Part 1
LALLA ROOKH:
AN ORIENTAL ROMANCE.
BY THOMAS MOORE.
WITH SIXTY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY JOHN TENNIEL, ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY THE BROTHERS DALZIEL; AND FIVE ORNAMENTAL PAGES OF PERSIAN DESIGN BY T. SULMAN, JUN. ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY H. N. WOODS.
LONDON: LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, & ROBERTS. 1861.
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Richard Clay Breads Hill London SOLA LUX MIHI LAUS
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TO
SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
BY
HIS VERY GRATEFUL
AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND
THOMAS MOORE.
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
LALLA ROOKH.
ILLUMINATED TITLE-PAGE. [From several ancient MSS. in the Library of the East India House.]
PAGE He was a youth about LALLA ROOKH’S own age. 1
That Veiled Prophet of Khorassan 8
THE VEILED PROPHET OF KHORASSAN.
ORNAMENTAL TITLE-PAGE 9 [Principally from a beautiful MS. in the British Museum.]
There on that throne, to which the blind belief Of millions rais’d him, sat the Prophet-Chief. 11
All, all are there;—each Land its flower hath given, To form that fair young Nursery for Heaven! 14
Believes the form, to which he bends his knee, Some pure, redeeming angel, sent to free. 17
She saw that youth, too well, too dearly known, Silently kneeling at the Prophet’s throne. 21
All fire at once the madd’ning zeal she caught;— Elect of Paradise! blest, rapturous thought! 25
She swore, and the wide charnel echoed, “Never, never!” 28
At length, with fiendish laugh, like that which broke From EBLIS at the Fall of Man, he spoke. 35
“Such the refin’d enchantress that must be This hero’s vanquisher,—and thou art she!” 41
He raised his veil—the Maid turn’d slowly round, Look’d at him—shriek’d—and sunk upon the ground! 47
Now, through the Haram chambers, moving lights And busy shapes proclaim the toilet’s rites. 50
Young AZIM roams bewilder’d,—nor can guess What means this maze of light and loneliness. 53
He sees a group of female forms advance. 59
“Poor maiden!” thought the youth, “if thou wert sent.” 62
Oh! could he listen to such sounds unmov’d, And by that light—nor dream of her he lov’d? 68
“Look up, my ZELICA—one moment show Those gentle eyes to me, that I may know.” 71
“Oh! curse me not,” she cried, as wild he toss’d His desperate hand tow’rds Heaven. 75
“Thy oath! thy oath!” 79
They saw a young Hindoo girl upon the bank 81
Whose are the gilded tents that crowd the way? 84
In vain he yells his desperate curses out. 90
For this alone exists—like lightning-fire, To speed one bolt of vengeance, and expire! 94
And they beheld an orb, ample and bright, Rise from the Holy Well. 98
And led her glittering forth before the eyes Of his rude train, as to a sacrifice. 102
And death and conflagration throughout all The desolate city hold high festival! 104
“There, ye wise Saints, behold your Light, your Star— Ye _would_ be dupes and victims, and ye _are_.” 109
He sprung and sunk, as the last words were said— Quick clos’d the burning waters o’er his head. 113
“And pray that He may pardon her,—may take Compassion on her soul for thy dear sake.” 117
For this the old man breath’d his thanks and died. 119
PARADISE AND THE PERI.
ORNAMENTAL TITLE-PAGE 127 [Architectural details from Baghdad, &c.]
The glorious Angel, who was keeping The gates of Light, beheld her weeping. 129
⸺She caught the last— Last glorious drop his heart had shed. 135
Like their good angel, calmly keeping Watch o’er them till their souls would waken. 143
Then swift his haggard brow he turn’d To the fair child, who fearless sat. 148
Blest tears of soul-felt penitence! 151
And now—behold him kneeling there By the child’s side, in humble prayer. 152
“Joy, joy for ever!—my task is done.” 154
THE FIRE WORSHIPPERS.
ORNAMENTAL TITLE-PAGE 167 [In part from the binding of a “Shah Namah,” in the East India House Library.]
