Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers - W. A. Clouston

You should be women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

That you are so.

And in the ever-memorable scene in the Merry Wives of Windsor, when Jack Falstaff, disguised as the fat woman of Brentford, is escaping from Ford’s house, he is cuffed and mauled by Ford, who exclaims, “Hang her, witch!” on which the honest Cambrian Sir Hugh Evans sapiently remarks: “Py yea and no, I think the ‘oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a ‘oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under her muffler!” (Act iv, sc. 2.)

There have been several notable bearded women in different parts of Europe. The Duke of Saxony had the portrait painted of a poor Swiss woman who had a remarkably fine, large beard. Bartel Græfjë, of Stuttgart, who was born in 1562, was another bearded woman. In 1726 there appeared at Vienna a female dancer with a large bushy beard. Charles XII of Sweden had in his army a woman who wore a beard a yard and a half in length. In 1852 Mddle. Bois de Chêne, who was born at Genoa in 1834, was exhibited in London: she had “a profuse head of hair, a strong black beard, and large bushy whiskers.” It is not unusual to see dark beauties in our own country with a moustache which must be the envy of “young shavers.” And, apropos, the poet Rogers is said to have had a great dislike of ladies’ beards, such as this last described; and he happened to be in a circulating library turning over the books on the counter, when a lady, who seemed to cherish her beard with as much affection as the young gentlemen aforesaid, alighted from her carriage, and, entering the shop, asked the librarian for a certain book. The polite man of books replied that he was sorry he had not a copy at present. “But,” said Roger, slily, “you have the Barber of Seville, have you not?” “O yes,” said the bookseller, not seeing the poet’s drift, “I have the Barber of Seville, very much at your ladyship’s service.” The lady drove away, evidently much offended, but the beard afterwards disappeared. Talking of barbers—but they deserve a whole paper to themselves, and they shall have it, from me, some day, if I live a little longer.

In No. 331 of the Spectator, Addison tells us how his friend Sir Roger de Coverley, in Westminster Abbey, pointing to the bust of a venerable old man, asked him whether he did not think “our ancestors looked much wiser in their beards than we without them. For my part,” said he, “when I am walking in my gallery in the country, and see my ancestors, who many of them died before they were my age, I cannot forbear regarding them as so many patriarchs, and at the same time looking upon myself as an idle, smock-faced young fellow. I love to see your Abrahams, your Isaacs, and your Jacobs, as we have them in old pieces of tapestry, with beards below their girdles, that cover half the hangings.”

During most part of last century close shaving was general throughout Europe. In France the beard began to appear on the faces of Bonaparte’s “braves,” and the fashion soon extended to civilians, then to Italy, Germany, Spain, Russia, and lastly to England, where, after the gradual enlargement of the side-whiskers, the full beard is now commonly worn—to the comfort and health of the wearers.

Footnotes

One reason, doubtless, for Persian and Turkish poets adopting a takhallus is the custom of the poet introducing his name into every ghazal he composes, generally towards the end; and as his proper name would seldom or never accommodate itself to purposes of verse he selects a more suitable one. [Return]
A dínar is a gold coin, worth about ten shillings of our money. [Return]
Referring to the custom of throwing small coins among crowds in the street on the occasion of a wedding. A dirham is a coin nearly equal in value to sixpence of our money. [Return]
The nightingale. [Return]
In the original Turkish:
Dinleh bulbul kissa sen kim gildi eiyami behár!
Kurdi her bir baghda hengamei hengami behár;
Oldi sim afshan ana ezhari badami behár:
Ysh u nush it kim gicher kalmaz bu eiyami behár.
Here we have an example of the redíf, which is common in Turkish and Persian poetry, and “consists of one or more words, always the same, added to the end of every rhyming line in a poem, which word or words, though counting in the scansion, are not regarded as the true rhyme, which must in every case be sought for immediately before them. The lines—
There shone such truth about thee,
I did not dare to doubt thee—
furnish an example of this in English poetry.” In the opening verse of Mesíhí’s ode, as above transliterated in European characters, the redíf is “behár,” or spring, and the word which precedes it is the true rhyme-ending. Sir William Jones has made an elegant paraphrase of this charming ode, in which, however, he diverges considerably from the original, as will be seen from his rendering of the first stanza:
Hear how the nightingale, on every spray,
Hails in wild notes the sweet return of May!
The gale, that o’er yon waving almond blows,
The verdant bank with silver blossoms strows;
The smiling season decks each flowery glade—
Be gay; too soon the flowers of spring will fade. [Return]
Hátim was chief of the Arabian tribe of Taï, shortly before Muhammed began to promulgate Islám, renowned for his extraordinary liberality. [Return]
Auvaiyár, the celebrated poetess of the Tamils (in Southern India), who is said to have flourished in the ninth century, says, in her poem entitled Nalvali:
Mark this: who lives beyond his means
Forfeits respect, loses his sense;
Where’er he goes through the seven births,
All count him knave; him women scorn. [Return]
“All perishes except learning.”—Auvaiyár. [Return]
“Learning is really the most valuable treasure.—A wise man will never cease to learn.—He who has attained learning by free self-application excels other philosophers.—Let thy learning be thy best friend.—What we have learned in youth is like writing cut in stone.—If all else should be lost, what we have learned will never be lost.—Learn one thing after another, but not hastily.—Though one is of low birth, learning will make him respected.”—Auvaiyár. [Return]
There is a similar story to this in one of our old English jest-books, Tales and Quicke Answeres, 1535, as follows (I have modernised the spelling): As an astronomer [i.e. an astrologer] sat upon a time in the market place, and took upon him to divine and to show what their fortunes and chances should be that came to him, there came a fellow and told him (as it was indeed) that thieves had broken into his house, and had borne away all that he had. These tidings grieved him so sore that, all heavy and sorrowfully, he rose up and went his way. When the fellow saw him do so, he said: “O thou foolish and mad man! goest thou about to divine other men’s matters, and art ignorant of thine own?” [Return]
The sayings of Buzurjmihr, the sagacious prime minister of King Núshírván, are often cited by Persian writers, and a curious story of his precocity when a mere youth is told in the Latá’yif at-Taw’áyif, a Persian collection, made by Al-Káshifí, of which a translation will be found in my “Analogues and Variants” of the Tales in vol. iii of Sir R. F. Burton’s Supplemental Arabian Nights, pp. 567-9—too long for reproduction here. [Return]
Simonides used to say that he never regretted having held his tongue, but very often had he felt sorry for having spoken.—Stobæus: Flor. xxxiii, 12. [Return]
The name of a musical instrument. [Return]
The fancied love of the nightingale for the rose is a favourite theme of Persian poets. [Return]
Cf. the fable of Anianus: After laughing all summer at her toil, the Grasshopper came in winter to borrow part of the Ant’s store of food. “Tell me,” said the Ant, “what you did in the summer?” “I sang,” replied the Grasshopper. “Indeed,” rejoined the Ant. “Then you may dance and keep yourself warm during the winter.” [Return]
Auvaiyár, the celebrated Indian poetess, in her Nalvali, says:
Hark! ye who vainly toil and wealth
Amass—O sinful men, the soul
Will leave its nest; where then will be
The buried treasure that you lose? [Return]
“Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not athirst for information; but, to be quite fair, we must admit that superior reticence is a good deal due to the lack of matter. Speech is often barren, but silence does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled nest-egg; and when it takes to cackling will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.”—George Eliot’s Felix Holt. [Return]
The cow is sacred among the Hindús. [Return]
Thus also Jámí, in his Baháristán (Second “Garden”): “With regard to a secret divulged and one kept concealed, there is in use an excellent proverb, that the one is an arrow still in our possession, and the other is an arrow sent from the bow.” And another Persian poet, whose name I have not ascertained, eloquently exclaims: “O my heart! if thou desirest ease in this life, keep thy secrets undisclosed, like the modest rose-bud. Take warning from that lovely flower, which, by expanding its hitherto hidden beauties when in full bloom, gives its leaves and its happiness to the winds.” [Return]
Is such a thing as an emerald made worse than it was if it is not praised?—Marcus Aurelius.
