Part 17
The _tekyas_, or theaters for the drama which calls forth these celebrations, are constantly multiplying. The king, the great functionaries, the towns, wealthy citizens like the king’s goldsmith, or any private person who has the means and the desire, provide them. Every one sends contributions; it is a religious act to furnish a box or to give decorations for a _tekya_; and as religious offerings, all gifts down to the smallest are accepted. There are tekyas for not more than three or four hundred spectators, and there are tekyas for three or four thousand. At Ispahan there are representations which bring together more than twenty thousand people. At Teheran, the Persian capital, each quarter of the town has its tekyas, every square and open place is turned to account for establishing them, and spaces have been expressly cleared, besides, for fresh tekyas. Count Gobineau describes particularly one of these theaters,—a tekya of the best class, to hold an audience of about four thousand,—at Teheran. The arrangements are very simple. The tekya is a walled parallelogram, with a brick platform, _sakou_, in the center of it; this sakou is surrounded with black poles at some distance from each other, the poles are joined at the top by horizontal rods of the same color, and from these rods hang colored lamps, which are lighted for the praying and preaching at night when the representation is over. The _sakou_, or central platform, makes the stage; in connection with it, at one of the opposite extremities of the parallelogram lengthwise, is a reserved box, _tâgnumâ_, higher than the _sakou_. This box is splendidly decorated, and is used for peculiarly interesting and magnificent tableaux,—the court of the Caliph, for example—which occur in the course of the piece. A passage of a few feet wide is left free between the stage and this box; all the rest of the space is for the spectators, of whom the foremost rows are sitting on their heels close up to this passage, so that they help the actors to mount and descend the high steps of the _tâgnumâ_ when they have to pass between that and the _sakou_. On each side of the _tâgnumâ_ are boxes, and along one wall of the enclosure are other boxes with fronts of elaborate woodwork, which are left to stand as a permanent part of the construction; facing these, with the floor and stage between, rise tiers of seats as in an amphitheater. All places are free; the great people have generally provided and furnished the boxes, and take care to fill them; but if a box is not occupied when the performance begins, any ragged street-urchin or beggar may walk in and seat himself there. A row of gigantic masts runs across the middle of the space, one or two of them being fixed in the _sakou_ itself; and from these masts is stretched an immense awning which protects the whole audience. Up to a certain height these masts are hung with tiger and panther skins, to indicate the violent character of the scenes to be represented. Shields of steel and of hippopotamus skin, flags, and naked swords, are also attached to these masts. A sea of color and splendor meets the eye all round. Woodwork and brickwork disappear under cushions, rich carpets, silk hangings, India muslin embroidered with silver and gold, shawls from Kerman and from Cashmere. There are lamps, lusters of colored crystal, mirrors, Bohemian and Venetian glass, porcelain vases of all degrees of magnitude from China and from Europe, paintings and engravings, displayed in profusion everywhere. The taste may not always be soberly correct, but the whole spectacle has just the effect of prodigality, color, and sumptuousness which we are accustomed to associate with the splendors of the Arabian Nights.
In marked contrast with this display is the poverty of scenic contrivance and stage illusion. The subject is far too interesting and too solemn to need them. The actors are visible on all sides, and the exits, entrances, and stage-play of our theaters are impossible; the imagination of the spectator fills up all gaps and meets all requirements. On the Ammergau arrangements one feels that the archæologists and artists of Munich have laid their correct finger; at Teheran there has been no schooling of this sort. A copper basin of water represents the Euphrates; a heap of chopped straw in a corner is the sand of the desert of Kerbela, and the actor goes and takes up a handful of it, when his part requires him to throw, in Oriental fashion, dust upon his head. There is no attempt at proper costume; all that is sought is to do honor to the personages of chief interest by dresses and jewels which would pass for rich and handsome things to wear in modern Persian life. The power of the actors is in their genuine sense of the seriousness of the business they are engaged in. They are, like the public around them, penetrated with this, and so the actor throws his whole soul into what he is about, the public meets the actor halfway, and effects of extraordinary impressiveness are the result. “The actor is under a charm,” says Count Gobineau; “he is under it so strongly and completely that almost always one sees Yezid himself (the usurping caliph), the wretched Ibn-Said (Yezid’s general), the infamous Shemer (Ibn-Said’s lieutenant), at the moment they vent the cruellest insults against the Imams whom they are going to massacre, or against the women of the Imam’s family whom they are ill-using, burst into tears and repeat their part with sobs. The public is neither surprised nor displeased at this; on the contrary, it beats its breast at the sight, throws up its arms towards heaven with invocations of God, and redoubles its groans. So it often happens that the actor identifies himself with the personage he represents to such a degree that, when the situation carries him away, he cannot be said to act, he _is_ with such truth, such complete enthusiasm, such utter self-forgetfulness, what he represents, that he reaches a reality at one time sublime, at another terrible, and produces impressions on his audience which it would be simply absurd to look for from our more artificial performances. There is nothing stilted, nothing false, nothing conventional; nature, and the facts represented, themselves speak.”
