"Volume X" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burtons Version)
Meanwhile Yahya and Al-Fazl, seized by the Caliph Harun's command at Baghdad, were significantly cast into the prison "Habs al-Zanбdikah"--of the Guebres--and their immense wealth which, some opine, hastened their downfall, was confiscated. According to the historian, Al-Tabari, who, however, is not supported by all the annalists, the whole Barmecide family, men, women, and children, numbering over a thousand, were slaughtered with only three exceptions; Yahya, his brother Mohammed, and his son Al-Fazl. The Caliph's foster-father, who lived to the age of seventy-four, was allowed to die in jail (A.H. 805) after two years' imprisonment at Rukkah. Al-Fazl, after having been tortured with two hundred blows in order to make him produce concealed property, survived his father three years and died in Nov. A.H. 808, some four months before his terrible foster-brother. A pathetic tale is told of the son warming water for the old man's use by pressing the copper ewer to his stomach.
The motives of this terrible massacre are variously recounted, but no sufficient explanation has yet been, or possibly ever will be, given. The popular idea is embodied in The Nights. [FN#269] Harun, wishing Ja'afar to be his companion even in the Harem, had wedded him, pro formв, to his eldest sister Abbбsah, "the loveliest woman of her day," and brilliant in mind as in body; but he had expressly said "I will marry thee to her, that it may be lawful for thee to look upon her but thou shalt not touch her." Ja'afar bound himself by a solemn oath; but his mother Attбbah was mad enough to deceive him in his cups and the result was a boy (Ibn Khallikan) or, according to others, twins. The issue was sent under the charge of a confidential eunuch and a slave-girl to Meccah for concealment; but the secret was divulged to Zubaydah who had her own reasons for hating husband and wife and cherished an especial grievance against Yahya. [FN#270] Thence it soon found its way to head-quarters. Harun's treatment of Abbбsah supports the general conviction: according to the most credible accounts she and her child were buried alive in a pit under the floor of her apartment.
But, possibly, Ja'afar's perjury was only "the last straw." Already Al-Fazl bin Rabо'a, the deadliest enemy of the Barmecides, had been entrusted (A.D. 786) with the Wazirate which he kept seven years. Ja'afar had also acted generously but imprudently in abetting the escape of Yahya bin Abdillah, Sayyid and Alide, for whom the Caliph had commanded confinement in a close dark dungeon: when charged with disobedience the Wazir had made full confession and Harun had (they say) exclaimed, "Thou hast done well!" but was heard to mutter, "Allah slay me an I slay thee not." [FN#271] The great house seems at times to have abused its powers by being too peremptory with Harun and Zubaydah, especially in money matters; [FN#272] and its very greatness would have created for it many and powerful enemies and detractors who plied the Caliph with anonymous verse and prose. Nor was it forgotten that, before the spread of Al-Islam, they had presided over the Naubehбr or Pyrжthrum of Balkh; and Harun is said to have remarked anent Yahya, "The zeal for magianism, rooted in his heart, induces him to save all the monuments connected with his faith." [FN#273] Hence the charge that they were "Zanбdakah," a term properly applied to those who study the Zend scripture, but popularly meaning Mundanists, Positivists, Reprobates, Atheists; and it may be noted that, immediately after al-Rashid's death, violent religious troubles broke out in Baghdad. Ibn Khallikan [FN#274] quotes Sa'id ibn Salim, a well-known grammarian and traditionist who philosophically remarked, "Of a truth the Barmecides did nothing to deserve Al-Rashid's severity, but the day (of their power and prosperity) had been long and whatso endureth long waxeth longsome." Fakhr al-Din says (p. 27), "On attribue encore leur ruine aux maniиres fiиres et orgueilleuses de Djafar (Ja'afar) et de Fadhl (Al-Fazl), maniиres que les rois ne sauroient supporter." According to Ibn Badrъn, the poet, when the Caliph's sister 'Olayyah [FN#275] asked him, "O my lord, I have not seen thee enjoy one happy day since putting Ja'afar to death: wherefore didst thou slay him?" he answered, "My dear life, an I thought that my shirt knew the reason I would rend it in pieces!" I therefore hold with Al Mas'udi,
"As regards the intimate cause (of the catastrophe) it is unknown and Allah is Omniscient."
