Page [10]. “The Queen brought forth a son; in beauty he was lovely as the moon,” &c.—The Orientals compare beautiful youths, as well as damsels, to the moon: Hafiz styles Joseph the Hebrew patriarch—who is throughout the Muhammadan world regarded as the type of youthful beauty—“the Moon of Canaan.” Morier remarks, in his Second Journey to Persia, &c.: “The Eastern women suffer little from parturition, for the better sort of them are frequently on foot the day after delivery, and out of all confinement on the third day [this on the authority of Harmer, vol. iv, p. 434]. They are sometimes ‘delivered ere the midwives come in unto them’: Exodus, i, 19; and the lower orders often deliver themselves. I knew an instance where a peasant’s wife, in Turkey, who was at work in a vineyard, stepped behind the hedge, delivered herself, and carried the child home slung behind her back.”
Page [10]. “They wrapped up the child in a cloak embroidered with gold, and fastened a bracelet of large pearls,” &c.—In the legend of Pope Gregory, the child is exposed with gold at his head and silver at his feet (see the English Gesta Romanorum, chapter 51; edited by Herrtage); and in one of the Tales of the Vetāla, a child is similarly exposed, with a sum of gold, at the gate of a royal palace, and the King adopts him as his son and successor (Kathā Sarit Sāgara, Ocean of the Rivers of Narrative).
Page [10]. “He sent his servants to welcome them, and received them with the greatest respect and hospitality;” that is, by a deputation (istikbāl), one of the principal modes among the Persians of doing honour to their guests. Those sent in advance to meet the guests are called pīsh vāz, “openers of the way.” In the ninth chapter we find the approaching guests met at the distance of two days’ journey[[31]] from the city. “On the day of our entry,” says Morier, in his Second Journey, “we were met by the youngest son of the Amīnu-’d-Dawla, a boy of about thirteen years of age, who received the ambassador [Sir Gore Ouseley] with all the ease of an old courtier.” So, too, the King of Kirmān “sent his own son and two attendants to wait on Āzādbakht.”
Page [11]. “The musicians singing and playing, and the guests drinking.”—Music contributes as much as wine to the pleasures of an Eastern carousal. “Wine,” they say, “is as the body, music is the soul, and joy is their offspring.” The gamut, or scale of musical notes, is called in the East, durr-imafassal, “separate pearls.” The musical instruments commonly employed are: the Kānūn, the dulcimer or harp; the sitār, a three-stringed instrument (from si, three, and tār, string), whence cithara and guitar; and the arghān or orghanūn, the organ. Old Persian writers describe the arghān as invented by Iflatūn (Plato), and as superior to all psalteries (mazamīr), and used in Yūnan (Ionia or Greece) and in Rūm (Iconium). Also the chang (Arabic, junk), the harp; the rabāb, rebeck; the tambūr, tambourine; and the barbat, or barbitan.—Morier, in his Second Journey (p. 92), was treated with a concert of four musicians; “one of whom played on the Kamāncha [viol]; a second sang, fanning his mouth with a piece of paper to aid the undulations of his voice; the third was a tambourine-player; and the last beat two little drums placed on the ground before him.” Gentius, in a note to the Gulistān of Sa`dī, says that “music is in such consideration [in Persia], that it is a maxim of their sages, that when a king is about to die, if he leaves for his successor a very young son, his aptitude for reigning should be proved by some agreeable songs; and if the child is pleasurably affected, then it is 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, know the secret art of swaying the passions. The celebrated philosopher Alfarabi (who died about the middle of the tenth century), among his other 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, Alfarabi unfolded a composition, and distributed the parts among the band. The first movement threw the prince and his courtiers into violent and inextinguishable laughter, the next melted all into tears, and the last lulled even the performers to sleep.—At the retaking of Bagdād by the Turks, in 1638, when the springing of a mine, whereby eight hundred janissaries perished, was the signal for a general massacre, and thirty thousand Persians were put to the sword, “a Persian musician, named Shāh Kūlī, who was brought before Murād, played and sang so sweetly, first a song of triumph, and then a dirge, that the Sultan, moved to pity by his music, gave orders to stop the massacre.”[[32]]
Page [11]. “His eyes were filled with tears.”—Although Muslims are remarkably calm and resigned under the heaviest afflictions, yet they do not consider the shedding of tears as either evidence of effeminacy or inconsistent with a heroic mind.—Lane. In the old Badawī Romance of `Antar (of which an epitome is given in my Arabian Poetry for English Readers) the hero is frequently represented as weeping.