The actors are men and boys, the parts of angels and women being filled by boys. The children who appear in the piece are often the children of the principal families of Teheran; their appearance in this religious solemnity (for such it is thought) being supposed to bring a blessing upon them and their parents. “Nothing is more touching,” says Count Gobineau, “than to see these little things of three or four years old, dressed in black gauze frocks with large sleeves, and having on their heads small round black caps embroidered with silver and gold, kneeling beside the body of the actor who represents the martyr of the day, embracing him, and with their little hands covering themselves with chopped straw for sand in sign of grief. These children evidently,” he continues, “do not consider themselves to be acting; they are full of the feeling that what they are about is something of deep seriousness and importance; and though they are too young to comprehend fully the story, they know, in general, that it is a matter sad and solemn. They are not distracted by the audience, and they are not shy, but go through their prescribed part with the utmost attention and seriousness, always crossing their arms respectfully to receive the blessing of the Imam Hussein; the public beholds them with emotions of the liveliest satisfaction and sympathy.”
The dramatic pieces themselves are without any author’s name. They are in popular language, such as the commonest and most ignorant of the Persian people can understand, free from learned Arabic words,—free, comparatively speaking, from Oriental fantasticality and hyperbole. The Seyids, or popular friars, already spoken of, have probably had a hand in the composition of many of them. The Moollahs, or regular ecclesiastical authorities, condemn the whole thing. It is an innovation which they disapprove and think dangerous; it is addressed to the eye, and their religion forbids to represent religious things to the eye; it departs from the limits of what is revealed and appointed to be taught as the truth, and brings in novelties and heresies;—for these dramas keep growing under the pressure of the actor’s imagination and emotion, and of the imagination and emotion of the public, and receive new developments every day. The learned, again, say that these pieces are a heap of lies, the production of ignorant people, and have no words strong enough to express their contempt for them. Still, so irresistible is the vogue of these sacred dramas that, from the king on the throne to the beggar in the street, every one, except perhaps the Moollahs, attends them, and is carried away by them. The Imams and their families speak always in a kind of lyrical chant, said to have rhythmical effects, often of great pathos and beauty; their persecutors, the villains of the piece, speak always in prose.
The stage is under the direction of a choragus, called _oostad_, or “master,” who is a sacred personage by reason of the functions which he performs. Sometimes he addresses to the audience a commentary on what is passing before them, and asks their compassion and tears for the martyrs; sometimes in default of a Seyid, he prays and preaches. He is always listened to with veneration, for it is he who arranges the whole sacred spectacle which so deeply moves everybody. With no attempt at concealment, with the book of the piece in his hand, he remains constantly on the stage, gives the actors their cue, puts the children and any inexperienced actor in their right places, dresses the martyr in his winding-sheet when he is going to his death, holds the stirrup for him to mount his horse, and inserts a supply of chopped straw into the hands of those who are about to want it. Let us now see him at work.
