THE ORIENTAL “NOODLE.”
As I have just stated, the court or household fool probably originated in the East. The close of this Chapter will show that in the East that pleasant or pretentious official still survives. In a region where aberration of mind is taken to be a sort of divine inspiration, we need not wonder at finding the professional jester still attached to certain families, and himself and his vocation treated with a certain degree of respect.
I have already spoken of the buffoons who could not move the gravity of their own solemn master Attila; and we know that Timour rather kept these people for the amusement of his guests, than that he experienced any satisfaction himself in the exercise of their craft. They were not wanting in the Courts of the Caliphs, and the name of Bahalul conspicuously figures among the cap-and-bell favourites of Haroon Al-Raschid. It was to him that the Caliph once said, “Fool, give me a list of all the blockheads in Bagdad.” To which Bahalul answered, “That were not so easy, and would take too long; but if you want a list of the wise men, you shall have it in two minutes.”
It was in jest that Haroon presented him a document, by which he was constituted governor of all the bears, wolves, foxes, apes, and asses, in the Caliphate. “It is too much for me,” said the fool; “I am not ambitious enough to desire to rule all your holiness’s subjects.”
Bahalul one day, finding no one in the throne-room of the sovereign father of the faithful, seated himself on the cushions of the priest-monarch. The guards near were horror-stricken at beholding the jester on the sacred couch of authority, imitating the manners of Haroon himself; just as Chicot, long after, used to mimic those of Henri III. They speedily dragged him from the throne of cushions, and began bastinadoing him with such violence that the Caliph, hearing his cries, entered the hall and demanded the reason of the outcry. “Uncle,” said Bahalul, “I am not screaming on my own account, but on yours. I pity you. I have only tried royalty for five minutes, and I am already in a fever with pain inflicted by these fellows. What must you endure, then, who occupy the same distinguished seat every day!”
Bahalul seems to have been a dissipated fellow, and the Caliph enjoined him to marry and live discreetly, loving his wife, and bringing up his family in honour. The jester so far obeyed as to go through the nuptial ceremony; but as he was conducting his wife to her apartment, the uncourteous bridegroom suddenly paused, looked as if he were petrified, and declaring that he had never heard such a tumult in his life, took to his heels, and did not re-appear for months. Meanwhile, the deserted bride had procured a divorce, and then Bahalul made his rentrée at Court.
“So!” exclaimed the Caliph, with an inquiring air.
“Ay, ay!” cried the fool, “you would have done as I did. The tumult scared me away beyond the hills.”
“What tumult?” asked Haroon.
“Why,” said Bahalul, “as my wife was entering her room, there came from her, sounds as of a thousand voices. Amid them, I could distinguish the cries of ‘rent! taxes! doctors! sons! daughters! schooling! dress! silks! satins! muslins! drawers! slippers! money! more money! debt! imprisonment! and Bahalul has drowned himself in the Caliph’s bath!—therewith,” added the jester, “terrified at the solemn warning, and wishing to avoid the profanity of plunging my person into your brightness’s bath, I fled, till the danger was over, and—here I am; owing nothing, and disinclined to drown myself.”