And sits alone in that high bower Watching the still and shining deep. 169
“Oh! ever thus, from childhood’s hour, I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay.” 181
“Here, maiden, look—weep—blush to see All that thy sire abhors in me!” 185
Fiercely he broke away, nor stopp’d, Nor look’d—but from the lattice dropp’d. 189
The morn hath risen clear and calm, And o’er the Green Sea palely shines. 192
’Tis HAFED—name of fear, whose sound Chills like the muttering of a charm! 197
His Chiefs stood round—each shining blade Upon the broken altar laid. 205
“This very night his blood shall steep These hands all over ere I sleep!” 211
And o’er the wide, tempestuous wave Looks, with a shudder, to those towers. 216
And snatch’d her breathless from beneath This wilderment of wreck and death. 222
Shuddering, she look’d around—there lay A group of warriors in the sun. 227
“Tremble not, love, thy Gheber’s here!” 233
Ancient Persian Fire-Altar, &c. &c. 236
’Twas one of those ambrosial eves A day of storm so often leaves. 238
Breathless she stands, with eyes cast down. 241
He felt it—deeply felt—and stood, As if the tale had frozen his blood. 248
A signal, deep and dread as those The storm-fiend at his rising blows. 254
As mute they pass’d before the flame To light their torches as they pass’d. 256
They come—that plunge into the water Gives signal for the work of slaughter. 263
“Now, Freedom’s God! I come to Thee.” 269
Where still she fix’d her dying gaze,— And, gazing, sunk into the wave. 274
“Farewell—farewell to thee, ARABY’S daughter!” 277
THE LIGHT OF THE HARAM.
ORNAMENTAL TITLE-PAGE 283 [From porcelain and illuminated MSS.]
Or to see it by moonlight,—when mellowly shines The light o’er its palaces, gardens, and shrines. 285
He saw, in the wreaths she would playfully snatch From the hedges, a glory his crown could not match. 291
Such cloud it is that now hangs over The heart of the Imperial Lover. 295
He heeds them not—one smile of hers Is worth a world of worshippers. 297
Fill’d with the cool, inspiring smell, The Enchantress now begins her spell. 302
No sooner was the flowery crown Plac’d on her head, than sleep came down. 305
That all stood hush’d and wondering, And turn’d and look’d into the air. 315
She whispers him with laughing eyes, “Remember, love, the Feast of Roses!” 320
They had now begun to ascend those barren mountains. 321
The marriage was fixed for the morning after her arrival. 329
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PREFACE.
(WRITTEN ORIGINALLY FOR “LALLA ROOKH” IN THE COLLECTED EDITION OF MOORE’S WORKS.)
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The Poem, or Romance, of LALLA ROOKH, having now reached, I understand, its twentieth edition, a short account of the origin and progress of a work which has been hitherto so very fortunate in its course, may not be deemed, perhaps, superfluous or misplaced.
It was about the year 1812, that, far more through the encouraging suggestions of friends than from any confident promptings of my own ambition, I conceived the design of writing a Poem upon some Oriental subject, and of those quarto dimensions which Scott’s successful publications in that form had then rendered the regular poetical standard. A negotiation on the subject was opened with the Messrs. Longman in the same year; but, from some causes which I cannot now recollect, led to no decisive result; nor was it till a year or two after, that any further steps were taken in the matter,—their house being the only one, it is right to add, with which, from first to last, I held any communication upon the subject.
On this last occasion, Mr. Perry kindly offered himself as my representative in the treaty; and, what with the friendly zeal of my negotiator on the one side, and the prompt and liberal spirit with which he was met on the other, there has seldom, I think, occurred any transaction in which Trade and Poesy have shone out so advantageously in each other’s eyes. The short discussion that then took place, between the two parties, may be comprised in a very few sentences. “I am of opinion,” said Mr. Perry,—enforcing his view of the case by arguments which it is not for me to cite,—“that Mr. Moore ought to receive for his Poem the largest price that has been given, in our day, for such a work.” “That was,” answered the Messrs. Longman, “three thousand guineas.” “Exactly so,” replied Mr. Perry, “and no less a sum ought he to receive.”