The theater is filled, and the heat is great; young men of rank, the king’s pages, officers of the army, smart functionaries of State, move through the crowd with water-skins slung on their backs, dealing out water all round, in memory of the thirst which on these solemn days the Imams suffered in the sands of Kerbela. Wild chants and litanies, such as we have already described, are from time to time set up, by a dervish, a soldier, a workman in the crowd. These chants are taken up, more or less, by the audience: sometimes they flag and die away for want of support, sometimes they are continued till they reach a paroxysm, and then abruptly stop. Presently a strange, insignificant figure in a green cotton garment, looking like a petty tradesman of one of the Teheran bazaars, mounts upon the _sakou_. He beckons with his hand to the audience, who are silent directly, and addresses them in a tone of lecture and expostulation, thus:—
“Well, you seem happy enough, Mussulmans, sitting there at your ease under the awning; and you imagine Paradise already wide open to you. Do you know what Paradise is? It is a garden, doubtless, but such a garden as you have no idea of. You will say to me: ‘Friend, tell us what it is like.’ I have never been there, certainly; but plenty of prophets have described it, and angels have brought news of it. However, all I will tell you is, that there is room for all good people there, for it is 330,000 cubits long. If you do not believe, inquire. As for getting to be one of the good people, let me tell you it is not enough to read the Koran of the Prophet (the salvation and blessing of God be upon him!); it is not enough to do everything which this divine book enjoins; it is not enough to come and weep at the _tazyas_, as you do every day, you sons of dogs you, who know nothing which is of any use; it behoves, besides, that your good works (if you ever do any, which I greatly doubt) should be done in the name and for the love of Hussein. It is Hussein, Mussulmans, who is the door to Paradise; it is Hussein, Mussulmans, who upholds the world; it is Hussein, Mussulmans, by whom comes salvation! Cry, Hassan, Hussein!”
And all the multitude cry: “O Hassan! O Hussein!”
“That is well; and now cry again.” And again all cry: “O Hassan! O Hussein!” “And now,” the strange speaker goes on, “pray to God to keep you continually in the love of Hussein. Come, make your cry to God.” Then the multitude, as one man, throw up their arms into the air, and with a deep and long-drawn cry exclaim: “_Ya Allah!_ O God!”
Fifes, drums, and trumpets break out; the _kernas_, great copper trumpets five or six feet long, give notice that the actors are ready and that the _tazya_ is to commence. The preacher descends from the _sakou_, and the actors occupy it.
To give a clear notion of the cycle which these dramas fill, we should begin, as on the first day of the Moharrem the actors begin, with some piece relating to the childhood of the Imams, such as, for instance, the piece called _The Children Digging_. Ali and Fatima are living at Medina with their little sons Hassan and Hussein. The simple home and occupations of the pious family are exhibited; it is morning, Fatima is seated with the little Hussein on her lap, dressing him. She combs his hair, talking caressingly to him all the while. A hair comes out with the comb; the child starts. Fatima is in distress at having given the child even this momentary uneasiness, and stops to gaze upon him tenderly. She falls into an anxious reverie, thinking of her fondness for the child, and of the unknown future in store for him. While she muses, the angel Gabriel stands before her. He reproves her weakness: “A hair falls from the child’s head,” he says, “and you weep; what would you do if you knew the destiny that awaits him, the countless wounds with which that body shall one day be pierced, the agony that shall rend your own soul!” Fatima, in despair, is comforted by her husband Ali, and they go together into the town to hear Mahomet preach. The boys and some of their little friends begin to play; every one makes a great deal of Hussein; he is at once the most spirited and the most amiable child of them all. The party amuse themselves with digging, with making holes in the ground and building mounds. Ali returns from the sermon and asks what they are about; and Hussein is made to reply in ambiguous and prophetic answers, which convey that by these holes and mounds in the earth are prefigured interments and tombs. Ali departs again; there rush in a number of big and fierce boys, and begin to pelt the little Imams with stones. A companion shields Hussein with his own body, but he is struck down with a stone, and with another stone Hussein, too, is stretched on the ground senseless. Who are those boy-tyrants and persecutors? They are Ibn-Said, and Shemer, and others, the future murderers at Kerbela. The audience perceive it with a shudder; the hateful assailants go off in triumph; Ali re-enters, picks up the stunned and wounded children, brings them round, and takes Hussein back to his mother Fatima.