Aaron the Orthodox appears sincerely to have repented his enormous crime. From that date he never enjoyed refreshing sleep: he would have given his whole realm to recall Ja'afar to life; and, if any spoke slightingly of the Barmecides in his presence, he would exclaim, "God damn your fathers! Cease to blame them or fill the void they have left." And he had ample reason to mourn the loss. After the extermination of the wise and enlightened family, the affairs of the Caliphate never prospered: Fazl bin Rabн'a, though a man of intelligence and devoted to letters, proved a poor substitute for Yahya and Ja'afar; and the Caliph is reported to have applied to him the couplet:--
No sire to your sire, [FN#276] I bid you spare * Your calumnies or their place replace.
His unwise elevation of his two rival sons filled him with fear of poison, and, lastly, the violence and recklessness of the popular mourning for the Barmecides, [FN#277] whose echo has not yet died away, must have added poignancy to his tardy penitence. The crime still "sticks fiery off" from the rest of Harun's career: it stands out in ghastly prominence as one of the most terrible tragedies recorded by history, and its horrible details make men write passionately on the subject to this our day. [FN#278]
As of Harun so of Zubaydah it may be said that she was far superior in most things to contemporary royalties, and she was not worse at her worst than the normal despot-queen of the Morning-land. We must not take seriously the tales of her jealousy in The Nights, which mostly end in her selling off or burying alive her rivals; but, even were all true, she acted after the recognised fashion of her exalted sisterhood. The secret history of Cairo, during the last generation, tells of many a viceregal dame who committed all the crimes, without any of the virtues which characterised Harun's cousin-spouse. And the difference between the manners of the Caliphate and the "respectability" of the nineteenth century may be measured by the Tale called "Al-Maamun and Zubaydah." [FN#279] The lady, having won a game of forfeits from her husband, and being vexed with him for imposing unseemly conditions when he had been the winner, condemned him to lie with the foulest and filthiest kitchen-wench in the palace; and thus was begotten the Caliph who succeeded and destroyed her son.
Zubaydah was the grand-daughter of the second Abbaside Al-Mansur, by his son Ja'afar whom The Nights persistently term Al-Kasim: her name was Amat al-Azнz or Handmaid of the Almighty; her cognomen was Umm Ja'afar as her husband's was Abъ Ja'afar; and her popular name "Creamkin" derives from Zubdah, [FN#280] cream or fresh butter, on account of her plumpness and freshness. She was as majestic and munificent as her husband; and the hum of prayer was never hushed in her palace. Al-Mas'udi [FN#281] makes a historian say to the dangerous Caliph Al-Kбhir, "The nobleness and generosity of this Princess, in serious matters as in her diversions, place her in the highest rank"; and he proceeds to give ample proof. Al-Siyuti relates how she once filled a poet's mouth with jewels which he sold for twenty thousand dinars. Ibn Khallikan (i. 523) affirms of her, "Her charity was ample, her conduct virtuous, and the history of her pilgrimage to Meccah and of what she undertook to execute on the way is so well-known that it were useless to repeat it." I have noted (Pilgrimage iii. 2) how the Darb al-Sharki or Eastern road from Meccah to Al-Medinah was due to the piety of Zubaydah who dug wells from Baghdad to the Prophet's burial place and built not only cisterns and caravanserais, but even a wall to direct pilgrims over the shifting sands. She also supplied Meccah, which suffered severely from want of water, with the chief requisite for public hygiene by connecting it, through levelled hills and hewn rocks, with the Ayn al-Mushбsh in the Arafat subrange; and the fine aqueduct, some ten miles long, was erected at a cost of 1,700,000 to 2,000,000 of gold pieces. [FN#282] We cannot wonder that her name is still famous among the Badawin and the "Sons of the Holy Cities." She died at Baghdad, after a protracted widowhood, in A.H. 216 and her tomb, which still exists, was long visited by the friends and dependents who mourned the loss of a devout and most liberal woman.