Page [11]. “The King of Kirmān then inquired into the particulars of Āzādbakht’s misfortunes.”—It thus appears that, in accordance with the time-honoured rules of Eastern hospitality, the King received Āzādbakht as his guest without subjecting him to any preliminary questioning; and only diffidently “inquired into the particulars” after the unhappy monarch had informed him that he was a fugitive from his kingdom. The old Arabs, like the old Scottish Highlanders, were scrupulous in abstaining from inquiring the name and tribe of a chance guest, lest he should prove an enemy; and if, after the guest had eaten of their bread and salt, he was found to belong to a hostile tribe or clan, he would be entertained during three days, should he so desire, and then be dismissed unharmed.
Page [12]. Farrukhsuwār: from farrukh, fortunate, happy, and suwār, a cavalier, a horseman; especially a Persian chief, as being skilled in horsemanship and archery. Suwār-i-Sīstān: Rustam, the famous Persian hero.
Page [13]. “He resolved to adopt the infant as his own.”—The Muhammadan law (says Lane) allows the adoption of sons, provided that the person to be adopted consents to the act, if of age to judge for himself; also that he has been deprived of his parents by death or other means; and that there be such a difference of age between the two parties as might subsist between a natural father and son. The adopted son enjoys the same right of inheritance as the natural son.—Farrukhsuwār, we see, though a chief of banditti, yet took care that his adopted son should be “instructed in all the necessary accomplishments.” The adoption of sons is universal throughout the East—in Persia, India, Japan; in the latter country, “the principle of adoption,” says Mr Mitford, in his Tales of Old Japan, “prevails among all classes, from the Emperor down to his meanest subject; nor is the family line considered to have been broken because an adopted son has succeeded to the estate.”
Page [13]. Khudā-dād, i.e., “granted by God”: Deodatus; Theodore.
Page [13]. “Able to fight, alone, five hundred men.” This is one of the few instances of Oriental hyperbole which occur in the work; and since we do not find our hero represented subsequently as distinguishing himself by his prowess, except on the occasion which led to his capture, it must be considered as introduced by the author conventionally, or by way of embellishment. The heroes of Eastern romance, for the most part, are not only beautiful as the moon, and accomplished in all the arts and sciences, but also strong and courageous as a lion. In the romance of Dūshwanta and Sakūntalā, an episode of the great Indian epic poem, Mahābharata, the son of the beautiful heroine is thus described: “Sakūntalā was delivered of a son, of inconceivable strength, bright as the God of Fire, the image of Dūshwanta, endowed with personal beauty and generosity of soul.... This mighty child seemed as if he could destroy lions with the points of his white teeth. He bore on his hand the mark of a wheel, which is the sign of sovereignty. His person was beautiful, his head capacious, he possessed great bodily strength, and his appearance was that of a celestial. During the short time that he remained under the care of Kanwa, he grew exceedingly; and when he was only six years old, his strength was so great that he was wont to bind such beasts as lions, tigers, elephants, wild boars, and buffaloes to the trees about the hermitage. He would even mount them, ride them about, and play with them to tame them; whence the inhabitants of Kanwa’s hermitage gave him a name: ‘Let him,’ said they, ‘be called Sarva-damana, because he tameth all;’ and thus the child obtained the name of Sarva-damana.”—And the Arabian hero `Antar, while yet a mere stripling, slew a wolf, and carried home its paws to his slave-mother as a trophy. (Compare with this the youthful exploit of David with a lion and a bear, 1 Sam. xvii, 34, 35.) So, too, in the Early English Romance of Sir Bevis of Hampton;—when only seven years old, Bevis knocked down two stout men with his cudgel; and while still in his “teens” he slew single-handed sixty Saracen knights.