If glass be used to decorate a crown,
While gems are taken to bedeck a foot,
’Tis not that any fault lies in the gem,
But in the want of knowledge of the setter.
—Panchatantra, a famous Indian book of Fables. [Return]
The Súfís are the mystics of Islám, and their poetry, while often externally anacreontic—bacchanalian and erotic—possesses an esoteric, spiritual signification: the sensual world is employed to symbolise that which is to be apprehended only by the inward sense. Most of the great poets of Persia, Afghanistán, and Turkey are generally understood to have been Súfís. [Return]
Sir Gore Ouseley’s Biographical Notices of Persian Poets. [Return]
Cf. these lines, from Herrick’s “Hesperides”:
But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read, how soon things have
Their end, tho’ ne’er so brave;
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you, a while, they glide
Into the grave. [Return]
“In the name of God” is part of the formula employed by pious Muslims in their acts of worship, and on entering upon any enterprise of danger or uncertainty—bi’smi’llahi ar-rahman ar-rahimi, “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!” These words are usually placed at the beginning of Muhammedan books, secular as well as religions; and they form part of the Muslim Confession of Faith, used in the last extremity: “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate! There is no strength nor any power save in God, the High, the Mighty. To God we belong, and verily to him we return!” [Return]
“Bear in mind,” says Thorkel to Bork, in the Icelandic saga of Gisli the Outlaw, “bear in mind that a woman’s counsel is always unlucky.”—On the other hand, quoth Panurge, “Truly I have found a great deal of good in the counsel of women, chiefly in that of the old wives among them.” [Return]
The Khoja was contemporary with the renowned conqueror of nations, Tímúr, or Tímúrleng, or, as the name is usually written in this country, Tamarlane, though there does not appear to be any authority that he was the official jester at the court of that monarch, as some writers have asserted. The pleasantries ascribed to the Khoja—the title now generally signifies Teacher, or School-master, but formerly it was somewhat equivalent to our “Mr,” or, more familiarly, “Goodman”—have been completely translated into French. Of course, a large proportion of the jests have been taken from Arabian and Persian collections, though some are doubtless genuine; and they represent the Khoja as a curious compound of shrewdness and simplicity. A number of the foolish sayings and doings fathered on him are given in my Book of Noodles, 1888. [Return]
This is how the same story is told in our oldest English jest-book, entitled A Hundred Mery Talys (1525): A certain merchant and a courtier being upon a time at dinner, having a hot custard, the courtier, being somewhat homely of manner, took part of it and put it in his mouth, which was so hot that it made him shed tears. The merchant, looking on him, thought that he had been weeping, and asked him why he wept. This courtier, not willing it to be known that he had brent his mouth with the hot custard, answered and said, “Sir,” quod he, “I had a brother which did a certain offence, wherefore he was hanged.” The merchant thought the courtier had said true, and anon, after the merchant was disposed to eat of the custard, and put a spoonful of it into his mouth, and brent his mouth also, that his eyes watered. This courtier, that perceiving, spake to the merchant; and said, “Sir,” quod he, “why do ye weep now?” The merchant perceived how he had been deceived, and said, “Marry,” quod he, “I weep because thou wast not hanged when that thy brother was hanged.” [Return]
What may be an older form of this jest is found in the Kathá Manjarí, a Canarese collection, where a wretched singer dwelling next door to a poor woman causes her to weep and wail bitterly whenever he begins to sing, and on his asking her why she wept, she explains that his “golden voice” recalled to her mind her donkey that died a month ago.—The story had found its way to our own country more than three centuries since. In Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres (1535), under the title “Of the Friar that brayde in his Sermon,” the preacher reminds a “poure wydowe” of her ass—all that her husband had left her—which had been devoured by wolves, for so the ass was wont to bray day and night. [Return]
Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co., London, have in the press a new edition of this work, to be entitled “Tales of the Sun; or, Popular Tales of Southern India.” I am confident that the collection will be highly appreciated by many English readers, while its value to story-comparers can hardly be over-rated. [Return]
A similar incident is found in the 8th chapter of the Spanish work, El Conde Lucanor, written, in the 14th century, by Prince Don Juan Manuel, where a pretended alchemist obtains from a king a large sum of money in order that he should procure in his own distant country a certain thing necessary for the transmutation of the baser metals into gold. The impostor, of course, did not return, and so on, much the same as in the above.—Many others of Don Manuel’s tales are traceable to Eastern sources; he was evidently familiar with the Arabic language, and from his long intercourse with the Moors doubtless became acquainted with Asiatic story-books. His manner of telling the stories is, however, wholly his own, and some of them appear to be of his own invention.—There is a variant of the same story in Pasquils Jests and Mother Bunches Merriments, in which a servant enters his master’s name in a list of all the fools of his acquaintance, because he had lately lent his cousin twenty pounds. [Return]
A variant of this occurs in the Heptameron, an uncompleted work in imitation of the Decameron, ascribed to Marguerite, queen of Navarre (16th century), but her valet de chambre Bonaventure des Periers is supposed to have had a hand in its composition. In Novel 55 it is related that a merchant in Saragossa on his death-bed desired his wife to sell a fine Spanish horse for as much as it would fetch and give the money to the mendicant friars. After his death his widow did not approve of such a legacy, but, in order to obey her late husband’s will, she instructed a servant to go to the market and offer the horse for a ducat and her cat for ninety-nine ducats, both, however, to be sold together. A gentleman purchased the horse and the cat, well knowing that the former was fully worth a hundred ducats, and the widow handed over one ducat—for which the horse was nominally sold—to the mendicant friars. [Return]
Cardonne took this story from a Turkish work entitled “Ajá’ib el-ma’ásir wa ghará’ib en-nawádir (the Wonders of Remarkable Incidents and Rarities of Anecdotes),” by Ahmed ibn Hemdem Khetkhody, which was composed for Sultan Murád IV, who reigned from A.D. 1623 to 1640. [Return]
This story has been taken from Arab Sháh into the Breslau printed Arabic text of the Thousand and One Nights, where it is related at great length. The original was rendered into French under the title of “Ruses des Femmes” (in the Arabic Ked-an-Nisa, Stratagems of Women) by Lescallier, and appended to his version of the Voyages of Sindbád, published at Paris in 1814, long before the Breslau text of The Nights was known to exist. It also forms part of one of the Persian Tales (Hazár ú Yek Rúz, 1001 Days) translated by Petis de la Croix, where, however, the trick is played on the kází, not on a young merchant. [Return]
A variant of this story is found in Le Grand’s Fabliaux et Contes, ed. 1781, tome iv, p. 119, and it was probably brought from the East during the Crusades: Maimon was a valet to a count. His master, returning home from a tourney, met him on the way, and asked him where he was going. He replied, with great coolness, that he was going to seek a lodging somewhere. “A lodging!” said the count. “What then has happened at home?” “Nothing, my lord. Only your dog, whom you love so much, is dead.” “How so?” “Your fine palfrey, while being exercised in the court, became frightened, and in running fell into the well.” “Ah, who startled the horse?” “It was your son, Damaiseau, who fell at its feet from the window.” “My son!—O Heaven! Where, then, were his servant and his mother? Is he injured?” “Yes, sire, he has been killed by falling. And when they went to tell it to madame, she was so affected that she fell dead also without speaking.” “Rascal! in place of flying away, why hast thou not gone to seek assistance, or why didst thou not remain at the chateau?” “There is no more need, sire; for Marotte, in watching madame, fell asleep. A light caused the fire, and there remains nothing now.”—Truly a delicate way of “breaking ill news”! [Return]
The Dabistán, or School of Manners. Translated from the original Persian, by David Shea and Anthony Troyer. 3 vols. Published by the Oriental Translation Fund, 1843. Vol. i, 198-200. The author of this work is said to be Moshan Fáni, who flourished at Hyderábád about the end of the 18th century. [Return]
Pedro Alfonso (the Spanish form of his adopted name) was originally a Jewish Rabbi, and was born in 1062, at Huesca, in the kingdom of Arragon. He was reputed a man of very great learning, and on his being baptised (at the age of 44) was appointed by Alfonso XV, king of Castile and Leon, physician to the royal household. His work, above referred to, is written in Latin, and has been translated into French, but not as yet into English. An outline of the tales, by Douce, will be found prefixed to Ellis’ Early English Metrical Romances. [Return]
This is also the subject of one of the Fabliaux.—In a form similar to the story in Alfonsus it is current among the Milanese, and a Sicilian version is as follows: Once upon a time there was a prince who studied and racked his brains so much that he learned magic and the art of finding hidden treasures. One day he discovered a treasure in Daisisa. “O,” he says, “now I am going to get it out.” But to get it out it was necessary that ten million million of ants should cross the river one by one in a bark made of the half-shell of a nut. The prince puts the bark in the river, and makes the ants pass over—one, two, three; and they are still doing it. Here the story-teller pauses and says: “We will finish the story when the ants have finished crossing the river.”—Crane’s Italian Popular Tales, p. 156. [Return]
This last jest reappears in the apocryphal Life of Esop, by Planudes, the only difference being that Esop’s master is invited to a feast, instead of receiving a present of game, upon which Esop exclaims: “Alas! I see two crows, and I am beaten; you see one, and are asked to a feast. What a delusion is augury!” [Return]
This tale is found in the early Italian novelists, slightly varied, and it was doubtless introduced by Venetian merchants from the Levant: A parrot belonging to Count Fiesco was discovered one day stealing some roast meat from the kitchen. The enraged cook, overtaking him, threw a kettle of boiling water at him, which completely scalded all the feathers from his head, and left the poor bird with a bare poll. Some time afterwards, as Count Fiesco was engaged in conversation with an abbot, the parrot, observing the shaven crown of his reverence, hopped up to him and said: “What! do you like roast meat too?”