The reader will bear with me while I run through the tales and add a few remarks to the notices given in the notes: the glance must necessarily be brief, however extensive be the theme. The admirable introduction follows, in all the texts and MSS. known to me, the same main lines but differs greatly in minor details as will be seen by comparing Mr. Payne's translation with Lane's and mine. In the Tale of the Sage Dъbбn appears the speaking head which is found in the Kamil, in Mirkhond and in the Kitбb al-Uyъn: M. C. Barbier de Meynard (v. 503) traces it back to an abbreviated text of Al-Mas'udi. I would especially recommend to students The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad (i. 82), whose mighty orgie ends so innocently in general marriage. Lane (iii. 746) blames it "because it represents Arab ladies as acting like Arab courtesans"; but he must have known that during his day the indecent frolic was quite possible in some of the highest circles of his beloved Cairo. To judge by the style and changes of person, some of the most "archaic" expressions suggest the hand of the Rбwi or professional tale-teller; yet as they are in all the texts they cannot be omitted in a loyal translation. The following story of The Three Apples perfectly justifies my notes concerning which certain carpers complain. What Englishman would be jealous enough to kill his cousin-wife because a blackamoor in the streets boasted of her favours? But after reading what is annotated in vol. i. 6, and purposely placed there to give the key-note of the book, he will understand the reasonable nature of the suspicion; and I may add that the same cause has commended these "skunks of the human race" to debauched women in England.
The next tale, sometimes called "The Two Wazнrs," is notable for its regular and genuine drama-intrigue which, however, appears still more elaborate and perfected in other pieces. The richness of this Oriental plot-invention contrasts strongly with all European literatures except the Spaniard's, whose taste for the theatre determined his direction, and the Italian, which in Boccaccio's day had borrowed freely through Sicily from the East. And the remarkable deficiency lasted till the romantic movement dawned in France, when Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas showed their marvellous powers of faultless fancy, boundless imagination and scenic luxuriance, "raising French Poetry from the dead and not mortally wounding French prose.'' [FN#283] The Two Wazirs is followed by the gem of the volume, The Adventure of the Hunchback-jester (i. 225), also containing an admirable surprise and a fine development of character, while its "wild but natural simplicity" and its humour are so abounding that it has echoed through the world to the farthest West. It gave to Addison the Story of Alnaschar [FN#284] and to Europe the term "Barmecide Feast," from the "Tale of Shacabac" (vol. i. 343). The adventures of the corpse were known in Europe long before Galland as shown by three fabliaux in Barbazan. I have noticed that the Barber's Tale of himself (i. 317) is historical and I may add that it is told in detail by Al-Mas'udi (chapt. cxiv).
Follows the tale of Nъr al-Dнn Alн, and what Galland miscalls "The Fair Persian," a brightly written historiette with not a few touches of true humour. Noteworthy are the Slaver's address (vol. ii. 15), the fine description of the Baghdad garden (vol. ii. 21-24), the drinking-party (vol. ii. 25), the Caliph's frolic (vol. ii. 31-37) and the happy end of the hero's misfortunes (vol. ii. 44) Its brightness is tempered by the gloomy tone of the tale which succeeds, and which has variants in the Bagh o Bahar, a Hindustani versionof the Persian "Tale of the Four Darwayshes;" and in the Turkish Kirk Vezir or "Book of the Forty Vezirs." Its dismal pйripйties are relieved only by the witty indecency of Eunuch Bukhayt and the admirable humour of Eunuch Kafur, whose "half lie" is known throughout the East. Here also the lover's agonies are piled upon him for the purpose of unpiling at last: the Oriental tale-teller knows by experience that, as a rule, doleful endings "don't pay."