It was then objected, and very reasonably, on the part of the firm, that they had never yet seen a single line of the Poem; and that a perusal of the work ought to be allowed to them, before they embarked so large a sum in the purchase. But, no;—the romantic view which my friend, Perry, took of the matter, was, that this price should be given as a tribute to reputation already acquired, without any condition for a previous perusal of the new work. This high tone, I must confess, not a little startled and alarmed me; but, to the honour and glory of Romance,—as well on the publisher’s side as the poet’s,—this very generous view of the transaction was, without any difficulty, acceded to, and the firm agreed, before we separated, that I was to receive three thousand guineas for my Poem.
At the time of this agreement, but little of the work, as it stands at present, had yet been written. But the ready confidence in my success shown by others, made up for the deficiency of that requisite feeling, within myself; while a strong desire not wholly to disappoint this “auguring hope,” became almost a substitute for inspiration. In the year 1815, therefore, having made some progress in my task, I wrote to report the state of the work to the Messrs. Longman, adding, that I was now most willing and ready, should they desire it, to submit the manuscript for their consideration. Their answer to this offer was as follows:—“We are certainly impatient for the perusal of the Poem; but solely for our gratification. Your sentiments are always honourable.”[i]
I continued to pursue my task for another year, being likewise occasionally occupied with the Irish Melodies, two or three numbers of which made their appearance, during the period employed in writing Lalla Rookh. At length, in the year 1816, I found my work sufficiently advanced to be placed in the hands of the publishers. But the state of distress to which England was reduced, in that dismal year, by the exhausting effects of the series of wars she had just then concluded, and the general embarrassment of all classes both agricultural and commercial, rendered it a juncture the least favourable that could well be conceived for the first launch into print of so light and costly a venture as Lalla Rookh. Feeling conscious, therefore, that under such circumstances, I should act but honestly in putting it in the power of the Messrs. Longman to reconsider the terms of their engagement with me,—leaving them free to postpone, modify, or even, should such be their wish, relinquish it altogether, I wrote them a letter to that effect, and received the following answer:—“We shall be most happy in the pleasure of seeing you in February. We agree with you, indeed, that the times are most inauspicious for ‘poetry and thousands;’ but we believe that your poetry would do more than that of any other living poet at the present moment.”[ii]
The length of time I employed in writing the few stories strung together in Lalla Rookh will appear, to some persons, much more than was necessary for the production of such easy and “light o’ love” fictions. But, besides that I have been, at all times, a far more slow and painstaking workman than would ever be guessed, I fear, from the result, I felt that, in this instance, I had taken upon myself a more than ordinary responsibility, from the immense stake risked by others on my chance of success. For a long time, therefore, after the agreement had been concluded, though generally at work with a view to this task, I made but very little real progress in it; and I have still by me the beginnings of several stories continued, some of them, to the length of three or four hundred lines, which, after in vain endeavouring to mould them into shape, I threw aside, like the tale of Cambuscan, “left half-told.” One of these stories, entitled The Peri’s Daughter, was meant to relate the loves of a nymph of this aërial extraction with a youth of mortal race, the rightful Prince of Ormuz, who had been, from his infancy, brought up in seclusion, on the banks of the river Amou, by an aged guardian named Mohassan. The story opens with the first meeting of these destined lovers, then in their childhood; the Peri having wafted her daughter to this holy retreat, in a bright, enchanted boat, whose first appearance is thus described:—
* * * * *
For, down the silvery tide afar, There came a boat, as swift and bright As shines, in heav’n, some pilgrim-star, That leaves its own high home, at night, To shoot to distant shrines of light.
“It comes, it comes,” young Orian cries, And panting to Mohassan flies. Then, down upon the flowery grass Reclines to see the vision pass; With partly joy and partly fear, To find its wondrous light so near, And hiding oft his dazzled eyes Among the flowers on which he lies.
