Chapter 6

The laziness of domestics is a common complaint in this country at the present day, but surely never was there a more lazy servant than the fellow whose exploits are thus recorded: A Persian husbandman one night desired his servant to shut the door, and the man said it was already shut. In the morning his master bade him open the door, and he coolly replied that, foreseeing this request, he had left it open the preceding night. Another night his master bade him rise and see whether it rained. But he called for the dog that lay at the door, and finding his paws dry, answered that the night was fair; then being desired to see whether the fire was extinguished, he called the cat, and finding her paws cold, replied in the affirmative.--This story had gained currency in Europe in the 13th century, and it forms one of the mediæval _Latin Stories_ edited, for the Percy Society, by Thos. Wright, where it is entitled, "De Maimundo Armigero." There is another Persian story of a lazy fellow whose master, being sick, said to him: "Go and get me some medicine." "But," rejoined he, "it may happen that the doctor is not at home." "You will find him at home." "But if I do find him at home he may not give me the medicine," quoth the servant. "Then take this note to him and he will give it to you." "Well," persisted the fellow, "he may give me the medicine, but suppose it does you no good?" "Villain!" exclaimed his master, out of all patience, "will you do as I bid you, instead of sitting there so coolly, raising difficulties?" "Good sir," reasoned this lazy philosopher, "admitting that the medicine should produce some effect, what will be the ultimate result? We must all die some time, and what does it matter whether it be to-day or to-morrow?"

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The Chinese seem not a whit behind other peoples in appreciating a good jest, as has been shown by the tales and _bon mots_ rendered into French by Stanislas Julien and other eminent _savans_. Here are three specimens of Chinese humour:

A wealthy man lived between the houses of two blacksmiths, and was constantly annoyed by the noise of their hammers, so that he could not get rest, night or day. First he asked them to strike more gently; then he made them great promises if they would remove at once. The two blacksmiths consented, and he, overjoyed to get rid of them, prepared a grand banquet for their entertainment. When the banquet was over, he asked them where they were going to take up their new abodes, and they replied--to the intense dismay of their worthy host, no doubt: "He who lives on the left of your house is going to that on the right; and he who lives on your right is going to the house on your left."

There is a keen satirical hit at the venality of Chinese judges in our next story. A husbandman, who wished to rear a particular kind of vegetable, found that the plants always died. He consulted an experienced gardener as to the best means of preventing the death of plants. The old man replied: "The affair is very simple; with every plant put down a piece of money." His friend asked what effect money could possibly have in a matter of this kind. "It is the case now-a-days," said the old man, "that where there is money _life_ is safe, but where there is none death is the consequence."

The tale of Apelles and the shoemaker is familiar to every schoolboy, but the following story of the Chinese painter and his critics will be new to most readers: A gentleman having got his portrait painted, the artist suggested that he should consult the passers-by as to whether it was a good likeness. Accordingly he asked the first that was going past: "Is this portrait like me?" The man said: "The _cap_ is very like." When the next was asked, he said: "The _dress_ is very like." He was about to ask a third, when the painter stopped him, saying: "The cap and the dress do not matter much; ask the person what he thinks of the face." The third man hesitated a long time, and then said: "The _beard_ is very like."

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And now we shall revert once more to Persian jests, many of which are, however, also current in India, through the medium of the Persian language. When a man becomes suddenly rich it not unfrequently follows that he becomes as suddenly oblivious of his old friends. Thus, a Persian having obtained a lucrative appointment at court, a friend of his came shortly afterwards to congratulate him thereon. The new courtier asked him: "Who are you? And why do you come here?" The other coolly replied: "Do you not know me, then? I am your old friend, and am come to condole with you, having heard that you had lately lost your sight."--This recalls the clever epigram:

When Jack was poor, the lad was frank and free; Of late he's grown brimful of pride and pelf; You wonder that he don't remember me? Why, don't you see, Jack has forgot himself!

The humour of the following is--to me, at least--simply exquisite: A man went to a professional scribe and asked him to write a letter for him. The scribe said that he had a pain in his foot. "A pain in your foot!" echoed the man. "I don't want to send you to any place that you should make such an excuse." "Very true," said the scribe; "but, whenever I write a letter for any one, I am always sent for to read it, because no one else can make it out."--And this is a very fair specimen of ready wit: During a season of great drought in Persia, a schoolmaster at the head of his pupils marched out of Shíráz to pray (at the tomb of some saint in the suburbs) for rain, when they were met by a waggish fellow, who inquired where they were going. The preceptor informed him, and added that, no doubt, Allah would listen to the prayers of innocent children. "Friend," quoth the wit, "if that were the case, I fear there would not be a schoolmaster left alive."