The next is the long romance of chivalry, "King Omar bin al-Nu'man" etc., which occupies an eighth of the whole repertory and the best part of two volumes. Mr. Lane omits it because "obscene and tedious," showing the license with which he translated; and he was set right by a learned reviewer, [FN#285] who truly declared that "the omission of half-a-dozen passages out of four hundred pages would fit it for printing in any language [FN#286] and the charge of tediousness could hardly have been applied more unhappily." The tale is interesting as a picture of mediжval Arab chivalry and has many other notable points; for instance, the lines (iii. 86) beginning "Allah holds the kingship!" are a lesson to the manichжanism of Christian Europe. It relates the doings of three royal generations and has all the characteristics of Eastern art: it is a phantasmagoria of Holy Places, palaces and Harems; convents, castles and caverns, here restful with gentle landscapes (ii. 240) and there bristling with furious battle-pictures (ii. 117, 221-8, 249) and tales of princely prowess and knightly derring-do. The characters stand out well. King Nu'man is an old lecher who deserves his death; the ancient Dame Zбt al-Dawбhi merits her title Lady of Calamities (to her foes); Princess Abrizah appears as a charming Amazon, doomed to a miserable and pathetic end; Zau al-Makбn is a wise and pious royalty; Nuzhat al-Zamбn, though a longsome talker, is a model sister; the Wazir Dandбn, a sage and sagacious counsellor, contrasts with the Chamberlain, an ambitious miscreant; Kбnmakбn is the typical Arab knight, gentle and brave:--
Now managing the mouthes of stubborne steedes
Now practising the proof of warlike deedes;
And the kind-hearted, simple-minded Stoker serves as a foil to the villains, the kidnapping Badawi and Ghazbбn the detestable negro. The fortunes of the family are interrupted by two episodes, both equally remarkable. Taj al-Mulъk [FN#287] is the model lover whom no difficulties or dangers can daunt. In Azнz and Azнzah (ii. 291) we have the beau ideal of a loving woman: the writer's object was to represent a "softy" who had the luck to win the love of a beautiful and clever cousin and the mad folly to break her heart. The poetical justice which he receives at the hands of women of quite another stamp leaves nothing to be desired. Finally the plot of "King Omar" is well worked out; and the gathering of all the actors upon the stage before the curtain drops may be improbable but it is highly artistic.
The long Crusading Romance is relieved by a sequence of sixteen fabliaux, partly historiettes of men and beasts and partly apologues proper--a subject already noticed. We have then (iii. 162) the saddening and dreary love-tale of Ali bin Bakkбr, a Persian youth and the Caliph's concubine Shams al-Nahбr. Here the end is made doleful enough by the deaths of the "two martyrs," who are killed off, like Romeo and Juliet, [FN#288] a lesson that the course of true Love is sometimes troubled and that men as well as women can die of the so-called "tender passion." It is followed (iii. 212) by the long tale of Kamar al-Zamбn, or Moon of the Age, the first of that name, the "Camaralzaman" whom Galland introduced into the best European society. Like "The Ebony Horse" it seems to have been derived from a common source with "Peter of Provence" and "Cleomades and Claremond"; and we can hardly wonder at its wide diffusion: the tale is brimful of life, change, movement, containing as much character and incident as would fill a modern three-volumer and the Supernatural pleasantly jostles the Natural; Dahnash the Jinn and Maymъnah daughter of Al-Dimiryбt, [FN#289] a renowned King of the Jann, being as human in their jealousy about the virtue of their lovers as any children of Adam, and so their metamorphosis to fleas has all the effect of a surprise. The troupe is again drawn with a broad firm touch. Prince Charming, the hero, is weak and wilful, shifty and immoral, hasty and violent: his two spouses are rivals in abominations as his sons, Amjad and As'ad, are examples of a fraternal affection rarely found in half-brothers by sister-wives. There is at least one fine melodramatic situation (iii. 228); and marvellous feats of indecency, a practical joke which would occur only to the canopic mind (iii. 300-305), emphasise the recovery of her husband by that remarkable "blackguard," the Lady Budъr. The interpolated tale of Ni'amah and Naomi (iv. I), a simple and pleasing narrative of youthful amours, contrasts well with the boiling passions of the incestuous and murderous Queens and serves as a pause before the grand denouement when the parted meet, the lost are found, the unwedded are wedded and all ends merrily as a xixth century novel.
