Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers Part 10

V

THE PRINCESS OF ROME AND HER SON--THE KING AND HIS SEVEN VAZIRS.

The story told by the Parrot on the 50th Night is very singular, and presents, no doubt, a faithful picture of Oriental manners and customs.

In the original text it is ent.i.tled

_Story of the Daughter of the Kaysar of Rome, and her trouble by reason of her Son._

In former times there was a great king, whose army was numerous and whose treasury was full to overflowing; but, having no enemy to contend with, he neglected to pay his soldiers, in consequence of which they were in a state of dest.i.tution and discontent. At length one day the soldiers went to the prime vazir and made their condition known to him.

The vazir promised that he would speedily devise a plan by which they should have employment and money. Next morning he presented himself before the king, and said that it was widely reported that the kaysar of Rome had a daughter unsurpa.s.sed for beauty--one who was fit only for such a great monarch as his Majesty--and suggested that it would be advantageous if an alliance were formed between two such potentates. The notion pleased the king well, and he forthwith despatched to Rome an amba.s.sador with rich gifts, and requested the kaysar to grant him his daughter in marriage. But the kaysar waxed wroth at this, and refused to give his daughter to the king. When the amba.s.sador returned thus unsuccessful, the king, enraged at being made of no account, resolved to make war upon the kaysar, and, opening the doors of his treasury, he distributed much money among his troops, and then, "with a woe-bringing l.u.s.t, and a blood-drinking army, he trampled Rome and the Romans in the dust." And when the kaysar was become powerless, he sent his daughter to the king, who married her according to the law of Islam.

Now that princess had a son by a former husband, and the kaysar had said to her before she departed: "Beware that thou mention not thy son, for my love for his society is great, and I cannot part with him." But the princess was sick at heart for the absence of her son, and she was ever pondering how she should speak to the king about him, and in what manner she might contrive to bring him to her. It happened one day the king gave her a string of pearls and a casket of jewels. She said: "With my father is a slave well skilled in the science of jewels." The king replied: "If I should ask that slave of thy father, would he give him to me?" "Nay," said she; "for he holds him in the place of a son. But, if the king desire him, I will send a merchant to Rome, and I myself will give him a token, and with pleasant wiles and fair speeches will bring him hither." Then the king sent for a clever merchant who knew Arabic eloquently and the language of Rome, and gave him goods for trading, and sent him to Rome with the object of procuring that slave. But the daughter of the kaysar said privately to the merchant: "That slave is my son; I have, for a good reason, said to the king that he is a slave; so thou must bring him as a slave, and let it be thy duty to take care of him." In due course the merchant brought the youth to the king's service; and when the king saw his fair face, and discovered in him many pleasing and varied accomplishments, he treated him with distinction and favour, and conferred on the merchant a robe of honour and gifts. His mother saw him from afar, and was pleased with receiving a salutation from him.

One day (the text proceeds) the king had gone to the chase, and the palace remained void of rivals; so the mother called in her son, kissed his fair face, and told him the tale of her great sorrow. A chamberlain became aware of the secret, and another suspicion fell upon him, and he said to himself: "The harem of the king is the sanctuary of security and the palace of protection. If I speak not of this, I shall be guilty of treachery, and shall have wrought unfaithfulness." When the king returned from the chase, the chamberlain related to him what he had seen, and the king was angry and said: "This woman has deceived me with words and deeds, and has brought hither her desire by craft and cunning.

This conjecture must be true, else why did she play such a trick, and why did she hatch such a plot, and why did she send the merchant?" The king, enraged, went into the harem. The queen saw from his countenance that the occurrence of the night before had become known to him, and she said: "Be it not that I see the king angry." He said: "How should I not be angry? Thou, by craft, and trickery, and intrigue, and plotting, hast brought thy desire from Rome--what wantonness is this that thou hast done?" Then he thought to slay her, but he forbore, because of his great love for her. But he ordered the chamberlain to carry the youth to some obscure place, and straightway sever his head from his body. When the poor mother saw this she well-nigh fell on her face, and her soul was near leaving her body. But she knew that sorrow would not avail, and she restrained herself.