In another form the story is orally current in the North of England. Dr. Fryer tells it to this effect, in his charming English Fairy Tales from the North Country: A grocer kept a parrot that used to cry out to the customers that the sugar was sanded and the butter mixed with lard. For this the bird had her neck wrung and was thrown upon an ash-heap; but reviving and seeing a dead cat beside her she cried: “Poor Puss! have you, too, suffered for telling the truth?”
There is yet another variant of this droll tale, which has been popular for generations throughout England, and was quite recently reproduced in an American journal as a genuine “nigger” story: In olden times there was a roguish baker who made many of his loaves less than the regulation weight, and one day, on observing the government inspector coming along the street, he concealed the light loaves in a closet. The inspector having found the bread on the counter of the proper weight, was about to leave, when a parrot, which the baker kept in his shop, cried out: “Light bread in the closet!” This caused a search to be made, and the baker was heavily fined. Full of fury, the baker seized the parrot, wrung its neck, and threw it in his back yard, near the carcase of a pig that had died of the measles. The parrot, coming to itself again, observed the dead porker and inquired in a tone of sympathy: “O poor piggy, didst thou, too, tell about light bread in the closet?” [Return]
In the Rev. J. Hinton Knowles’ Folk-Tales of Kashmír a merchant gives his stupid son a small coin with which he is to purchase something to eat, something to drink, something to gnaw, something to sow in the garden, and some food for the cow. A clever young girl advises him to buy a water-melon, which would answer all the purposes required.—P. 145. [Return]
Ziyáu-’d-Dín Nakhshabí, so called from Nakhshab, or Nasaf, the modern Kashí, a town situated between Samarkand and the Oxus, led a secluded life in Badá’um, and died, as stated by ’Abdal-Hakk, A.H. 751 (A.D. 1350-1).—Dr. Rieu’s Catalogue of Persian MSS. in the British Museum.—In 1792 the Rev. B. Gerrans published an English translation of twelve of the fifty-two tales comprised in the Tútí Náma, but the work is now best known in Persia and India from an abridgment made by Kádirí in the last century, which was printed, with a translation, at London in 1801. [Return]
“He that has money in the scales,” says Saádí, “has strength in his arms, and he who has not the command of money is destitute of friends in the world.”—Hundreds of similar sarcastic observations on the power of wealth might be cited from the Hindú writers, such as: “He who has riches has friends; he who has riches has relations; he who has riches is even a sage!” The following verses in praise of money are, I think, worth reproducing, if only for their whimsical arrangement:
Honey,
Our Money
We find in the end
Both relation and friend;
’Tis a helpmate for better, for worse.
Neither father nor mother,
Nor sister nor brother,
Nor uncles nor aunts,
Nor dozens
Of cousins,
Are like a friend in the purse.
Still regard the main chance;
’Tis the clink
Of the chink
Is the music to make the heart dance. [Return]
In a Telúgú MS., entitled Patti Vrútti Mahima (the Value of Chaste Wives), the minister of Chandra Pratápa assumes the form of a bird owing to a curse pronounced against him by Siva, and is sold to a merchant named Dhanadatta, whose son, Kuvéradatta, is vicious. The bird by moral lessons reformed him for a time. They went to a town called Pushpamayuri, where the king’s son saw the wife of Kuveradatta when he was absent from home. An illicit amour was about to begin, when the bird interposed by relating tales of chaste wives, and detained the wanton lady at home till her husband returned. [Return]
Many Asiatic stories relate to the concealing of treasure—generally at the foot of a tree, to mark the spot—by two or more companions, and its being secretly stolen by one of them. The device of the carpenter in the foregoing tale of abducting the rascally goldsmith’s two sons, and so on, finds an analogue in the Panchatantra, the celebrated Sanskrit collection of fables (Book I, Fab. 21, of Benfey’s German translation), where we read that a young man, who had spent the wealth left to him by his father, had only a heavy iron balance remaining of all his possessions, and depositing it with a merchant went to another country. When he returned, after some time, he went to the merchant and demanded back his balance. The merchant told him it had been eaten by rats; adding: “The iron of which it was composed was particularly sweet, and so the rats ate it.” The young man, knowing that the merchant spoke falsely, formed a plan for the recovery of his balance. One day he took the merchant’s young son, unknown to his father, to bathe, and left him in the care of a friend. When the merchant missed his son he accused the young man of having stolen him, and summoned him to appear in the king’s judgment-hall. In answer to the merchant’s accusation, the young man asserted that a kite had carried away the boy; and when the officers of the court declared this to be impossible, he said: “In a country where an iron balance was eaten by rats, a kite might well carry off an elephant, much more a boy.” The merchant, having lost his cause, returned the balance to the young man and received back his boy. [Return]
So, too, Bœthius, in his De Consolatione Philosophiæ, says, according to Chaucer’s translation: “All thynges seken ayen to hir [i.e. their] propre course, and all thynges rejoysen on hir retournynge agayne to hir nature.”—A tale current in Oude, and given in Indian Notes and Queries for Sept. 1887, is an illustration of the maxim that “everything returns to its first principles”: A certain prince chose his friends out of the lowest class, and naturally imbibed their principles and habits. When the death of his father placed him on the throne, he soon made his former associates his courtiers, and exacted the most servile homage from the nobles. The old vazír, however, despised the young king and would render none. This so exasperated him that he called his counsellors together to advise the most excruciating of tortures for the old man. Said one: “Let him be flayed alive and let shoes be made of his skin.” The vazír ejaculated on this but one word, “Origin.” Said the next: “Let him be hacked into pieces and his limbs cast to the dogs.” The vazír said, “Origin.” Another advised: “Let him be forthwith executed, and his house be levelled to the ground.” Once more the vazír simply said, “Origin.” Then the king turned to the rest, who declared each according to his opinion, the vazír noticing each with the same word. At last a young man, who had not spoken hitherto, was asked. “May it please your Majesty,” said he, “if you ask my opinion, it is this: Here is an aged man, and honourable from his years, family, and position; moreover, he served in the king your father’s court, and nursed you as a boy. It were well, considering all these matters, to pay him respect, and render his old age comfortable.” Again the vazír uttered the word “Origin.” The king now demanded what he meant by it. “Simply this, your Majesty,” responded the vazír: “You have here the sons of shoemakers, butchers, executioners, and so forth, and each has expressed himself according to his father’s trade. There is but one noble-born among them, and he has made himself conspicuous by speaking according to the manner of his race.” The king was ashamed, and released the vazír.—A parallel to this is found in the Turkish Qirq Vezír Taríkhí, or History of the Forty Vezírs (Lady’s 4th Story): according to Mr. Gibb’s translation, “All things return to their origin.” [Return]
Originally, Rúmelia (Rúm Eyli) was only implied by the word Rúm, but in course of time it was employed to designate the whole Turkish empire. [Return]
If the members severed from the golden image were to be instantly replaced by others, what need was there for the daily appearance of the “fakír,” as promised?—But n’importe! [Return]
Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, p. 224, note. [Return]
