El-Hajjāj, a general under the Khalīf El-Walīd I, consulted, in his last illness, an astrologer, who predicted to him his approaching death. “I rely so completely on your knowledge,” said El-Hajjāj to him, “that I wish to have you with me in the next world, and I shall therefore send you thither before me, in order that I may be able to employ your services from the time of my arrival.” He then ordered the soothsayer to be put to death, although the time fixed for this event by the planets had not yet arrived.—Abū-’l-Ma`shar, the oracle of astrology, left in writing, that he found the Christian religion, according to the indications of the stars, should last but fourteen hundred years—he has been belied by nearly five hundred years already.—Tiberius, when he was at Rhodes, wished to satisfy his curiosity with respect to judicial astrology. He sent, in succession, for all those who pretended to foretell future events. One of his enfranchised slaves, of great stature and extraordinary strength, conducted them to him through the intricacies of the precipices. If Tiberius discovered that the astrologer was a cheat, the slave, upon a given signal, immediately cast him into the sea. At that time there was at Rhodes a man named Trasullus, who was deeply skilled in astrology, and of a cunning disposition. He was taken, in the same manner as the others, to this retired spot, assured Tiberius that he should be Emperor, and revealed to him many other events that should take place. Tiberius asked him if he knew his own destiny, and if he had consulted his own horoscope. Trasullus—who had had some suspicions when he did not see any of his companions return, and felt his fears increase on viewing the countenance of Tiberius, the man who had been his conductor (who did not quit him for a moment), the elevated place where he stood, and the precipice which lay beneath him—turned his eyes up to heaven, as if to consult the stars; he immediately appeared fear-stricken, turned pale, and exclaimed, in an apparent agony of terror, that he was menaced with death. Tiberius was full of joy and admiration on hearing this reply, ascribing to astrology what was only presence of mind and cunning, cheered the spirits of Trasullus, embraced him, and from that time regarded him as an oracle.—An astrologer foretold the death of a lady whom Louis XI passionately loved. She did, in fact, die, and the King imagined that the prediction of the astrologer was the cause of it. He sent for the man, intending to have him thrown out of the window as a punishment. “Tell me,” said the King, “thou who pretendest to be so clever and learned a man, what thy own fate will be?” The soothsayer, who suspected the intentions of the King, and knew his foible, replied: “Sire, I foresee that I shall die three days before your Majesty.” Louis believed him, and was careful of the astrologer’s life.—An astrologer, fixing his eyes upon the Duke of Milan, said to him: “My Lord, arrange your affairs, for you have not long to live.” The Duke asked: “How dost thou know this?” “By my acquaintance with the stars,” answered the astrologer. “And pray, how long art thou to live?” “My planet promises me a long life.” “Well, thou shalt shortly discover that we ought not to trust the stars.” And the Duke ordered him to be hanged instantly.—Our own King Henry VIII asked an astrologer if he knew where he should pass the festivities at Christmas. The astrologer answered that he knew nothing on the subject. “Then,” said the King, “I am wiser than thou art; for I know that thou shalt pass them in the Tower of London;” and the unlucky astrologer was at once conducted thither.—William, Duke of Mantua, had in his stables a brood mare which gave birth to a mule. He immediately sent to the most famous astrologers in Italy the hour of the birth of this animal, requesting them to inform him what should be the fortune of a bastard that had been born in his palace; he took care, however, not to intimate that he was speaking of a mule. The soothsayers used their best endeavours to flatter the Prince, not doubting that the bastard belonged to himself. Some declared that it should be a general; others made it a bishop; some raised it to the rank of cardinal; and there were even some who elevated it to the papal chair!
It is truly marvellous that the same age which produced a Newton should also have seen flourish that arch-astrologer William Lilly (inimitably satirised by Butler under the name of Sidrophel),[[91]] whose preposterous predictions were credited even by persons of education. Swift may be said to have dealt the death-blow to astrology by his celebrated squib, entitled “Prediction for the year 1718, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.,” in which he ridiculed the prophetic almanac-makers of the day. Astrology having permeated all science and literature, it is not surprising that many of its peculiar terms should have become embodied in our language, as, for example, in the words consider and contemplate, disaster and disastrous; and we still speak of jovial, mercurial, and saturnine men.—Kepler, in the preface to his Rudolphine tables, observes that Astrology, though a fool, was the daughter of a wise mother, to whose support and life the foolish daughter was indispensable.[[92]]
Page [109]. “In the meantime he caused a subterraneous dwelling to be constructed, to which he sent the boy, with a nurse.”—Sir William Ouseley has omitted to mention that the boy was born—on the following day, according to Lescallier.—Many instances of a father trying to belie the predictions of soothsayers occur in Eastern fiction, and also in classical and European legends. The story of Danae, the daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos, by Eurydice, who was confined in a brazen tower by her father, who had been told by an oracle that his daughter’s son should put him to death, is well known. The underground dwelling of our present tale may be compared with that described in chapter 79 of the English Gesta Romanorum; also that in the Arabian Nights (Story of the Second Kalender); and in the Bāgh o Bahār (Tale of the Second Dervish), a young prince, in consequence of the prediction of astrologers that he is menaced with great danger until his fourteenth year, is confined in a vault, lined with felt, so that he should not behold the sun or moon. In Mr Ralston’s Tibetan Tales, under the title of “The Fulfilled Prophecy,” the diviners declare that “a son should be born who should take the King’s life and usurp the royal power, setting the diadem on his own head.” In the Norse story of “Rich Peter the Pedlar,”[[93]] a prediction that his daughter should one day wed a poor man’s son is fulfilled in spite of many efforts to defeat it—a story which seems to have been adapted from the Gesta Romanorum, Tale xx of Swan’s translation. And in the Netherlandish Legend of “St Julian the Ferryman,” it is predicted that Julian shall one day put his own father and mother to death; and although the unhappy youth flies into a far distant country, he cannot flee from his terrible destiny, for many years afterwards the prediction proves only too true.[[94]]
Page [110]. “Keeper [of pen and ink] to the secretary” (dav dari).—The Orientals are great admirers of caligraphy. Jamshīd, the Pīshdādian king, in respect to scribes and writers, thus expressed himself: “As the monarch’s sword establishes the foundation of his kingdom, so the tongue of the scribe’s pen transacts the concerns of the faith:
“The sharp-edged sword and pen are twins; the reigning monarch,
By reliance on these two supporters, elevates his neck on high.”
And the Persian Vizier Nizām declared that his cap and inkhorn, the badges of his office, were connected by the divine decree with the throne and diadem of the Sultan (Gibbon, ch. lvii). It is worthy of remark that Mīrzā placed before a person’s name means “a man of the pen;” but if it follow, it means Shāh-Zāda, a prince. For different styles of writing see A.F.S. Herbin’s Essai de Calligraphie Orientale, Paris, 1803, 4to; Chardin’s Voyages en Perse, et autres lieux de l’Orient, t. ii, ch. iv, pp. 107–110; and Lane’s Modern Egyptians, vol. i, ch. ix. (See also second Note, page [202].)
Page [113]. “His hair stand on end.”—Thus Job, iv, 15: “The hair of my flesh stood up;” and Homer, speaking of Priam, when terrified at the appearance of Mercury: “His hair stood upright on his bending limbs;” and the Ghost, addressing Hamlet, i, 4:
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,