* * * * *
Within the boat a baby slept, Like a young pearl within its shell; While one, who seem’d of riper years, But not of earth, or earth-like spheres, Her watch beside the slumberer kept; Gracefully waving, in her hand, The feathers of some holy bird, With which, from time to time, she stirr’d The fragrant air, and coolly fann’d The baby’s brow, or brush’d away The butterflies that, bright and blue As on the mountains of Malay, Around the sleeping infant flew. And now the fairy boat hath stopp’d Beside the bank,—the nymph has dropp’d Her golden anchor in the stream;
* * * * *
A song is sung by the Peri in approaching, of which the following forms a part:—
My child she is but half divine, Her father sleeps in the Caspian water; Sea-weeds twine His funeral shrine, But he lives again in the Peri’s daughter. Fain would I fly from mortal sight To my own sweet bowers of Peristan; But, there, the flowers are all too bright For the eyes of a baby born of man. On flowers of earth her feet must tread; So hither my light-wing’d bark hath brought her; Stranger, spread Thy leafiest bed, To rest the wandering Peri’s daughter.
In another of these inchoate fragments, a proud female saint, named Banou, plays a principal part; and her progress through the streets of Cufa, on the night of a great illuminated festival, I find thus described:—
It was a scene of mirth that drew A smile from ev’n the Saint Banou, As, through the hush’d, admiring throng, She went with stately steps along, And counted o’er, that all might see, The rubies of her rosary. But none might see the worldly smile That lurk’d beneath her veil, the while:— Alla forbid! for, who would wait Her blessing at the temple’s gate,— What holy man would ever run To kiss the ground she knelt upon, If once, by luckless chance, he knew She look’d and smil’d as others do. Her hands were join’d, and from each wrist By threads of pearl and golden twist Hung relics of the saints of yore, And scraps of talismanic lore,— Charms for the old, the sick, the frail, Some made for use, and all for sale. On either side, the crowd withdrew, To let the Saint pass proudly through; While turban’d heads of every hue, Green, white, and crimson, bow’d around, And gay tiaras touch’d the ground,— As tulip-bells, when o’er their beds The musk-wind passes, bend their heads. Nay, some there were, among the crowd Of Moslem heads that round her bow’d, So fill’d with zeal, by many a draught Of Shiraz wine profanely quaff’d, That, sinking low in reverence then, They never rose till morn again.
There are yet two more of these unfinished sketches, one of which extends to a much greater length than I was aware of; and, as far as I can judge from a hasty renewal of my acquaintance with it, is not incapable of being yet turned to account.
In only one of these unfinished sketches, the tale of The Peri’s Daughter, had I yet ventured to invoke that most home-felt of all my inspirations, which has lent to the story of The Fire-worshippers its main attraction and interest. That it was my intention, in the concealed Prince of Ormuz, to shadow out some impersonation of this feeling, I take for granted from the prophetic words supposed to be addressed to him by his aged guardian:—
Bright child of destiny! even now I read the promise on that brow, That tyrants shall no more defile The glories of the Green Sea Isle, But Ormuz shall again be free, And hail her native Lord in thee!
In none of the other fragments do I find any trace of this sort of feeling, either in the subject or the personages of the intended story; and this was the reason, doubtless, though hardly known, at the time, to myself, that, finding my subjects so slow in kindling my own sympathies, I began to despair of their ever touching the hearts of others; and felt often inclined to say,
“Oh no, I have no voice or hand For such a song, in such a land.”
Had this series of disheartening experiments been carried on much further, I must have thrown aside the work in despair. But, at last, fortunately, as it proved, the thought occurred to me of founding a story on the fierce struggle so long maintained between the Ghebers,[iii] or ancient Fire-worshippers of Persia, and their haughty Moslem masters. From that moment, a new and deep interest in my whole task took possession of me. The cause of tolerance was again my inspiring theme; and the spirit that had spoken in the melodies of Ireland soon found itself at home in the East.