The same story is given by the Comte de Caylus—but, like Noble, without stating where the original is to be found—in his Contes Orientaux, first published in 1745, under the title of “Histoire de Dervich Abounadar.” These entertaining tales are reproduced in Le Cabinet des Fées, ed. 1786, tome xxv.—It will be observed that the first part of the story bears a close resemblance to that of our childhood’s favourite, the Arabian tale of “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” of which many analogues and variants, both European and Asiatic, are cited in the first volume of my Popular Tales and Fictions, 1887;—see also a supplementary note by me on Aladdin’s Lamp in Notes and Queries, Jan. 5, 1889, p. 1. [Return]
That is, hell. Properly, it is Je-Hinnon, near Jerusalem, which seems to have been in ancient times the cremation ground for human corpses. [Return]
The italicised passages which occur in this tale are verses in the original Persian text. [Return]
There is a very similar story in the Tamil Alakésa Kathá, a tale of a King and his Four Ministers, but the conclusion is different: the rájá permits all his subjects to partake of the youth-bestowing fruit;—I wonder whether they are yet alive! A translation of the romance of the King and his Four Ministers—the first that has been made into English—will be found in my Group of Eastern Romances and Stories, 1889. [Return]
In one Telúgú version, entitled Totí Náma Cat’halú, the lady kills the bird after hearing all its tales; and in another the husband, on returning home and learning of his wife’s intended intrigue, cuts off her head and becomes a devotee. [Return]
Captain R. C. Temple’s Legends of the Panjáb, vol. i, p. 52 ff.; and “Four Legends of Rájá Rasálú,” by the Rev. C. Swynnerton, in the Folk-Lore Journal, 1883, p. 141 ff. [Return]
In midsummer, 1244, twenty waggon loads of copies of the Talmud were burnt in France. This was in consequence of, and four years after, a public dispute between a certain Donin (afterwards called Nicolaus), a converted Jew, with Rabbi Yehiel, of Paris, on the contents of the Talmud.—See Journal of Philology, vol. xvi, p. 133.—In the year 1569, the famous Jewish library in Cremona was plundered, and 12,000 copies of the Talmud and other Jewish works were committed to the flames.—The Talmud, by Joseph Barclay, LL. D., London, 1875, p. 14. [Return]
Introductory Essay to Hebrew Tales, by Hyman Hurwitz; published at London in 1826. [Return]
Commentators on the Kurán say that Adam’s beard did not grow till after his fall, and it was the result of his excessive sorrow and penitence. Strange to say, he was ashamed of his beard, till he heard a voice from heaven calling to him and saying: “The beard is man’s ornament on earth; it distinguishes him from the feeble woman.” Thus we ought to—should we not?—regard our beards as the offshoots of what divines term “original sin”; and cherish them as mementoes of the Fall of Man. Think of this, ye effeminate ones who use the razor! [Return]
The notion of man being at first androgynous, or man-woman, was prevalent in most of the countries of antiquity. Mr. Baring-Gould says that “the idea, that man without woman and woman without man are imperfect beings, was the cause of the great repugnance with which the Jews and other nations of the East regarded celibacy.” (Legends of the Old Testament, vol. i, p. 22.) But this, I think, is not very probable. The aversion of Asiatics from celibacy is rather to be ascribed to their surroundings in primitive times, when neighbouring clans were almost constantly at war with each other, and those chiefs and notables who had the greatest number of sturdy and valiant sons and grandsons would naturally be best able to hold their own against an enemy. The system of concubinage, which seems to have existed in the East from very remote times, is not matrimony, and undoubtedly had its origin in the passionate desire which, even at the present day, every Asiatic has for male offspring. By far the most common opening of an Eastern tale is the statement that there was a certain king, wise, wealthy, and powerful, but though he had many beautiful wives and handmaidens, Heaven had not yet blest him with a son, and in consequence of this all his life was embittered, and he knew no peace day or night. [Return]
Professor Charles Marelle, of Berlin, in an interesting little collection, Affenschwanz, &c.; Variants orales de Contes Populaires, Français et Etrangers (Braunschweig, 1888), gives an amusing story, based evidently on this rabbinical legend: The woman formed from Adam’s tail proved to be as mischievous as a monkey, and gave her spouse no peace; whereupon another was formed from a part of his breast, and she was a decided improvement on her sister. All the giddy girls in the world are descended from the woman who was made from Adam’s tail. [Return]
You and I, good reader, must therefore have been seen by the Father of Mankind. [Return]
Legends of Old Testament Characters, by S. Baring-Gould, vol. i, pp. 78, 79. [Return]
The Muhammedan legend informs us that Cain was afterwards slain by the blood-avenging angel. But the Jewish traditionists say that God was at length moved by Cain’s contrition and placed on his brow a seal, which indicated that the fratricide was fully pardoned. Adam happened to meet him, and observing the seal on his forehead, asked him how he had turned aside the wrath of God. He replied: “By confession of my sin and sincere repentance.” On hearing this Adam exclaimed, beating his breast: “Woe is me! Is the virtue of repentance so great and I knew it not?” [Return]
A garbled version of this legend is found in the Latin Gesta Romanorum (it does not occur in the Anglican versions edited by Sir F. Madden for the Roxburghe Club, and by Mr. S. J. Herrtage for the Early English Text Society), Tale 179, as follows: “Josephus, in his work on ‘The Causes of Things,’ says that Noah discovered the vine in a wood, and because it was bitter he took the blood of four animals, viz., of a lion, a lamb, a pig, and a monkey. This mixture he united with earth and made a kind of manure, which he deposited at the roots of the trees. Thus the blood sweetened the fruit, with the juice of which he afterwards intoxicated himself, and lying naked was derided by his youngest son.” [Return]
Luminous jewels figure frequently in Eastern tales, and within recent years, from experiments and observations, the phosphorescence of the diamond, sapphire, ruby, and topaz has been fully established. [Return]
Did the Talmudist borrow this story from the Greek legend of the famous robber of Attica, Procrustes, who is said to have treated unlucky travellers after the same barbarous fashion? [Return]
There are two Italian stories which bear some resemblance to this queer legend: In the fourth novel of Arienti an advocate is fined for striking his opponent in court, and “takes his change” by repeating the offence; and in the second novel of Sozzini, Scacazzone, after dining sumptuously at an inn, and learning from the waiter that the law of that town imposed a fine of ten livres for a blow on the face, provokes the landlord so that he gets a slap from him on the cheek, upon which he tells Boniface to pay himself out of the fine he should have had to pay for the blow if charged before the magistrate, and give the rest of the money to the waiter.—A similar story is told in an Arabian collection, of a half-witted fellow and the kází. [Return]
The commentators on the Kurán have adopted this legend. But according to the Kurán it was not Isaac, but Ishmael, the great progenitor of the Arabs, who was to be sacrificed by Abraham. [Return]
Commentators on the Kurán inform us that when Joseph was released from prison, after so satisfactorily interpreting Pharaoh’s two dreams, Potiphar was degraded from his high office. One day, while Joseph was riding out to inspect a granary beyond the city, he observed a beggar-woman in the street, whose whole appearance, though most distressing, bore distinct traces of former greatness. Joseph approached her compassionately, and held out to her a handful of gold. But she refused it, and said aloud: “Great prophet of Allah, I am unworthy of this gift, although my transgression has been the stepping-stone to thy present fortune.” At these words Joseph regarded her more closely, and, behold, it was Zulaykhá, the wife of his lord. He inquired after her husband, and was told that he had died of sorrow and poverty soon after his deposition. On hearing this, Joseph led Zulaykhá to a relative of the king, by whom she was treated like a sister, and she soon appeared to him as blooming as at the time of his entrance into her house. He asked her hand of the king, and married her, with his permission.