But let us now come at once to the days of martyrdom and to Kerbela. One of the most famous pieces of the cycle is a piece called the _Marriage of Kassem_, which brings us into the very middle of these crowning days. Count Gobineau has given a translation of it, and from this translation we will take a few extracts. Kassem is the son of Hussein’s elder brother, the Imam Hassan, who had been poisoned by Yezid’s instigation at Medina. Kassem and his mother are with the Imam Hussein at Kerbela; there, too, are the women and children of the holy family, Omm-Leyla, Hussein’s wife, the Persian princess, the last child of Yezdejerd the last of the Sassanides; Zeyneb, Hussein’s sister, the offspring, like himself, of Ali and Fatima, and the granddaughter of Mahomet; his nephew Abdallah, still a little child; finally, his beautiful daughter Zobeyda. When the piece begins, the Imam’s camp in the desert has already been cut off from the Euphrates and besieged several days by the Syrian troops under Ibn-Said and Shemer, and by the treacherous men of Kufa. The Family of the Tent were suffering torments of thirst. One of the children had brought an empty water-bottle, and thrown it, a silent token of distress, before the feet of Abbas, the uncle of Hussein; Abbas had sallied out to cut his way to the river, and had been slain. Afterwards Ali-Akber, Hussein’s eldest son, had made the same attempt and met with the same fate. Two younger brothers of Ali-Akber followed his example, and were likewise slain. The Imam Hussein had rushed amidst the enemy, beaten them from the body of Ali-Akber, and brought the body back to his tent; but the river was still inaccessible. At this point the action of the _Marriage of Kassem_ begins. Kassem, a youth of sixteen, is burning to go out and avenge his cousin. At one end of the _sakou_ is the Imam Hussein seated on his throne; in the middle are grouped all the members of his family; at the other end lies the body of Ali-Akber, with his mother Omm-Leyla, clothed and veiled in black, bending over it. The _kernas_ sound, and Kassem, after a solemn appeal from Hussein and his sister Zeyneb to God and to the founders of their house to look upon their great distress, rises and speaks to himself:
_Kassem._—“Separate thyself from the women of the harem, Kassem. Consider within thyself for a little; here thou sittest, and presently thou wilt see the body of Hussein, that body like a flower, torn by arrows and lances like thorns, Kassem.
“Thou sawest Ali-Akber’s head severed from his body on the field of battle, and yet thou livedst!
“Arise, obey that which is written of thee by thy father; to be slain, that is thy lot, Kassem!
“Go, get leave from the son of Fatima, most honorable among women, and submit thyself to thy fate, Kassem.”
Hussein sees him approach. “Alas,” he says, “it is the orphan nightingale of the garden of Hassan, my brother!” Then Kassem speaks:
_Kassem._—“O God, what shall I do beneath this load of affliction? My eyes are wet with tears, my lips are dried up with thirst. To live is worse than to die. What shall I do, seeing what hath befallen Ali-Akber? If Hussein suffereth me not to go forth, oh misery! For then what shall I do, O God, in the day of the resurrection, when I see my father Hassan? When I see my mother in the day of the resurrection, what shall I do, O God, in my sorrow and shame before her? All my kinsmen are gone to appear before the Prophet: shall not I also one day stand before the Prophet; and what shall I do, O God, in that day?”
Then he addresses the Imam:—
“Hail, threshold of the honor and majesty on high, threshold of heaven, threshold of God! In the roll of martyrs thou art the chief; in the book of creation thy story will live for ever. An orphan, a fatherless child, downcast and weeping, comes to prefer a request to thee.”
Hussein bids him tell it, and he answers:—
“O light of the eyes of Mahomet the mighty, O lieutenant of Ali the lion! Abbas has perished, Ali-Akber has suffered martyrdom. O my uncle, thou hast no warriors left, and no standard-bearer! The roses are gone and gone are their buds; the jessamine is gone, the poppies are gone. I alone, I am still left in the garden of the Faith, a thorn, and miserable. If thou hast any kindness for the orphan, suffer me to go forth and fight.”