Having thus laid open the secrets of the workshop to account for the time expended in _writing_ this work, I must also, in justice to my own industry, notice the pains I took in long and laboriously _reading_ for it. To form a store-house, as it were, of illustration purely Oriental, and so familiarise myself with its various treasures, that, as quick as Fancy required the aid of fact, in her spiritings, the memory was ready, like another Ariel, at her “strong bidding,” to furnish materials for the spellwork,—such was, for a long while, the sole object of my studies; and whatever time and trouble this preparatory process may have cost me, the effects resulting from it, as far as the humble merit of truthfulness is concerned, have been such as to repay me more than sufficiently for my pains. I have not forgotten how great was my pleasure, when told by the late Sir James Mackintosh, that he was once asked by Colonel W⸺s, the historian of British India, “whether it was true that Moore had never been in the East?” “Never,” answered Mackintosh. “Well, that shows me,” replied Colonel W⸺s, “that reading over D’Herbelot is as good as riding on the back of a camel.”
I need hardly subjoin to this lively speech, that although D’Herbelot’s valuable work was, of course, one of my manuals, I took the whole range of all such Oriental reading as was accessible to me; and became, for the time, indeed, far more conversant with all relating to that distant region, than I have ever been with the scenery, productions, or modes of life of any of those countries lying most within my reach. We know that D’Anville, though never in his life out of Paris, was able to correct a number of errors in a plan of the Troad taken by De Choiseul, on the spot; and, for my own very different, as well as far inferior, purposes, the knowledge I had thus acquired of distant localities, seen only by me in my day-dreams, was no less ready and useful.
An ample reward for all this painstaking has been found in such welcome tributes as I have just now cited; nor can I deny myself the gratification of citing a few more of the same description. From another distinguished authority on Eastern subjects, the late Sir John Malcolm, I had myself the pleasure of hearing a similar opinion publicly expressed;—that eminent person in a speech spoken by him at a Literary Fund Dinner, having remarked, that together with those qualities of a poet which he much too partially assigned to me was combined also “the truth of the historian.”
Sir William Ouseley, another high authority, in giving his testimony to the same effect, thus notices an exception to the general accuracy for which he gives me credit:—“Dazzled by the beauties of this composition,[iv] few readers can perceive, and none surely can regret, that the poet, in his magnificent catastrophe, has forgotten, or boldly and most happily violated, the precept of Zoroaster, above noticed, which held it impious to consume any portion of a human body by fire, especially by that which glowed upon their altars.” Having long lost, I fear, most of my Eastern learning, I can only cite, in defence of my catastrophe, an old Oriental tradition, which relates, that Nimrod, when Abraham refused, at his command, to worship the fire, ordered him to be thrown into the midst of the flames.[v] A precedent so ancient for this sort of use of the worshipped element, would appear, for all purposes at least of poetry, fully sufficient.
In addition to these agreeable testimonies, I have also heard, and, need hardly add, with some pride and pleasure, that parts of this work have been rendered into Persian, and have found their way to Ispahan. To this fact, as I am willing to think it, allusion is made in some lively verses, written many years since, by my friend, Mr. Luttrell:—
“I’m told, dear Moore, your lays are sung, (Can it be true, you lucky man?) By moonlight, in the Persian tongue, Along the streets of Ispahan.”
That some knowledge of the work may have really reached that region, appears not improbable from a passage in the Travels of Mr. Frazer, who says, that “being delayed for some time at a town on the shores of the Caspian, he was lucky enough to be able to amuse himself with a copy of Lalla Rookh, which a Persian had lent him.”
Of the description of Balbec, in “Paradise and the Peri,” Mr. Carne, in his Letters from the East, thus speaks: “The description in Lalla Rookh of the plain and its ruins is exquisitely faithful. The minaret is on the declivity near at hand, and there wanted only the muezzin’s cry to break the silence.”
I shall now tax my reader’s patience with but one more of these generous vouchers. Whatever of vanity there may be in citing such tributes, they show, at least, of what great value, even in poetry, is that prosaic quality, industry; since, as the reader of the foregoing pages is now fully apprized, it was in a slow and laborious collection of small facts, that the first foundations of this fanciful Romance were laid.
The friendly testimony I have just referred to, appeared, some years since, in the form in which I now give it, and, if I recollect right, in the Athenæum:—