindús, the Egyptians—have been credited with the invention of the beast-fable, and there is no reason to believe that it may not have been independently devised in different countries. It is very certain, however, that Esop was not the inventor of this kind of narrative in Greece, while those fables ascribed to him, which have been familiar to us from our nursery days, are mostly spurious, and have been traced to ancient Oriental sources. The so-called Esopic apologue of the Lion and the House is found in an Egyptian papyrus preserved at Leyden.[128] Many of them are quite modern rechauffés of Hindú apologues, such as the Milkmaid and her Pot of Milk, which gave rise to our popular saying, “Don’t count your chickens until they be hatched.” Nevertheless, genuine fables of Esop were current in Athens at the best period of its literary history, though it does not appear that they existed in writing during his lifetime. Aristophanes represents a character in one of his plays as learning Esop’s fables from oral recitation. When first reduced to writing they were in prose, and Socrates is said to have turned some of them into verse, his example being followed by Babrius, amongst others, of whose version but few fables remain entire. The most celebrated of his Latin translators is Phædrus, who takes care to inform us that
If any thoughts in these Iambics shine,
The invention’s Esop’s, and the verse is mine.[129]
Little is authentically known regarding the career of the renowned fabulist, who is supposed to have
been born about
B.C.
620, and, as in the case of Homer, various places are assigned as that of his nativity--Samos, Sardis, Mesembria in Thrace, and Cotiæium in Phrygia. He is said to have been brought as a slave to Athens when very young, and after serving several masters was enfranchised by Iadmon, the Samian. His death is thus related by Plutarch: Having gone to Delphos, by the order of Crœsus, with a large quantity of gold and silver, to offer a costly sacrifice to Apollo and to distribute a considerable sum among the inhabitants, a quarrel arose between him and the Delphians, which induced him to return the money, and inform the king that the people were unworthy of the liberal benefaction he had intended for them. The Delphians, incensed, charged him with sacrilege, and, having procured his condemnation, precipitated him from a rock and caused his death.--The popular notion that Esop was a monster of ugliness and deformity is derived from a "Life" of the fabulist, prefixed to a Greek collection of fables purporting to be his, said to have been written by Maximus Planudes, a monk of the 14th century, which, however apocryphal, is both curious and entertaining, from whatever sources the anecdotes may have been drawn.
According to Planudes,[130] Esop was born at Amorium, in the Greater Phrygia, a slave, ugly exceedingly: he was sharp-chinned, snub-nosed, bull-necked, blubber-lipped, and extremely swarthy (whence his name, Ais-ôpos, or Aith-ôpos: burnt-face, blackamoor); pot-bellied, crook-legged, and crook-backed; perhaps uglier even than the Thersites of Homer; worst of all, tongue-tied, obscure and inarticulate in his speech; in short, everything but his mind seemed to mark him out for a slave. His first master sent him out to dig one day. A husbandman having presented the master with some fine fresh figs, they were given to a slave to be set before him after his bath. Esop had occasion to go into the house; meanwhile the other slaves ate the figs, and when the master missed them they accused Esop, who begged a moment’s respite: he then drank some warm water and caused himself to vomit, and as he had not broken his fast his innocence was thus manifest. The same test discovered the thieves, who by their punishment illustrated the proverb:
Whoso against another worketh guile
Thereby himself doth injure unaware.[131]
Next day the master goes to town. Esop works in the field, and entertains with his own food some travellers who had lost their way, and sets them on the right road again. They are really priests of Artemis, and having received their blessing he falls asleep, and dreams that Tychê (i.e. Fortune) looses his tongue, and gives him eloquence. Waking, he finds he can say bous, onos, dikella, (ox, ass, mattock). This is the reward of piety, for “well-doing is full of good hopes.” Zenas, the overseer, is rebuked by Esop for beating a slave. This is the first time he has been heard to speak distinctly. Zenas goes to his master and accuses Esop of having blasphemed him and the gods, and is given Esop to sell or give away as he pleases. He sells him to a trader for three obols (4½d.), Esop pleading that, if useless for aught else, he will do for a bugbear to keep his children quiet. When they arrive home the little ones begin to cry. “Was I not right?” quoth Esop, and the other slaves think he has been bought to avert the Evil Eye.