Zulaykhá was the name of Potiphar’s wife, if we may believe Muhammedan legends, and the daughter of the king of Maghrab (or Marocco), who gave her in marriage to the grand vazír of the king of Egypt, and the beauteous princess was disgusted to find him, not only very old, but, as a modest English writer puts it, very mildly, “belonged to that unhappy class which a practice of immemorial antiquity in the East excluded from the pleasures of love and the hope of posterity.” This device of representing Potiphar as being what Byron styles “a neutral personage” was, of course, adopted by Muslim traditionists and poets in order to “white-wash” the frail Zulaykhá.—There are extant many Persian and Turkish poems on the “loves” of Yúsuf wa Zulaykhá, most of them having a mystical signification, and that by the celebrated Persian poet Jámí is universally considered as by far the best. [Return]
Gen. xlii, 24.—It does not appear from the sacred narrative why Joseph selected his brother Simeon as hostage. Possibly Simeon was most eager for his death, before he was cast into the dry well and then sold to the Ishmaelites; and indeed both he and his brother Levi seem to have been “a bad lot,” judging from the dying Jacob’s description of them, Gen. xlix, 5-7. [Return]
“Jacob’s grief” is proverbial in Muslim countries. In the Kurán, sura xii, it is stated that the patriarch became totally blind through constant weeping for the loss of Joseph, and that his sight was restored by means of Joseph’s garment, which the governor of Egypt sent by his brethren.—In the Makamat of Al-Harírí, the celebrated Arabian poet (A.D. 1054-1122), Harith bin Hamman is represented as saying that he passed a night of “Jacobean sorrow,” and another imaginary character is said to have “wept more than Jacob when he lost his son.” [Return]
Muslims say that Pharaoh’s seven daughters were all lepers, and that Bathia’s sisters, as well as herself, were cured through her saving the infant Moses.
According to the Hebrew traditionists, nine human beings entered Paradise without having tasted of death, viz.: Enoch; Messiah; Elias; Eliezer, the servant of Abraham; the servant of the king of Kush; Hiram, king of Tyre; Jaabez, the son of the Prince, and the Rabbi, Juda; Serach, the daughter of Asher; and Bathia, the daughter of Pharaoh.
The last of the race of genuine Dublin ballad-singers, who rejoiced in the nom de guerre of “Zozimus” (ob. 1846), used to edify his street patrons with a slightly different reading of the romantic story of the finding of Moses in the bulrushes, which has the merit of striking originality, to say the least:
In Egypt’s land, upon the banks of Nile,
King Pharaoh’s daughter went to bathe in style;
She tuk her dip, then went unto the land,
And, to dry her royal pelt, she ran along the strand.
A bulrush tripped her, whereupon she saw
A smiling babby in a wad of straw;
She tuk it up, and said, in accents mild,
“Tare an’ agers, gyurls, which av yez owns this child?”
The story of the finding of Moses has its parallels in almost every country—in the Greek and Roman legends of Perseus, Cyrus, and Romulus—in Indian, Persian, and Arabian tales—and a Babylonian analogue is given, as follows, by the Rev. A. H. Sayce, in the Folk-Lore Journal for 1883: “Sargon, the mighty monarch, the king of Agané, am I. My mother was a princess; my father I knew not. My father’s brother loved the mountain land. In the city of Azipiranu, which on the bank of the Euphrates lies, my mother, the princess, conceived me; in an inacessible spot she brought me forth. She placed me in a basket of rushes; with bitumen the door of my ark she closed. She launched me on the river, which drowned me not. The river bore me along; to Akki, the irrigator, it brought me. Akki, the irrigator, in the tenderness of his heart, lifted me up. Then Akki, the irrigator, as his gardener appointed me, and in my gardenership the goddess Istar loved me. For forty-five years the kingdom I have ruled, and the black-headed (Akkadian) race have governed.” [Return]
That the arch-fiend could, and often did, assume various forms to lure men to their destruction was universally believed throughout Europe during mediæval times and even much later; generally he appeared in the form of a most beautiful young woman; and there are still current in obscure parts of Scotland wild legends of his having thus tempted even godly men to sin.—In Asiatic tales rákshasas, ghúls (ghouls), and such-like demons frequently assume the appearance of heart-ravishing damsels in order to delude and devour the unwary traveller. In many of our old European romances fairies are represented as transforming themselves into the semblance of deer, to decoy into sequestered places noble hunters of whom they had become enamoured. [Return]
The “Great Name” (in Arabic, El-Ism el-Aazam, “the Most Great Name”), by means of which King David was saved from a cruel death, as above, is often employed in Eastern romances for the rescue of the hero from deadly peril, as well as to enable him to perform supernatural exploits. It was generally engraved on a signet-ring, but sometimes it was communicated orally to the fortunate hero by a holy man, or by a king of the genii—who was, of course, a good Muslim. [Return]
At the “mill” the man who was plagued with a bad wife doubtless saw some labourers threshing corn, since grinding corn would hardly suggest the idea of beating his provoking spouse.—By the way, this man had evidently never heard the barbarous sentiment, expressed in the equally barbarous English popular rhyme—composed, probably, by some beer-sodden bacon-chewer, and therefore, in those ancient times, non inventus—
A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree,
The more you beat ’em, the better they be—
else, what need for him to consult King Solomon about his paltry domestic troubles? [Return]
A variant of this occurs in the Decameron of Boccaccio, Day ix, Nov. 9, of which Dunlop gives the following outline: Two young men repair to Jerusalem to consult Solomon. One asks how he may be well liked, the other how he may best manage a froward wife. Solomon advised the first to “love others,” and the second to “repair to the mill.” From this last counsel neither can extract any meaning; but it is explained on their road home, for when they came to the bridge of that name they meet a number of mules, and one of these animals being restive its master forced it on with a stick. The advice of Solomon, being now understood, is followed, with complete success.