The "harmless, necessary cat" has often to bear the blame of depredations in which she had no share--especially the "lodging-house cat"; and, that such is the fact in Persia as well as nearer our own doors, let a story related by the celebrated poet Jámí serve as evidence: A husband gave a _mán_ of meat to his wife, bidding her cook it for his dinner. The woman roasted it and ate it all herself, and when her husband asked for the meat she said the cat had stolen it. The husband weighed the cat forthwith, and found that she had not increased in weight by eating so much meat; so, with a hundred perplexing thoughts, he struck his hand on his knee, and, upbraiding his wife, said: "O lady, doubtless the cat, like the meat, weighed one _mán_; the meat would add another _mán_ thereto. This point is not clear to me--that two _máns_ should become one _mán_. If this is the cat, where is the meat? And if this is the meat, why has it the form of the cat?"

Readers of our early English jest-books will perhaps remember the story of a court-jester being facetiously ordered by the king to make out a list of all the fools in his dominions, who replied that it would be a much easier task to write down a list of all the wise men. I fancy there is some trace of this incident in the following Persian story, though the details are wholly different: Once upon a time a party of merchants exhibited to a king some fine horses, which pleased him so well that he bought them, and gave the merchants besides a large sum of money to pay for more horses which they were to bring from their own country. Some time after this the king, being merry with wine, said to his chief vazír: "Make me out a list of all the blockheads in my kingdom." The vazír replied that he had already made out such a list, and had put his Majesty's name at the top. "Why so?" demanded the king. "Because," said the vazír, "you gave a great sum of money for horses to be brought by merchants for whom no person is surety, nor does any one know to what country they belong; and this is surely a sign of stupidity." "But what if they should bring the horses?" The vazír readily replied: "If they should bring the horses, I should then erase your Majesty's name and put the names of the merchants in its place."[30]

[30] 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.

Everybody knows the story of the silly old woman who went to market with a cow and a hen for sale, and asked only five shillings for the cow, but ten pounds for the hen. But no such fool was the Arab who lost his camel, and, after a long and fruitless search, anathematised the errant quadruped and her father and her mother, and swore by the Prophet that, should he find her, he would sell her for a dirham (sixpence). At length his search was successful, and he at once regretted his oath; but such an oath must not be violated, so he tied a cat round the camel's neck, and went about proclaiming: "I will sell this camel for a dirham, and this cat for a hundred dínars (fifty pounds); but I will not sell one without the other." A man who passed by and heard this exclaimed: "What a very desirable bargain that camel would be if she had not such a _collar_ round her neck!"[31]

[31] 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.

For readiness of wit the Arabs would seem to compare very favourably with any race, European or Asiatic, and many examples of their felicitous repartees are furnished by native historians and grammarians. One of the best is: When a khalíf was addressing the people in a mosque on his accession to the khalífate, and told them, among other things in his own praise, that the plague which had so long raged in Baghdád had ceased immediately he became khalíf; an old fellow present shouted: "Of a truth, Allah was too merciful to give us both _thee_ and the plague at the same time."

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The story of the Unlucky Slippers in Cardonne's _Mélanges de Littérature Orientale_ is a very good specimen of Arabian humour:[32]

[32] 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.