The merchant sets out for Asia with all his house-hold. Esop is offered the lightest load, as being a raw recruit. From among the bags, beds, and baskets he chooses a basket full of bread—“a load for two men.” They laugh at his folly, but let him have his will, and he staggers under the burden to the wonder of his master. But at the first halt for ariston, or breakfast, the basket is half-emptied, and by the evening wholly so, and then Esop marches triumphantly ahead, all commending his wit. At Ephesus the merchant sells all his slaves, excepting a musician, a scribe, and Esop. Thence he goes to Samos, where he puts new garments on the two former (he had none left for Esop), and sets them out for sale, Esop between them. Xanthus, the philospher, lived at Samos. He goes to the slave market, and, seeing the three, praises the dealer’s cunning in making the two look handsomer than they were by contrast with the ugly one. Asking the scribe and the musician what they know, their answer is, “Everything,” upon which Esop laughs. The price of the musician (1000 obols, or six guineas) and of the scribe (three times that sum) prevents the philosopher from buying them, and he turns to Esop to see what he is made of. He gives him the customary salutation, “Khaire!” (Rejoice). “I wasn’t grieving,” retorts Esop. “I greet thee,” says Xanthus. “And I thee,” replies Esop. “What are thou?” “Black.” “I don’t mean that, but in what sort of place wast thou born?” “My mother didn’t tell me whether in the second floor or the cellar.” “What can you do?” “Nothing.” “How?” “Why, these fellows here say they know how to do everything, and they haven’t left me a single thing.” “By Jove,” cries Xanthus, “he has answered right well; for there is no man who knows everything. That was why he laughed, it is clear.” In the end, Xanthus buys Esop for sixty obols (about 7s. 6d.) and takes him home, where his wife (who is “very cleanly”) receives him only on sufferance.
One day Xanthus, meeting friends at the bath, sends Esop home to boil pease (idiomatically using the word in the singular), for his friends are coming to eat with him. Esop boils one pea and sets it before Xanthus, who tastes it and bids him serve up. The water is then placed on the table, and Esop justifies himself to his distracted master, who then sends him for four pig’s feet. While they boil, Xanthus slyly abstracts one, and when Esop discovers this he takes it for a plot against him of the other slaves. He runs into the yard, cuts a foot from the pig feeding there, and tosses it into the pot. Presently the other foot is put back, and Esop is confounded to see five trotters on the boil. He serves them up, however, and when Xanthus asks him what the five mean he replies: “How many feet have two pigs?” Xanthus saying, “Eight,” quoth Esop: “Then here are five, and the porker feeding below goes on three.” On being reproached he urges: “But, master, there is no harm in doing a sum in addition and subtraction, is there?” For very shame Xanthus forbears whipping him.
One morning Xanthus gives a breakfast, for which Esop is sent to buy “the best and most useful.” He buys tongues, and the guests (philosophers all) have nothing else. “What could be better for man than tongue?” quoth Esop. Another time he is ordered to get “the worst and most worthless”; again he brings tongues, and again is ready with a similar defence.[132] A guest reviles him, and Esop retorts that he is “malicious and a busybody.” On hearing this Xanthus commands him to find some one who is not a busybody. In the road Esop finds a simple soul and brings him home to his master, who persuades his wife to bear with him in anything he should pretend to do to her; if the guest is a busybody (or one who meddles) Esop will get a beating. The plan fails; for the good man continues eating and takes no notice of the wife-cuffing going on, and when his host seems about to burn her, he only asks leave to bring his own wife to be also placed on the pile.
At a symposium Xanthus takes too much wine, and in bravado wagers his house and all that it contains that he will drink up the waters of the sea. Out of this scrape Esop rescues him by suggesting that he should demand that all the rivers be stopped from flowing into the sea, for he did not undertake to drink them too, and the other party is satisfied.[133]
A party of scientific guests are coming to dinner one day, and Esop is set just within the door to keep out “all but the wise.” When there is a knock at the door Esop shouts: “What does the dog shake?” and all save one go away in high dudgeon, thinking he means them; but this last answers: “His tail,” and is admitted.
At a public festival an eagle carries off the municipal ring, and Esop obtains his freedom by order of the state for his interpretation of this omen—that some king purposes to annex Samos. This, it turns out, is Crœsus, who sends to claim tribute. Hereupon Esop relates his first fable, that of the Wolf, the Dog, and the Sheep, and, going on an embassy to Crœsus, that of the Grasshopper who was caught by the Locust-gatherer. He brings home “peace with honour.” After this Esop travels over the world, showing his wisdom and wit. At Babylon he is made much of by the king. He then visits Egypt and confounds the sages in his monarch’s behalf. Once more he returns to Greece, and at Delphi is accused of stealing a sacred golden bowl and condemned to be hurled from a rock. He pleads the fables of the Matron of Ephesus,[134] the Frog and the Mouse, the Beetle and the Eagle, the Old Farmer and his Ass-waggon, and others, but all is of no avail, and the villains break his neck.