Among the innumerable tales current in Muhammedan countries regarding the extraordinary sagacity of Solomon is the following, which occurs in M. René Basset’s Contes Populaires Berbèrs (Paris, 1887): Complaint was made to Solomon that some one had stolen a quantity of eggs. “I shall discover him,” said Solomon. And when the people were assembled in the mosque (sic), he said: “An egg-thief has come in with you, and he has got feathers on his head.” The thief in great fright raised his hand to his head, which Solomon perceiving, he cried out: “There is the culprit—seize him!” There are many variants of this story in Persian and Indian collections, where a kází, or judge, takes the place of Solomon, and it had found its way into our own jest-books early in the 16th century. Thus in Tales and Quicke Answeres, a man has a goose stolen from him and complains to the priest, who promises to find out the thief. On Sunday the priest tells the congregation to sit down, which they do accordingly. Then says he, “Why are ye not all seated?” Say they, “We are all seated.” “Nay,” quoth Mass John, “but he that stole the goose sitteth not down.” “But I am seated,” says the witless goose-thief. [Return]
Among the Muhammedan legends concerning Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, it is related that, after he had satisfactorily answered all her questions and solved her riddles, “before he would enter into more intimate relations with her, he desired to clear up a certain point respecting her, and to see whether she actually had cloven feet, as several of his demons would have him to believe; or whether they had only invented the defect from fear lest he should marry her, and beget children, who, as descendants of the genii [the mother of Bilkís is said to have been of that race of beings], would be even more mighty than himself. He therefore caused her to be conducted through a hall, whose floor was of crystal, and under which water tenanted by every variety of fish was flowing. Bilkís, who had never seen a crystal floor, supposed that there was water to be passed through, and therefore raised her robe slightly, when the king discovered to his great joy a beautifully shaped female foot. When his eye was satisfied, he called to her: ‘Come hither; there is no water here, but only a crystal floor; and confess thyself to the faith in the one only God.’ Bilkís approached the throne, which stood at the end of the hall, and in Solomon’s presence abjured the worship of the sun. Solomon then married Bilkís, but reinstated her as Queen of Sába, and spent three days in every month with her.” [Return]
According to the Muslim legend, eight angels appeared before Solomon in a vision, saying that Allah had sent them to surrender to him power over them and the eight winds which were at their command. The chief of the angels then presented him with a jewel bearing the inscription: “To Allah belong greatness and might.” Solomon had merely to raise this stone towards the heavens and these angels would appear, to serve him. Four other angels next appeared, lords of all creatures living on the earth and in the waters. The angel representing the kingdom of birds gave him a jewel on which were inscribed the words: “All created things praise the Lord.” Then came an angel who gave him a jewel conferring on the possessor power over earth and sea, having inscribed on it: “Heaven and earth are servants of Allah.” Lastly, another angel appeared and presented him with a jewel bearing these words (the formula of the Muslim Confession of Faith): “There is no God but the God, and Muhammed is his messenger.” This jewel gave Solomon power over the spirit-world. Solomon caused these four jewels to be set in a ring, and the first use to which he applied its magical power was to subdue the demons and genii.—It is perhaps hardly necessary to remark here, with reference to the fundamental doctrine of Islám, said to have been engraved on the fourth jewel of Solomon’s ring, that according to the Kurán, David, Solomon, and all the Biblical patriarchs and prophets were good Muslims, for Muhammed did not profess to introduce a new religion, but simply to restore the original and only true faith, which had become corrupt. [Return]
We are not told here how the demon came to part with this safeguard of his power. The Muslim form of the legend, as will be seen presently, is much more consistent, and corresponds generally with another rabbinical version, which follows the present one. [Return]
According to the Muslim version, Solomon’s temporary degradation was in punishment for his taking as a concubine the daughter of an idolatrous king whom he had vanquished in battle, and, through her influence, bowing himself to “strange gods.” Before going to the bath, one day, he gave this heathen beauty his signet to take care of, and in his absence the rebellious genie Sakhr, assuming the form of Solomon, obtained the ring. The king was driven forth and Sakhr ruled (or rather, misruled) in his stead; till the wise men of the palace, suspecting him to be a demon, began to read the Book of the Law in his presence, whereupon he flew away and cast the signet into the sea. In the meantime Solomon hired himself to some fishermen in a distant country, his wages being two fishes each day. He finds his signet in the maw of one of the fish, and so forth. [Return]
Is it possible that this “story” of the unicorn was borrowed and garbled from the ancient Hindú legend of the Deluge? “When the flood rose Manu embarked in the ship, and the fish swam towards him, and he fastened the ship’s cable to its horn.” But in the Hindú legend the fish (that is, Brahma in the form of a great fish) tows the vessel, while in the Talmudic legend the ark of Noah takes the unicorn in tow. [Return]
In a manuscript preserved in the Lambeth Palace Library, of the time of Edward IV, the height of Moses is said to have been “xiij. fote and viij. ynches and half”; and the reader may possibly find some amusement in the “longitude of men folowyng,” from the same veracious work: “Cryste, vj. fote and iij. ynches. Our Lady, vj. fote and viij. ynches. Crystoferus, xvij. fote and viij. ynches. King Alysaunder, iiij. fote and v. ynches. Colbronde, xvij. fote and ij. ynches and half. Syr Ey., x. fote iij. ynches and half. Seynt Thomas of Caunterbery, vij. fote, save a ynche. Long Mores, a man of Yrelonde borne, and servaunt to Kyng Edward the iiijth., vj. fote and x. ynches and half.”—Reliquæ Antiquæ, vol i, p. 200. [Return]
The Friend, ed. 1850, vol. ii, p. 247. [Return]
Book of Job, i, 21. [Return]
Prov. xxxi, 10, 26. [Return]
The droll incident of dividing the capon, besides being found in Sacchetti, forms part of a popular story current in Sicily, and is thus related in Professor Crane’s Italian Popular Tales, p. 311 ff., taken from Prof. Comparetti’s Fiabe, Novelle, e Racconti (Palermo, 1875), No. 43, “La Ragazza astuta”: Once upon a time there was a huntsman who had a wife and two children, a son and a daughter; and all lived together in a wood where no one ever came, and so they knew nothing about the world. The father alone sometimes went to the city, and brought back the news. The king’s son once went hunting, and lost himself in that wood, and while he was seeking his way it became night. He was weary and hungry. Imagine how he felt. But all at once he saw a light shining in the distance. He followed it and reached the huntsman’s house, and asked for lodging and something to eat. The huntsman recognised him at once and said: “Highness, we have already supped on our best; but if we can find anything for you, you must be satisfied with it. What can we do? We are so far from the towns that we cannot procure what we need every day.” Meanwhile he had a capon cooked for him. The prince did not wish to eat it alone, so he called all the huntsman’s family, and gave the head of the capon to the father, the back to the mother, the legs to the son, and the wings to the daughter, and ate the rest himself. In the house there were only two beds, in the same room. In one the husband and wife slept, in the other the brother and sister. The old people went and slept in the stable, giving up their bed to the prince. When the girl saw that the prince was asleep, she said to her brother: “I will wager that you do not know why the prince divided the capon among us in the manner he did.” “Do you know? Tell me why.” “He gave the head to our father, because he is the head of the family; the back to our mother, because she has on her shoulders all the affairs of the house; the legs to you, because you must be quick in performing the errands which are given you; and the wings to me, to fly away and catch a husband.” The prince pretended to be asleep, but he was awake and heard these words, and perceived that the girl had much judgment, and as she was also pretty, he fell in love with her [and ultimately married this clever girl]. [Return]
This story seems to be the original of a French popular tale, in which a gentleman secures his estate for his son by a similar device. The gentleman, dying at Paris while his son was on his travels, bequeathed all his wealth to a convent, on condition that they should give his son “whatever they chose.” On the son’s return he received from the holy fathers a very trifling portion of the paternal estate. He complained to his friends of this injustice, but they all agreed that there was no help for it, according to the terms of his father’s will. In his distress he laid his case before an eminent lawyer, who told him that his father had adopted this plan of leaving his estate in the hands of the churchmen in order to prevent its misappropriation during his absence. “For,” said the man of law, “your father, by will, has left you the share of his estate which the convent should choose (le partie qui leur plairoit), and it is plain that what they chose was that which they kept for themselves. All you have to do, therefore, is to enter an action at law against the convent for recovery of that portion of your father’s property which they have retained, and, take my word for it, you will be successful.” The young man accordingly sued the churchmen and gained his cause. [Return]
