We find no literary quotation to exemplify the phrase as it stands. [But see those from the Orient. Sporting Mag. and Nineteenth Century below.] Those which follow show it in the process of evolution:
1618.—"... e particolarmente delle donne che, battendosi il petto e facendo gesti di grandissima compassione replicano spesso con gran dolore quegli ultimi versi di certi loro cantici: Vah Hussein! sciah Hussein!"—P. della Valle, i. 552.
c. 1630.—"Nine dayes they wander up and downe (shaving all that while neither head nor beard, nor seeming joyfull), incessantly calling out Hussan, Huṣsan! in a melancholy note, so long, so fiercely, that many can neither howle longer, nor for a month's space recover their voices."—Sir T. Herbert, 261.
1653.—"... ils dressent dans les rues des Sepulchres de pierres, qu'ils couronnent de Lampes ardentes, et les soirs ils y vont dancer et sauter crians Hussan, Houssain, Houssain, Hassan...."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 144.
c. 1665.—"... ainsi j'eus tout le loisir dont j'eus besoin pour y voir celebrer la Fête de Hussein Fils d'Aly.... Les Mores de Golconde le celebrent avec encore beaucoup plus de folies qu'en Perse ... d'autres font des dances en rond, tenant des épées nües la pointe en haut, qu'ils touchent les unes contre les autres, en criant de toute leur force Hussein."—Thevenot, v. 320.
1673.—"About this time the Moors solemnize the Exequies of Hosseen Gosseen, a time of ten days Mourning for two Unfortunate Champions of theirs."—Fryer, p. 108.
" "On the Days of their Feasts and Jubilees, Gladiators were approved and licensed; but feeling afterwards the Evils that attended that Liberty, which was chiefly used in their Hossy Gossy, any private Grudge being then openly revenged: it never was forbid, but it passed into an Edict by the following King, that it should be lawfull to Kill any found with Naked Swords in that Solemnity."—Ibid. 357.
[1710.—"And they sing around them Saucem Saucem."—Oriente Conquistado, vol. ii.; Conquista, i. Div. 2, sec. 59.]
1720.—"Under these promising circumstances the time came round for the Mussulman feast called Hossein Jossen ... better known as the Mohurrum."—In Wheeler, ii. 347.
1726.—"In their month Moharram they have a season of mourning for the two brothers Hassan and Hossein.... They name this mourning-time in Arabic Ashur, or the 10 days; but the Hollanders call it Jaksom Baksom."—Valentijn, Choro. 107.