And when the chamberlain took the youth into his own house, he said to him: "O youth, know you not that the harem of the king is the sanctuary of security? What great treachery is this that thou hast perpetrated?"

The youth replied: "That queen is my mother, and I am her true son.

Because of her natural delicacy, she said not to the king that she had a son by another husband. And when yearning came over her, she contrived to bring me here from Rome; and while the king was engaged in the chase maternal love stirred, and she called me to her and embraced me." On hearing this, the chamberlain said to himself: "What is pa.s.sing in his mother's breast? What I have not done I can yet do, and it were better that I preserve this youth some days, for such a rose may not be wounded through idle words, and such a bough may not be broken by a single breath. For some day the truth of this matter will be disclosed, and it will become known to the king, when repentance may be of no avail."

Another day he went before the king, and said: "That which was commanded have I fulfilled." On hearing this the king's wrath was to some extent removed, but his trust in the kaysar's daughter was departed; while she, poor creature, was grieved and dazed at the loss of her son.

Now in the palace harem there was an old woman, who said to the queen: "How is it that I find thee sorrowful?" And the queen told the whole story, concealing nothing. The old woman was a heroine in the field of craft, and she answered: "Keep thy mind at ease: I will devise a stratagem by which the heart of the king will be pleased with thee, and every grief he has will vanish from his heart." The queen said, that if she did so she should be amply rewarded. One day the old woman, seeing the king alone, said to him: "Why is thy former aspect altered, and why are traces of care and anxiety visible on thy countenance?" The king then told her all. The old woman said: "I have an amulet of the charms of Solomon, in the Syriac language, in the the writing of the jinn [genii]. When the queen is asleep do thou place it on her breast, and, whatever it may be, she will tell all the truth of it. But take care, fall thou not asleep, but listen well to what she says." The king wondered at this, and said: "Give me that amulet, that the truth of this matter may be learned." So the old woman gave him the amulet, and then went to the queen and explained what she had done, and said: "Do thou feign to be asleep, and relate the whole of the story faithfully."

When a watch of the night was past, the king laid the amulet upon his wife's breast, and she thus began: "By a former husband I had a son, and when my father gave me to this king, I was ashamed to say I had a tall son. When my yearning pa.s.sed all bounds, I brought him here by an artifice. One day that the king was gone to the chase, I called him into the house, when, after the way of mothers, I took him in my arms and kissed him. This reached the king's ears, and he unwittingly gave it another construction, and cut off the head of that innocent boy, and withdrew from me his own heart. Alike is my son lost to me and the king angry." When the king heard these words he kissed her and exclaimed: "O my life, what an error is this thou hast committed? Thou hast brought calumny upon thyself, and hast given such a son to the winds, and hast made me ashamed!" Straightway he called the chamberlain and said: "That boy whom thou hast killed is the son of my beloved and the darling of my beauty! Where is his grave, that we may make there a guest-house?" The chamberlain said: "That youth is yet alive. When the king commanded his death I was about to kill him, but he said: 'That queen is my mother; through modesty before the king she revealed not the secret that she had a tall son. Kill me not; it may be that some day the truth will become known, and repentance profits not, and regret is useless.'" The king commanded them to bring the youth, so they brought him straightway. And when the mother saw the face of her son, she thanked G.o.d and praised the Most High, and became one of the Muslims, and from the sect of unbelievers came into the faith of Islam. And the king favoured the chamberlain in the highest degree, and they pa.s.sed the rest of their lives in comfort and ease.

This tale is also found in the Persian _Bakhtyar Nama_ (or the Ten Vazirs), the precise date of which has not been ascertained, but a MS.