In former times there lived in the famous city of Baghdád a miserly old merchant named Abú Kasim. Although very rich, his clothes were mere rags; his turban was of coarse cloth, and exceedingly dirty; but his slippers were perfect curiosities--the soles were studded with great nails, while the upper leathers consisted of as many different pieces as the celebrated ship Argos. He had worn them during ten years, and the art of the ablest cobblers in Baghdád had been exhausted in preventing a total separation of the parts; in short, by frequent accessions of nails and patches they had become so heavy that they passed into a proverb, and anything ponderous was compared to Abú Kasim's slippers. Walking one day in the great bazaar, the purchase of a large quantity of crystal was offered to this merchant, and, thinking it a bargain, he bought it. Not long after this, hearing that a bankrupt perfumer had nothing left to sell but some rose-water, he took advantage of the poor man's misfortune, and purchased it for half the value. These lucky speculations had put him into good humour, but instead of giving an entertainment, according to the custom of merchants when they have made a profitable bargain, Abú Kasim deemed it more expedient to go to the bath, which he had not frequented for some time. As he was undressing, one of his acquaintances told him that his slippers made him the laughing-stock of the whole city, and that he ought to provide himself with a new pair. "I have been thinking about it," he answered; "however, they are not so very much worn but they will serve some time longer." While he was washing himself, the kází of Baghdád came also to bathe. Abú Kasim, coming out before the judge, took up his clothes but could not find his slippers--a new pair being placed in their room. Our miser, persuaded, because he wished it, that the friend who had spoken to him about his old slippers had made him a present, without hesitation put on these fine ones, and left the bath highly delighted. But when the kází had finished bathing, his servants searched in vain for his slippers; none could be found but a wretched pair, which were at once identified as those of Abú Kasim. The officers hastened after the supposed thief, and, bringing him back with the theft on his feet, the kází, after exchanging slippers, committed him to prison. There was no escaping from the claws of justice without money, and, as Abú Kasim was known to be very rich, he was fined in a considerable sum.

On returning home, our merchant, in a fit of indignation, flung his slippers into the Tigris, that ran beneath his window. Some days after they were dragged out in a fisherman's net that came up more heavy than usual. The nails with which the soles were thickly studded had torn the meshes of the net, and the fisherman, exasperated against the miserly Abú Kasim and his slippers--for they were known to everyone--determined to throw them into his house through the window he had left open. The slippers, thrown with great force, reached the jars of rose-water, and smashed them in pieces, to the intense consternation of the owner. "Cursed slippers!" cried he, tearing his beard, "you shall cause me no farther mischief!" So saying, he took a spade and began to dig a hole in his garden to bury them. One of his neighbours, who had long borne him ill-will, perceiving him busied in digging the ground, ran at once to inform the governor that Abú Kasim had discovered some hidden treasure in his garden. Nothing more was needful to rouse the cupidity of the commandant. In vain did our miser protest that he had found no treasure; and that he only meant to bury his old slippers. The governor had counted on the money, so the afflicted man could only preserve his liberty at the expense of a large sum of money. Again heartily cursing the slippers, in order to effectually rid himself of them, he threw them into an aqueduct at some distance from the city, persuaded that he should now hear no more of them. But his evil genius had not yet sufficiently plagued him: the slippers got into the mouth of the pipe and stopped the flow of the water. The keepers of the aqueduct made haste to repair the damage, and, finding the obstruction was caused by Abú Kasim's slippers, complained of this to the governor, and once more was Abú Kasim heavily fined, but the governor considerately returned him the slippers. He now resolved to burn them, but, finding them thoroughly soaked with water, he exposed them to the sun upon the terrace of his house. A neighbour's dog, perceiving the slippers, leaped from the terrace of his master's house upon that of Abú Kasim, and, seizing one of them in his mouth, he let it drop into the street: the fatal slipper fell directly on the head of a woman who was passing at the time, and the fright as well as the violence of the blow caused her to miscarry. Her husband brought his complaint before the kází, and Abú Kasim was again sentenced to pay a fine proportioned to the calamity he was supposed to have occasioned. He then took the slippers in his hand, and, with a vehemence that made the judge laugh, said: "Behold, my lord, the fatal instruments of my misfortune! These cursed slippers have at length reduced me to poverty. Vouchsafe, therefore, to publish an order that no one may any more impute to me the disasters they may yet occasion." The kází could not refuse his request, and thus Abú Kasim learned, to his bitter cost, the danger of wearing his slippers too long.

III

THE YOUNG MERCHANT OF BAGHDÁD; OR, THE WILES OF WOMAN.