The long tale of Alб al-Din, our old friend "Aladdin," is wholly out of place in its present position (iv. 29): it is a counterpart of Ali Nжr al-Din and Miriam the Girdle-girl (vol. ix. i); and the mention of the Shahbandar or Harbour-master (iv. 29), the Kunsul or Consul (p. 84), the Kaptan (Capitano), the use of cannon at sea and the choice of Genoa city (p. 85) prove that it belongs to the xvth or xvith century and should accompanyKamar al-Zamаn II. and Ma'aruf at the
end of The Nights. Despite the lutist Zubaydah being carried off by the Jinn, the Magic Couch, a modification of Solomon's carpet, and the murder of the King who refused to islamize, it is evidently a European tale and I believe with Dr. Bacher that it is founded upon the legend of "Charlemagne's" daughter Emma and his secretary Eginhardt, as has been noted in the counterpart (vol. ix. 1).
This quasi-historical fiction is followed hy a succession of fabliaux, novelle and historiettes which fill the rest of the vol. iv. and the whole of vol. v. till we reach the terminal story, The Queen of the Serpents (vol. v. pp. 304-329). It appears to me that most of them are historical and could easily be traced. Not a few are in Al-Mas'udi; for instance the grim Tale of Hatim of Tayy (vol. iv. 94) is given bodily in "Meads of Gold" (iii. 327); and the two adventures of Ibrahim al-Mahdi with the barber-surgeon (vol. iv. 103) and the Merchant's sister (vol. iv. 176) are in his pages (vol. vii. 68 and 18). The City of Lubtayt (vol. iv. 99) embodies the legend of Don Rodrigo, last of the Goths, and may have reached the ears of Washington Irving; Many-columned Iram (vol. iv. 113) is held by all Moslems to be factual and sundry writers have recorded the tricks played by Al-Maamun with the Pyramids of Jizah which still show his handiwork. [FN#290] The germ of Isaac of Mosul (vol. iv. 119) is found in Al-Mas'udi who (vii. 65) names "Burбn" the poetess (Ibn Khall. i. 268); and Harun al-Rashid and the Slave-girl (vol. iv. 153) is told by a host of writers. Ali the Persian is a rollicking tale of fun from some Iranian jest-book: Abu Mohammed hight Lazybones belongs to the cycle of "Sindbad the Seaman," with a touch of Whittington and his Cat; and Zumurrud ("Smaragdine") in Ali Shar (vol. iv. 187) shows at her sale the impudence of Miriam the Girdle-girl and in bed the fescennine device of the Lady Budur. The "Ruined Man who became Rich," etc. (vol. iv. 289) is historical and Al-Mas'udi (vii. 281) relates the coquetry of Mahbъbah the concubine (vol. iv. 291): the historian also quotes four couplets, two identical with Nos. 1 and 2 in The Nights (vol. iv. 292) and adding:--
Then see the slave who lords it o'er her lord * In lover privacy and public site:
Behold these eyes that one like Ja'afar saw: * Allah on Ja'afar reign boons infinite!
Uns al-Wujъd (vol. v. 32) is a love-tale which has been translated into a host of Eastern languages; and The Lovers of the Banu Ozrah belong to Al-Mas'udi's "Martyrs of Love" (vii. 355), with the ozrite "Ozrite love" of Ibn Khallikan (iv. 537). "Harun and the Three Poets" (vol. v. 77) has given to Cairo a proverb which Burckhardt (No. 561) renders "The day obliterates the word or promise of the Night," for
The promise of night is effaced by day.
It suggests Congreve's Doris:--
For who o'er night obtain'd her grace,
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