Turki (Uygur) version of it, preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, bears to have been written in 1434; the Persian text must therefore have been composed before that date. In the text translated by Sir William Ouseley, in place of the daughter of the kaysar of Rome it is the daughter of the king of Irak whom the king of Abyssinia marries, after subduing the power of her father; and, so far from a present of jewels to her being the occasion of her mentioning her son, in the condition of a slave, it is said that one day the king behaved harshly to her, and spoke disrespectfully of her father, upon which she boasted that her father had in his service a youth of great beauty and possessed of every accomplishment, which excited the king's desire to have him brought to his court; and the merchant smuggled the youth out of the country of Irak concealed in a chest, placed on the back of a camel. In Lescallier's French translation it is said that the youth was the fruit of a _liaison_ of the princess, unknown to her father; that his education was secretly entrusted to certain servants; and that the princess afterwards contrived to introduce the boy to her father, who was so charmed with his beauty, grace of manner, and accomplishments, that he at once took him into his service. Thus widely do ma.n.u.scripts of the same Eastern work vary!

_The King and his Seven Vazirs._

On the Eighth Night the Parrot relates, in a very abridged form, the story of the prince who was falsely accused by one of his father's women of having made love to her, and who was saved by the tales which the royal counsellors related to the king in turn during seven consecutive days. The original of this romance is the _Book of Sindibad_, so named after the prince's tutor, Sindibad the sage: the Arabic version is known under the t.i.tle of the _Seven Vazirs_; the Hebrew, _Mishle Sandabar_; the Greek, _Syntipas_; and the Syriac, _Sindban_; and its European modifications, the _Seven Wise Masters_. In the Parrot-Book the first to the sixth vazirs each relate one story only, and the damsel has no stories (all other Eastern versions give two to each of the seven, and six to the queen); the seventh vazir simply appears on the seventh day and makes clear the innocence of the prince. This version, however, though imperfect, is yet of some value in making a comparative study of the several texts.

VI

THE TREE OF LIFE--LEGEND OF RaJa RASaLu--CONCLUSION.

Many others of the Parrot's stories might be cited, but we shall merely glance at one more, as it calls up a very ancient and wide-spread legend:

_The Tree of Life._

A prince, who is very ill, sends a parrot of great sagacity to procure him some of the fruit of the Tree of Life. When at length the parrot returns with the life-giving fruit, the prince scruples to eat it, upon which the wise bird relates the legend of Solomon and the Water of Immortality: how that monarch declined to purchase immunity from death on consideration that he should survive all his friends and female favourites. The prince, however, having suspicions regarding the genuineness of the fruit, sends some trusty messengers to "bring the first apple that fell from the Tree of Existence." But it happened that a black serpent had poisoned it by seizing it in his mouth and then letting it drop again. When the messengers return with the fruit, the prince tries its effect on an old _pir_ (holy man), who at once falls down dead. Upon seeing this the prince doomed the parrot to death, but the sagacious bird suggested that, before the prince should execute him for treason, he should himself go to the Tree of Life, and make another experiment with its fruit. He does so, and on returning home gives part of the fruit to an old woman, "who, from age and infirmity had not stirred abroad for many years," and she had no sooner tasted it than she was changed into a blooming beauty of eighteen!--Happy, happy old woman!

A different version of the legend occurs in a Canarese collection, ent.i.tled _Katha Manjari_, which is worthy of reproduction, since it may possibly be an earlier form than that in the Persian Parrot-Book: A certain king had a magpie that flew one day to heaven with another magpie. When it was there it took away some mango-seed, and, having returned, gave it into the hands of the king, saying: "If you cause this to be planted and grow, whoever eats of its fruit old age will forsake him and youth return." The king was much pleased, and caused it to be sown in his favourite garden, and carefully watched it. After some time, buds having shown themselves in it became flowers, then young fruit, then it was grown; and when it was full of ripe fruit, the king ordered it to be cut and brought, and that he might test it gave it to an old man. But on that fruit there had fallen poison from a serpent, as it was carried through the air by a kite, therefore he immediately withered and died. The king, having seen this, was much afraid, and exclaimed: "Is not this bird attempting to kill me?" Having said this, with anger he seized the magpie, and swung it round and killed it. Afterwards in that village the tree had the name of the Poisonous Mango. While things were thus, a washerman, taking the part of his wife in a quarrel with his aged mother, struck the latter, who was so angry at her son that she resolved to die [in order that the blame of her death should fall on him]; and having gone to the poisonous mango-tree in the garden, she cut off a fruit and ate it; and immediately she was more blooming than a girl of sixteen. This wonder she published everywhere. The king became acquainted with it, and having called her and seen her, caused the fruit to be given to other old people. Having seen what was thus done by the wonderful virtue of the mango, the king exclaimed: "Alas! is the affectionate magpie killed which gave me this divine tree? How guilty am I!" and he pierced himself with his sword and died. Therefore (moralises the story-teller) those who do anything without thought are easily ruined.[52]