Too many Eastern stories turn upon the artful devices of women to screen their own profligacy, but there is one, told by Arab Sháh, the celebrated historian, who died A.D. 1450, in a collection entitled _Fakihat al-Khalífa_, or Pastimes of the Khalífs, in which a lady exhibits great ingenuity, without any very objectionable motive. It is to the following effect:

A young merchant in Baghdád had placed over the front of his shop, instead of a sentence from the Kurán, as is customary, these arrogant words: "VERILY THERE IS NO CUNNING LIKE UNTO THAT OF MAN, SEEING IT SURPASSES THE CUNNING OF WOMEN." It happened one day that a very beautiful young lady, who had been sent by her aunt to purchase some rich stuffs for dresses, noticed this inscription, and at once resolved to compel the despiser of her sex to alter it. Entering the shop, she said to him, after the usual salutations: "You see my person; can anyone presume to say that I am humpbacked?" He had hardly recovered from the astonishment caused by such a question, when the lady drew her veil a little to one side and continued: "Surely my neck is not as that of a raven, or as the ebony idols of Ethiopia?" The young merchant, between surprise and delight, signified his assent. "Nor is my chin double," said she, still farther unveiling her face; "nor my lips thick, like those of a Tartar?" Here the young merchant smiled. "Nor are they to be believed who say that my nose is flat and my cheeks are sunken?" The merchant was about to express his horror at the bare idea of such blasphemy, when the lady wholly removed her veil and allowed her beauty to flash upon the bewildered youth, who instantly became madly in love with her. "Fairest of creatures!" he cried, "to what accident do I owe the view of those charms, which are hidden from the eyes of the less fortunate of my sex?" She replied: "You see in me an unfortunate damsel, and I shall explain the cause of my present conduct. My mother, who was sister to a rich amír of Mecca, died some years ago, leaving my father in possession of an immense fortune and myself as sole heiress. I am now seventeen, my personal endowments are such as you behold, and a very small portion of my mother's fortune would quite suffice to obtain for me a good establishment in marriage. Yet such is the unfeeling avarice of my father, that he absolutely refuses me the least trifle to settle me in life. The only counsellor to whom I could apply for help in this extremity was my kind nurse, and it is by her advice, as well as from the high opinion I have ever heard expressed of your merits, that I have been induced to throw myself upon your goodness in this extraordinary manner." The emotions of the young merchant on hearing this story, may be readily imagined. "Cruel parent!" he exclaimed. "He must be a rock of the desert, not a man, who can condemn so charming a person to perpetual solitude, when the slightest possible sacrifice on his part might prevent it. May I inquire his name?" "He is the chief kází," replied the lady, and disappeared like a vision.

The young merchant lost no time in waiting on the kází at his court of justice, whom he thus addressed: "My lord, I am come to ask your daughter in marriage, of whom I am deeply enamoured." Quoth the judge: "Sir, my daughter is unworthy of the honour you design for her. But be pleased to accompany me to my dwelling, where we can talk over this matter more at leisure." They proceeded thither accordingly, and after partaking of refreshments, the young man repeated his request, giving a true account of his position and prospects, and offering to settle fifteen purses on the young lady. The kází expressed his gratification, but doubted whether the offer was made in all seriousness, but when assured that such was the case, he said: "I no longer doubt your earnestness and sincerity in this affair; it is, however, just possible that your feelings may change after the marriage, and it is but natural that I should now take proper precautions for my daughter's welfare. You will not blame me, therefore, if, in addition to the fifteen purses you have offered, I require that five more be paid down previous to the marriage, to be forfeited in case of a divorce." "Say ten," cried the merchant, and the kází looked more and more astonished, and even ventured to remonstrate with him on his precipitancy, but without effect. To be brief, the kází consented, the ten purses were paid down, the legal witnesses summoned, and the nuptial contract signed that very evening; the consummation of the marriage being, much against the will of our lover, deferred till the following day.

When the wedding guests had dispersed, the young merchant was admitted to the chamber of his bride, whom he discovered to be humpbacked and hideous beyond conception! As soon as it was day, he arose from his sleepless couch and repaired to the public baths, where, after his ablutions, he gave himself up to melancholy reflections. Mingled with grief for his disappointment was mortification at having been the dupe of what now appeared to him a very shallow artifice, which nothing but his own passionate and unthinking precipitation could have rendered plausible. Nor was he without some twinges of conscience for the sarcasms which he had often uttered against women, and for which his present sufferings were no more than a just retribution. Then came meditations of revenge upon the beautiful author of all this mischief; and then his thoughts reverted to the possible means of escape from his difficulties: the forfeiture of the ten purses, to say nothing of the implacable resentment of the kází and his relatives; and he bethought himself how he should become the talk of his neighbourhood--how Malik bin Omar, the jeweller, would sneer at him, and Salih, the barber, talk sententiously of his folly. At length, finding reflection of no avail, he arose and with slow and pensive steps proceeded to his shop.