Hussein refuses. “My child,” he says, “thou wast the light of the eyes of the Imam Hassan, thou art my beloved remembrance of him; ask me not this; urge me not, entreat me not; to have lost Ali-Akber is enough.”
Kassem answers:—“That Kassem should live and Ali-Akber be marytred—sooner let the earth cover me! O king, be generous to the beggar at thy gate. See how my eyes run over with tears and my lips are dried up with thirst. Cast thine eyes toward the waters of the heavenly Euphrates! I die of thirst; grant me, O thou marked of God, a full pitcher of the water of life! it flows in the Paradise which awaits me.”
Hussein still refuses; Kassem breaks forth in complaints and lamentations, his mother comes to him and learns the reason. She then says:—
“Complain not against the Imam, light of my eyes; only by his order can the commission of martyrdom be given. In that commission are sealed two-and-seventy witnesses, all righteous, and among the two-and-seventy is thy name. Know that thy destiny of death is commanded in the writing which thou wearest on thine arm.”
This writing is the testament of his father Hassan. He bears it in triumph to the Imam Hussein, who finds written there that he should, on the death-plain of Kerbela, suffer Kassem to have his will, but that he should marry him first to his daughter Zobeyda. Kassem consents, though in astonishment. “Consider,” he says, “there lies Ali-Akber, mangled by the enemies’ hands! Under this sky of ebon blackness, how can joy show her face? Nevertheless if thou commandest it, what have I to do but obey? Thy commandment is that of the Prophet, and his voice is that of God.” But Hussein has also to overcome the reluctance of the intended bride and of all the women of his family.
“Heir of the vicar of God,” says Kassem’s mother to the Imam, “bid me die, but speak not to me of a bridal. If Zobeyda is to be a bride and Kassem a bridegroom, where is the henna to tinge their hands, where is the bridal chamber?” “Mother of Kassem,” answers the Imam solemnly, “yet a few moments, and in this field of anguish the tomb shall be for marriage-bed, and the winding-sheet for bridal garment!” All give way to the will of their sacred Head. The women and children surround Kassem, sprinkle him with rose-water, hang bracelets and necklaces on him, and scatter bon-bons around; and then the marriage procession is formed. Suddenly drums and trumpets are heard, and the Syrian troops appear. Ibn-Said and Shemer are at their head. “The Prince of the Faith celebrates a marriage in the desert,” they exclaim tauntingly; “we will soon change his festivity into mourning.” They pass by, and Kassem takes leave of his bride. “God keep thee, my bride,” he says, embracing her, “for I must forsake thee!” “One moment,” she says, “remain in thy place one moment! thy countenance is as the lamp which giveth us light; suffer me to turn around thee as the butterfly turneth, gently, gently!” And making a turn around him, she performs the ancient Eastern rites of respect from a new-married wife to her husband. Troubled, he rises to go: “The reins of my will are slipping away from me!” he murmurs. She lays hold of his robe: “Take off thy hand,” he cries, “we belong not to ourselves!”
Then he asks the Imam to array him in his winding-sheet. “O nightingale of the divine orchard of martyrdom,” says Hussein, as he complies with his wish, “I clothe thee with thy winding-sheet, I kiss thy face; there is no fear, and no hope, but of God!” Kassem commits his little brother Abdallah to the Imam’s care. Omm-Leyla looks up from her son’s corpse, and says to Kassem: “When thou enterest the garden of Paradise, kiss for me the head of Ali-Akber!”
The Syrian troops again appear. Kassem rushes upon them and they all go off fighting. The Family of the Tent, at Hussein’s command, put the Koran on their heads and pray, covering themselves with sand. Kassem reappears victorious. He has slain Azrek, a chief captain of the Syrians, but his thirst is intolerable. “Uncle,” he says to the Imam, who asks him what reward he wishes for his valor, “my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth; the reward I wish is _water_.” “Thou coverest me with shame, Kassem,” his uncle answers; “what can I do? Thou askest water; there is no water!”
_Kassem._—“If I might but wet my mouth, I could presently make an end of the men of Kufa.”
_Hussein._—“As I live, I have not one drop of water!”