[52] There is a very similar story in the Tamil _Alakesa Katha_, a tale of a King and his Four Ministers, but the conclusion is different: the raja 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.

The incident of fruit or food being poisoned by a serpent is of frequent occurrence in Eastern stories; thus, in the _Book of Sindibad_ a man sends his slave-girl to fetch milk, with which to feast some guests. As she was returning with it in an open vessel a stork flew over her, carrying a snake in its beak; the snake dropped some of its poison into the milk, and all the guests who partook of it immediately fell down and died.--The Water of Life and the Tree of Life are the subjects of many European as well as Asiatic folk-tales. Muslims have a tradition that Alexander the Great despatched the prophet Al-Khizar (who is often confounded with Moses and Elias in legends) to procure him some of the Water of Life. The prophet, after a long and perilous journey, at length reached this Spring of Everlasting Youth, and, having taken a hearty draught of its waters, the stream suddenly disappeared--and has, we may suppose, never been rediscovered. Al-Khizar, they say, still lives, and occasionally appears to persons whom he desires especially to favour, and always clothed in a green robe, the emblem of perennial youth. In Arabic, Khizar signifies _green_.

The faithful and sagacious Parrot having entertained the lady during fifty-two successive nights, and thereby prevented her from prosecuting her intended intrigue, on the following day the merchant returned, and, missing the sharak from the cage, inquired its fate of the Parrot, who straight-way acquainted him of all that had taken place in his absence, and, according to Kadiri's abridged text, he put his wife to death, which was certainly very unjust, since the lady's offence was only in _design_, not in _fact_.[53]

[53] In one Telugu version, ent.i.tled _Toti Nama Cat'halu_, 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.

It will be observed that the frame of the _Tuti Nama_ somewhat resembles the story, in the _Arabian Nights_, of the Merchant, his Wife, and the Parrot, which properly belongs to, and occurs in, all the versions of the _Book of Sindibad_, and also in the _Seven Wise Masters_; in the latter a magpie takes the place of the parrot. In my _Popular Tales and Fictions_ I have pointed out the close a.n.a.logy which the frame of the Parrot-Book bears to a Panjabi legend of the renowned hero Raja Rasalu.

In the _Tuti Nama_ the merchant leaves a parrot and a sharak to watch over his wife's conduct in his absence, charging her to obtain their consent before she enters upon any undertaking of moment; and on her consulting the sharak as to the propriety of her a.s.signation with the young prince, the bird refuses consent, whereupon the enraged dame kills it on the spot; but the parrot, by pursuing a middle course, saves his life and his master's honour. In the Panjabi legend Raja Rasalu, who was very frequently from home on hunting excursions, left behind him a parrot and a maina (hill starling), to act as spies upon his young wife, the Rani Kokla. One day while Rasalu was from home she was visited by the handsome Raja Hodi, who climbed to her balcony by a rope (this incident is the subject of many paintings in fresco on the panels of palaces and temples in India), when the maina exclaimed, "What wickedness is this?" upon which the raja went to the cage, took out the maina, and dashed it to the ground, so that it died. But the parrot, taking warning, said, "The steed of Rasalu is swift, what if he should surprise you? Let me out of my cage, and I will fly over the palace, and will inform you the instant he appears in sight"; and so she released the parrot. In the sequel, the parrot betrays the rani, and Rasalu kills Raja Hodi and causes his heart to be served to the rani for supper.[54]

[54] Captain R. C. Temple's _Legends of the Panjab_, vol. i, p. 52 ff.; and "Four Legends of Raja Rasalu," by the Rev. C. Swynnerton, in the _Folk-Lore Journal_, 1883, p.