But the Book of Judges was probably edited after the time of Hesiod, whose fable of the Hawk and the Nightingale (Works and Days, B. i, v. 260) must be considered as the oldest extant fable. [Return]
This theory, though perhaps somewhat ingenious, is generally considered as utterly untenable. [Return]
Ezekiel, xviii, 2. [Return]
This wide-spread fable is found in the Disciplina Clericalis (No. 21) and in the collection of Marie de France, of the 13th century; and it is one of the many spurious Esopic fables. [Return]
This is similar to the 10th parable in the spiritual romance of Barlaam and Joasaph, written in Greek, probably in the first half of the 7th century, and ascribed to a monk called John of Damascus. Most of the matter comprised in this interesting work (which has not been translated into English) was taken from well-known Buddhist sources, and M. Zotenberg and other eminent scholars are of the opinion that it was first composed, probably in Egypt, before the promulgation of Islám. The 10th parable is to this effect: The citizens of a certain great city had an ancient custom, to take a stranger and obscure man, who knew nothing of the city’s laws and traditions, and to make him king with absolute power for a year’s space; then to rise against him all unawares, while he, all thoughtless, was revelling and squandering and deeming the kingdom his for ever; and stripping off his royal robes, lead him naked in procession through the city, and banish him to a long-uninhabited and great island, where, worn down for want of food and raiment, he bewailed this unexpected change. Now, according to this custom, a man was chosen whose mind was furnished with much understanding, who was not led away by sudden prosperity, and was thoughtful and earnest in soul as to how he should best order his affairs. By close questioning, he learned from a wise counsellor the citizens’ custom, and the place of exile, and was instructed how he might secure himself. When he knew this, and that he must soon go to the island and leave his acquired and alien kingdom to others, he opened the treasures of which he had for the time free and unrestricted use, and took an abundant quantity of gold and silver and precious stones, and giving them to some trusty servants sent them before him to the island. At the appointed year’s end the citizens rose and sent him naked into exile, like those before him. But the other foolish and flitting kings had perished miserably of hunger, while he who had laid up that treasure beforehand lived in lusty abundance and delight, fearless of the turbulent citizens, and felicitating himself on his wise forethought. Think, then, the city this vain and deceitful world, the citizens the principalities and powers of the demons, who lure us with the bait of pleasure, and make us believe enjoyment will last for ever, till the sudden peril of death is upon us.—This parable (which seems to be of purely Hebrew origin) is also found in the old Spanish story-book El Conde Lucanor. [Return]
This is the 9th parable in the romance of Barlaam and Joasaph, where it is told without any variation. [Return]
Psalm cxix, 92.—By the way, it is probably known to most readers that the twenty-two sections into which this grand poem is divided are named after the letters of the Hebrew alphabet; but from the translation given in our English Bible no one could infer that in the original every one of the eight verses in each section begins with the letter after which it is named, thus forming a very long acrostic. [Return]
After Abraham had walked to and fro unscathed amidst the fierce flames for three days, the faggots were suddenly transformed into a blooming garden of roses and fruit-trees and odoriferous plants.—This legend is introduced into the Kurán, and Muslim writers, when they expatiate on the almighty power of Allah, seldom omit to make reference to Nimrod’s flaming furnace being turned into a bed of roses. [Return]
Eccles., i, 2. The word Vanity (remarks Hurwitz, the translator) occurs twice in the plural, which the Rabbi considered as equivalent to four, and three times in the singular, making altogether seven. [Return]
“Do not,” says Nakhshabí, “try to move by persuasion the soul that is afflicted with grief. The heart that is overwhelmed with the billows of sorrow will, by slow degrees, return to itself.” [Return]
“He who subdueth his temper is a mighty man,” says the Talmudist; and Solomon had said so before him: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Prov. xvi, 32). A curious parallel to these words is found in an ancient Buddhistic work, entitled Buddha’s Dhammapada, or Path of Virtue, as follows: “If one man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand men, and if another conquer himself, he is the greatest of conquerors.” (Professor Max Müller’s translation, prefixed to Buddhagosha’s Parables, translated by Captain Rogers.) [Return]
Cf. Saádí, ante, page [41], “Life is snow,” etc. [Return]
Locke was anticipated not only by the Talmudist, as above, but long before him by Aristotle, who termed the infant soul tabula rasa, which was in all likelihood borrowed by the author of the Persian work on the practical philosophy of the Muhammedans, entitled Akhlák-i-Jalaly, who says: “The minds of children are like a clear tablet, equally open to all inscriptions.” [Return]
Too many cooks spoil the broth.—English Proverb. [Return]
Two farthings and a thimble
In a tailor’s pocket make a jingle.—English Saying. [Return]
“Don’t speak ill of the bridge that bore you safe over the stream” seems to be the European equivalent. [Return]
Python, of Byzantium, was a very corpulent man. He once said to the citizens, in addressing them to make friends after a political dispute: “Gentlemen, you see how stout I am. Well, I have a wife at home who is still stouter. Now, when we are good friends, we can sit together on a very small couch; but when we quarrel, I do assure you, the whole house cannot contain us.”—Athenæus, xii. [Return]
Compare Burns:
O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us! [Return]
See the Persian aphorisms on revealing secrets, ante, p. [48].—Burns, in his “Epistle to a Young Friend,” says:
Aye free aff hand your story tell
When wi’ a bosom crony,
But still keep something to yoursel’
Ye scarcely tell to ony. [Return]
The very reverse of our English proverb, “Better to be the head of the commonalty than the tail of the gentry.” [Return]
Saádí has the same sentiment in his Gulistán—see ante, p. [49]. [Return]
See also Saádí’s aphorisms on precept and practice, ante, p. [47]. [Return]
Here we have a variant of Thomas Carlyle’s favourite maxim, “Speech is silvern; silence is golden.” [Return]
“Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he were sensible of this he would not be ignorant.”—Saádí. [Return]
The Friend, ed. 1850, vol. ii, p. 249. [Return]
The number Forty occurs very frequently in the Bible (especially the Old Testament) in connection with important events, and also in Asiatic tales. It is, in fact, regarded with peculiar veneration alike by Jews and Muhammedans. See notes to my Group of Eastern Romances and Stories (1889), pp. 140 and 456. [Return]
The “fruit of the forbidden tree” was not an apple, as we Westerns fondly believe, but wheat, say the Muslim doctors. [Return]
Fables de La Fontaine, Livre xi^e, fable v^e: “Le Loup et le Renard.” [Return]
Recueil de Contes Populaires de la Sénégambie, recueillis par L.-J.-B.-Bérenger-Féraud. Paris, 1885. Page 51. [Return]
I have to thank my friend Dr. David Ross, Principal, E. C. Training College, Glasgow, for kindly drawing my attention to this diverting tale. [Return]
Nothing is more hackneyed in Asiatic poetry than the comparison of a pretty girl’s face to the moon, and not seldom to the disparagement of that luminary. Solomon, in his love-songs, exclaims: “Who is she that looketh forth in the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun?” The greatest of Persian poets, Firdausí, says of a damsel:
“Love ye the moon? Behold her face,
And there the lucid planet trace.”
And Kalidása, the Shakspeare of India (6th century B.C.), says:
“Her countenance is brighter than the moon.”
Amongst ourselves the epithet “moon-faced” is not usually regarded as complimentary, yet Spenser speaks of a beautiful damsel’s “moon-like forehead.”—Be sure, the poets are right! [Return]
The lithe figure of a pretty girl is often likened by Eastern poets to the waving cypress, a tree which we associate with the grave-yard.—“Who is walking there?” asks a Persian poet. “Thou, or a tall cypress?” [Return]
“Nocturnal.” [Return]
The sacred well in the Kaába at Mecca, which, according to Muslim legends, miraculously sprang up when Hagar and her son Ishmael were perishing in the desert from thirst. [Return]
According to Muslim law, four months and ten days must elapse before a widow can marry again. [Return]
An attendant, who had always befriended Majnún. [Return]
“The moon,” to wit, the unhappy Laylá. See the [note], p. [284]. [Return]
See [Note] on ‘Wamik and Asra’ at the end of this paper. [Return]
A mole on the fair face of Beauty is not regarded as a blemish, but the very contrary, by Asiatics—or by Europeans either, else why did the ladies of the last century patch their faces, if not (originally) to set off the clearness of their complexion by contrast with the little black wafer?—though (afterwards) often to hide a pimple! Eastern poets are for ever raving over the mole on a pretty face. Háfíz goes the length of declaring:
“For the mole on the cheek of that girl of Shíráz
I would give away Samarkand and Bukhárá”—
albeit they were none of his to give to anybody. [Return]