Such are some of the apocryphal sayings and doings of Esop the fabulist—the manner of his death being the only circumstance for which there is any authority. The idea of his bodily deformity is utterly without foundation, and may have been adopted as a foil to his extraordinary shrewdness and wit, as exhibited in the anecdotes related of him by Planudes. That there was nothing uncouth in the person of Esop is evident from the fact that the Athenians erected a fine statue of him, by the famed sculptor Lysippus.—The Latin collection of the fables ascribed to Esop was first printed at Rome in 1473 and soon afterwards translated into most of the languages of Europe. About the year 1480 the Greek text was printed at Milan. From a French version Caxton printed them in English at Westminster in 1484, with woodcuts: “Here begynneth the Book of the subtyl History and Fables of Esope. Translated out of Frenssche into Englissche, by William Caxton,” etc. In this version Planudes’ description of Esop’s personal appearance is reproduced[135] He was “deformed and evil shapen, for he had a great head, large visage, long jaws, sharp eyes, a short neck, curb backed, great belly, great legs, and large feet; and yet that which was worse, he was dumb and could not speak; but, notwithstanding all this, he had a great wit and was greatly ingenious, subtle in cavillection and joyous in words”—an inconsistency which is done away in a later edition by the statement that afterwards he found his tongue.—It is curious to find the Scottish poet Robert Henryson (15th century), in one of the prologues to his metrical versions of some of the Fables, draw a very different portrait of Esop.[136] He tells us that one day in the midst of June, “that joly sweit seasoun,” he went alone to a wood, where he was charmed with the “noyis of birdis richt delitious,” and “sweit was the smell of flowris quhyte and reid,” and, sheltering himself under a green hawthorn from the heat of the sun, he fell asleep:
And, in my dreme, methocht come throw the schaw[137]
The fairest man that ever befoir I saw.
His gowne wes of ane claith als quhyte as milk,
His chymeris[138] wes of chambelote purpour broun;
His hude[139] of scarlet, bordourit[140] weill with silk,
On hekellit-wyis,[141] untill his girdill doun;
His bonat round, and of the auld fassoun,[142]
His beird was quhyte, his ene was greit and gray,
With lokker[143] hair, quilk ouer his schulderis lay.
Ane roll of paper in his hand he bair,
Ane swannis pen stikkand[144] under his eir,
Ane inkhorne, with ane prettie gilt pennair,[145]
Ane bag of silk, all at his belt can beir:
Thus was he gudelie graithit[146] in his geir.
Of stature large, and with ane feirfull[147] face;
Evin quhair I lay, he came ane sturdie pace.
The Arabian sage Lokinan is represented by tradition to have been a black slave, and of hideous appearance, from which, and from the identity of the apologues in the Arabian collection that bears his name as the author with the so-called Esopic fables, some writers have supposed that Esop and Lokman are simply different names of one and the same individual. But the fables ascribed to Lokman have been for the most part (if not indeed entirely) derived from the Greek; and there is no authority whatever that Lokman composed any apologues. Various traditions exist regarding Lokman’s origin and history. It is said that he was an Ethiopian, and was sold as a slave to the Israelites during the reign of David. According to one version, he was a carpenter; another describes him as having been originally a tailor; while a third account states that he was a shepherd. If the Arabs may be credited, he was nearly related to the patriarch Job. Among the anecdotes which are recounted of his amiable disposition is the following: His master once gave him a bitter lemon to eat. Lokman ate it all, upon which his master, greatly astonished, asked him: “How was it possible for you to eat so unpalatable a fruit?” Lokman replied: “I have received so many favours from you, that it is no wonder I should once in my life eat a bitter melon from your hand.” Struck with this generous answer, the master, it is said, immediately gave him his freedom.—A man of eminence among the Jews, observing a great crowd around Lokman, eagerly listening to his discourse, asked him whether he was not the black slave who lately tended the sheep of such a person, to which Lokman replying in the affirmative, “How was it possible,” continued his questioner, “for thee to attain so exalted a degree of wisdom and piety?” Lokman answered: “By always speaking the truth; keeping my word; and never intermeddling in affairs that did not concern me.”—Being asked from whom he had learned urbanity, he replied: “From men of rude manners, for whatever I saw in them that was disagreeable I avoided doing myself.” And when asked from whom he had acquired his philosophy, he said: “From the blind, who never advance a step until they have tried the ground.” Lokman is also credited with this apothegm: “Be a learned man, a disciple of the learned, or an auditor of the learned; at least, be a lover of knowledge and desirous of improvement.”—In Persian and Turkish tales Lokman sometimes figures as a highly skilled physician, and “wise as Lokman” is proverbial throughout the Muhammedan world.