141 ff.

The parrot is a very favourite character in Indian fictions, a circ.u.mstance originating, very possibly, in the Hindu belief in metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls after death into other animal forms, and also from the remarkable facility with which that bird imitates the human voice. In the _Katha Sarit Sagara_ stories of wise parrots are of frequent occurrence; sometimes they figure as mere birds, but at other times as men who had been re-born in that form. In the third of the Twenty-Five Tales of a Demon (Sanskrit version), a king has a parrot, "possessed of G.o.d-like intellect, knowing all the _shastras_, having been born in that condition owing to a curse"; and his queen has a hen-maina "remarkable for knowledge." They are placed in the same cage; and "one day the parrot became enamoured of the maina, and said to her: 'Marry me, fair one, as we sleep, perch, and feed in the same cage.' But the maina answered him: 'I do not desire intimate union with a male, for all males are wicked and ungrateful.' The parrot answered: 'It is not true that males are wicked, but females are wicked and cruel-hearted.' And so a dispute arose between them. The two birds then made a bargain that, if the parrot won, he should have the maina for wife, and if the maina won, the parrot should be her slave, and they came before the prince to get a true judgment." Each relates a story--the one to show that men are all wicked and ungrateful, the other, that women are wicked and cruel-hearted.

It must be confessed that the frame of the _Tuti Nama_ is of a very flimsy description: nothing could be more absurd, surely, than to represent the lady as decorating herself fifty-two nights in succession in order to have an interview with a young prince, and being detained each night by the Parrot's tales, which, moreover, have none of them the least bearing upon the condition and purpose of the lady; unlike the Telugu story-book, having a somewhat similar frame (see _ante_, p. 127, _note_), in which the tales related by the bird are about chaste wives.

But the frames of all Eastern story-books are more or less slight and of small account. The value of the _Tuti Nama_ consists in the aid which the subordinate tales furnish in tracing the genealogy of popular fictions, and in this respect the importance of the work can hardly be over-rated.

_ADDITIONAL NOTE._

THE MAGIC BOWL, pp. 152-156; 157, 158.

In our tale of the f.a.ggot-maker, the fairies warn him to guard the Magic Bowl with the utmost care, "for it will break by the most trifling blow," and he is to use it only when absolutely necessary; and in the notes of variants appended, reference is made (p. 158) to a Meklenburg story where the beer in an inexhaustible can disappears the moment its possessor reveals the secret. The gifts made by fairies and other superhuman beings have indeed generally some condition attached (most commonly, perhaps, that they are not to be examined until the recipients have reached home), as is shown pretty conclusively by my friend Mr. E.

Sidney Hartland in a most interesting paper on "Fairy Births and Human Midwives," which enriches the pages of the _Archaeological Review_ for December, 1889, and at the close of which he cites, from Poestion's _Lapplandische Marchen_, p. 119, a curious example, which may be fairly regarded as an a.n.a.logue of the tale of the Poor f.a.ggot-maker--"far cry"

though it be from India to Swedish Lappmark:

"A peasant who had one day been unlucky at the chase was returning disgusted, when he met a fine gentleman, who begged him to come and cure his wife. The peasant protested in vain that he was no doctor. The other would take no denial, insisting that it was no matter, for if he would only put his hands on the lady she would be healed. Accordingly, the stranger led him to the very top of a mountain where was perched a castle he had never seen before. On entering, he found the walls were mirrors, the roof overhead of silver, the carpets of gold-embroidered silk, and the furniture of the purest gold and jewels. The stranger took him into a room where lay the loveliest of princesses on a golden bed, screaming with pain. As soon as she saw the peasant, she begged him to come and put his hands upon her. Almost stupified with astonishment, he hesitated to lay his coa.r.s.e hands upon so fair a dame. But at length he yielded, and in a moment her pain ceased, and she was made whole. She stood up and thanked him, begging him to tarry awhile and eat with them.

This, however, he declined to do, for he feared that if he tasted the food which was offered him he must remain there.