Cf. Shelley, in the fine opening of that wonderful poetical offspring of his adolescence, Queen Mab:
“Hath, then, the gloomy Power
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres
Seized on her sinless soul?” [Return]
The reader may with advantage consult the article ‘Beast-Fable,’ by Mr. Thos. Davidson, in Chambers’s Encylopædia, new edition. [Return]
But this papyrus might be of as late a period as the second century of our era. [Return]
For the most complete history of the Esopic Fable, see vol. i of Mr. Joseph Jacobs’ edition of The Fables of Aesop, as first printed by Caxton in 1484, with those of Avian, Alfonso, and Poggio, recently published by Mr. David Nutt; where a vast amount of erudite information will be found on the subject in all its ramifications. Mr. Jacobs, indeed, seems to have left little for future gleaners: he has done his work in a thorough, Benfey-like manner, and students of comparative folk-lore are under great obligations to him for the indefatigable industry he has devoted to the valuable outcome of his wide-reaching learning. [Return]
Fabulae Romanenses Graece conscriptae ex recensione et cum adnotationibus, Alfredi Eberhard (Leipzig, 1872), vol. i, p. 226 ff. [Return]
It would have been well had the sultan Bayazíd compelled his soldier to adopt this plan when accused by an old woman of having drunk up all her supply of goat’s milk. The soldier declared his innocence, upon which Bayazíd ordered his stomach to be cut open, and finding the milk not yet digested, quoth he to the woman: “Thou didst not complain without reason.” And, having caused her to be recompensed for her loss, “Now go thy way,” he added, “for thou hast had justice for the wrong done thee.” [Return]
This story is also found in the Liber de Donis of Etienne de Bourbon (No. 246), a Dominican monk of the 14th century; in the Summa Praedicantium of John Bromyard, and several other medieval monkish collections of exempla, or stories designed for the use of preachers: in these the explanation is that nothing can be better and nothing worse than tongue. [Return]
This occurs in the several Asiatic versions of the Book of Sindibád (Story of the Sandalwood Merchant); in the Gesta Romanorum; in the old English metrical Tale of Beryn; in one of the Italian Novelle of Sacchetti; and in the exploits of Tyl Eulenspiegel, the German Rogue. [Return]
Taken from Petronius Arbiter. The story is widely spread. It is found in the Seven Wise Masters, and—mutatis mutandis—is well known to the Chinese. Planudes takes some liberties with his original, substituting for the soldier guarding the suspended corpse of a criminal, who “comforts” the sorrowing widow, a herdsman with his beasts, which he loses in prosecuting his amour. [Return]
Mr. Jacobs was obliged to omit the Life of Esop in his reprint of Caxton’s text of the Fables, as it would have unduly increased the bulk of his second volume. But those interested in the genealogy of popular tales and fables will be glad to have Mr. Jacobs’ all but exhaustive account of the so-called Esopic fables, together with his excellent synopsis of parallels, in preference to the monkish collection of spurious anecdotes of the fabulist, of which the most noteworthy are given in the present paper. [Return]
Robert Henryson was a schoolmaster in Dunfermline in the latter part of the 15th century. His Moral Fables, edited by Dr. David Irving, were printed for the Maitland Club in 1832, and his complete works (Poems and Fables) were edited by Dr. David Laing, and published in 1865. His Testament of Cresseid, usually considered as his best performance, is a continuation of Chaucer’s Troilus and Cresseide, which was derived from the Latin of an unknown author named Lollius. Henryson was the author of the first pastoral poem composed in the English (or Scottish) language—that of Robin and Makyn. “To his power of poetical conception,” Dr. Laing justly remarks, “he unites no inconsiderable skill in versification: his lines, if divested of their uncouth orthography, might be mistaken for those of a more modern poet.” [Return]
Schaw, a wood, a covert. [Return]
Chymeris, a short, light gown. [Return]
Hude, hood. [Return]
Bordourit, embroidered. [Return]
Hekellit-wise, like the feathers in the neck of a cock. [Return]
Fassoun, fashion. [Return]
Lokker, (?) gray. [Return]
Stikkand, sticking. [Return]
Pennair, pen-case. [Return]
Graithit, apparelled, arrayed. [Return]
Feirfull, awe-inspiring, dignified. [Return]
This is a work distinct from Henri Etienne’s Apologia pour Herodote. An English translation of it was published at London in 1807, and at Edinburgh in 1808, under the title of “A World of Wonders; or, an Introduction to a Treatise touching the Conformitie of Ancient and Modern Wonders; or, a Preparative Treatise to the Apology for Herodotus,” etc. For this book (the “Introduction”) Etienne had to quit France, fearing the wrath of the clerics. His Apologie pour Herodote has not been rendered into English—and why not, it would be hard to say. [Return]
One of the Charlemagne Romances, translated by Caxton from the French, and printed by him about the year 1489, under the title of The Right Pleasaunt and Goodly Historie of the Four Sonnes of Aymon. It has been reprinted for the Early English Text Society, ably edited by Miss Octavia Richardson. [Return]
A slightly different version is found in A Hundred Mery Talys, No. lxix, “Of the franklyns sonne that cam to take orders.” The bishop says that Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth;—who was the father of Japheth? When the “scholar” returns home and tells his father how he had been puzzled by the bishop, he endeavours to enlighten his son thus: “Here is Colle, my dog, that hath three whelps; must not these three whelps have Colle for their sire?” Going back to the bishop, he informs his lordship that the father of Japheth was “Colle, my father’s dogge.” [Return]
There were no pews in the churches in those “good old times.” [Return]
Apropos of saint-worship, quaint old Thomas Fuller relates a droll story in his Church History, ed. 1655, p. 278: A countryman who had lived many years in the Hercinian woods, in Germany, at last came into a populous city, demanding of the people therein, what God they did worship. They answered him, that they worshipped Jesus Christ. Whereupon the wild wood-man asked the names of the several churches in the city, which were all called by sundry saints, to whom they were consecrated. “It is strange,” said he, “that you should worship Jesus Christ, and he not have a temple in all the city dedicated to him.” [Return]
“Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, ‘Whom seek ye?’ They answered him, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’”—Gospel of S. John, xviii, 4, 5. [Return]
Festueum, the split straw so used in the Middle Ages. [Return]
See Méon’s edition of Barbazan’s Fabliaux et Contes, ed. 1808, tome ii, p. 442, and a prose extrait in Le Grand d’Aussy’s collection, ed. 1781, tome iv, p. 101, “Du Prêtre qui dit la Passion.” [Return]
See Méon’s Barbazan, 1808, tome iv, p. 114; also Le Grand, 1781, tome ii, p. 190: “Du Vilain qui gagna Paradis en plaidant.” [Return]
Scarronides; or, Virgil Travestie, etc., by Charles Cotton, Book iv. Poetical Works, 5th edition, London, 1765, pp. 122, 140. [Return]
The notion that a beard indicated wisdom on the part of the wearer is often referred to in early European literature. For example, in Lib. v of Caxton’s Esop, the Fox, to induce the sick King Lion to kill the Wolf, says he has travelled far and wide, seeking a good medicine for his Majesty, and “certaynly I have found no better counceylle than the counceylle of an auncyent Greke, with a grete and long berd, a man of grete wysdom, sage, and worthy to be praysed.” And when the Fox, in another fable, leaves the too-credulous Goat in the well, Reynard adds insult to injury by saying to him, “O maystre goote, yf thow haddest be [i.e. been] wel wyse, with thy fayre berde,” and so forth. (Pp. 153 and 196 of Mr. Jacobs’ new edition.)—A story is told of a close-shaven French ambassador to the court of some Eastern potentate, that on presenting his credentials his Majesty made sneering remarks on his smooth face (doubtless he was himself “bearded to the eyes”), to which the envoy boldly replied: “Sire, had my master supposed that you esteem a beard so highly, instead of me, he would have sent your Majesty a goat as his ambassador.” [Return]
Harleian MS. No. 7334, lines 2412-2418. Printed for the Early English Text Society. [Return]
In a scarce old poem, entitled, The Pilgrymage and the Wayes of Jerusalem, we read:
The thyrd Seyte beyn prestis of oure lawe,
That synge masse at the Sepulcore;
At the same grave there oure lorde laye,
They synge the leteny every daye.
In oure manner is her [i.e. their] songe,
Saffe, here [i.e. their] berdys be ryght longe,
That is the geyse of that contre,
The lenger the berde the bettyr is he;
The order of hem [i.e. them] be barfote freeres. [Return]
Reprint for the Shakspere Society, 1877, B. ii, ch. vii, p. 169. [Return]
Reprint for the (old) Shakspeare Society, 1846, p. 217. [Return]
Formed by the moustache and a chin-tuft, as worn by Louis Napoleon and his imperialist supporters. [Return]
Works of John Taylor, the Water Poet, comprised in the Folio edition of 1630. Printed for the Spenser Society, 1869. “Superbiae Flagellum, or the Whip of Pride,” p. 34. [Return]
Reprint for the Shakspere Society, Part ii (1882), pp. 50, 51. [Return]
The Treatise answerynge the boke of Berdes, Compyled by Collyn Clowte, dedicated to Barnarde, Barber, dwellyng in Banbury: “Here foloweth a treatyse made, Answerynge the treatyse of doctor Borde upon Berdes.”—Appended to reprint of Andrew Borde’s Introduction of Knowledge, edited by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, for the Early English Text Society, 1870—see pp. 314, 315. [Return]