Part 2
“I embrace this opportunity of bearing my individual testimony (if it be of any value) to the extraordinary accuracy of Mr. Moore, in his topographical, antiquarian, and characteristic details, whether of costume, manners, or less-changing monuments, both in his Lalla Rookh and in the Epicurean. It has been my fortune to read his Atlantic, Bermudean, and American Odes and Epistles, in the countries and among the people to which and to whom they related; I enjoyed also the exquisite delight of reading his Lalla Rookh, in Persia itself; and I have perused the Epicurean, while all my recollections of Egypt and its still existing wonders are as fresh as when I quitted the banks of the Nile for Arabia:—I owe it, therefore, as a debt of gratitude (though the payment is most inadequate), for the great pleasure I have derived from his productions, to bear my humble testimony to their local fidelity.
J. S. B.”
Among the incidents connected with this work, I must not omit to notice the splendid Divertissement, founded upon it, which was acted at the Château Royal of Berlin, during the visit of the Grand Duke Nicholas to that capital, in the year 1822. The different stories composing the work were represented in Tableaux Vivans and songs; and among the crowd of royal and noble personages engaged in the performances, I shall mention those only who represented the principal characters, and whom I find thus enumerated in the published account of the Divertissement.[vi]
“Fadladin, Grand-Nasir Comte Haack (Maréchal de Cour.) Aliris, Roi de Bucharie S. A. I. Le Grand Duc. Lalla Roûkh S. A. I. Le Grande Duchesse. Aurungzeb, le Grand Mogol { S. A. R. Le Prince Guillaume, { frère du Roi. Abdallah, Père d’Aliris S. A. R. Le Duc de Cumberland. La Reine, son épouse { S. A. R. La Princesse Louise { Radzivill.”
Besides these and other leading personages, there were also brought into action, under the various denominations of Seigneurs et Dames de Bucharie, Dames de Cachemire, Seigneurs et Dames dansans à la Fête des Roses, &c. nearly 150 persons.
Of the manner and style in which the Tableaux of the different stories are described in the work from which I cite, the following account of the performance of Paradise and the Peri will afford some specimen:—
“La décoration représentoit les portes brillantes du Paradis, entourées de nuages. Dans le premier tableau on voyoit la Péri, triste et desolée, couchée sur le seuil des portes fermées, et l’Ange de lumière qui lui addresse des consolations et des conseils. Le second représente le moment où la Péri, dans l’espoir que ce don lui ouvrira l’entrée du Paradis, recueille la dernière goutte de sang que vient de verser le jeune guerrier Indien....
“La Péri et l’Ange de lumière répondoient pleinement à l’image et à l’idée qu’on est tenté de se faire de ces deux individus, et l’impression qu’a faite généralement la suite des tableaux de cet épisode délicat et intéressant est loin de s’effacer de notre souvenir.”
In this grand Fête, it appears, originated the translation of Lalla Rookh into German[vii] verse, by the Baron de la Motte Fouqué; and the circumstances which led him to undertake the task, are described by himself in a Dedicatory Poem to the Empress of Russia, which he has prefixed to his translation. As soon as the performance, he tells us, had ended, Lalla Rookh (the Empress herself) exclaimed, with a sigh, “Is it, then, all over? are we now at the close of all that has given us so much delight? and lives there no poet who will impart to others, and to future times, some notion of the happiness we have enjoyed this evening?” On hearing this appeal, a Knight of Cashmere (who is no other than the poetical Baron himself) comes forward and promises to attempt to present to the world “the Poem itself in the measure of the original:”—whereupon Lalla Rookh, it is added, approvingly smiled.
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Footnote i:
April 10, 1815.
Footnote ii:
November 9, 1816.
Footnote iii:
Voltaire, in his tragedy of “Les Guèbres,” written with a similar under-current of meaning, was accused of having transformed his Fire-worshippers into Jansenists:—“Quelques figuristes,” he says, “prétendent que les Guèbres sont les jansénistes.”
Footnote iv:
The Fire-worshippers.
Footnote v:
“Tradunt autem Hebræi hanc fabulam quod Abraham in ignem missus sit quia ignem adorare noluit.”—ST. HIERON. _in Quæst. in Genesim_.
Footnote vi:
Lalla Roûkh Divertissement, mêlé de Chants et de Danses, Berlin, 1822. The work contains a series of coloured engravings, representing groups, processions, &c. in different Oriental costumes.
Footnote vii:
Since this was written, another translation of Lalla Rookh into German verse has been made by Theodor Oelckers (Leipzig, Tauchnitz, Jun.), which has already passed through three editions.
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LALLA ROOKH
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In the eleventh year of the reign of Aurungzebe, Abdalla, King of the Lesser Bucharia, a lineal descendant from the Great Zingis, having abdicated the throne in favour of his son, set out on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Prophet; and, passing into India through the delightful valley of Cashmere, rested for a short time at Delhi on his way. He was entertained by Aurungzebe in a style of magnificent hospitality, worthy alike of the visitor and the host, and was afterwards escorted with the same splendour to Surat, where he embarked for Arabia.[1] During the stay of the Royal Pilgrim at Delhi, a marriage was agreed upon between the Prince, his son, and the youngest daughter of the emperor, LALLA ROOKH;[2]—a Princess described by the Poets of her time as more beautiful than Leila,[3] Shirine,[4] Dewildé,[5] or any of those heroines whose names and loves embellish the songs of Persia and Hindostan. It was intended that the nuptials should be celebrated at Cashmere; where the young King, as soon as the cares of empire would permit, was to meet, for the first time, his lovely bride, and, after a few months’ repose in that enchanting valley, conduct her over the snowy hills into Bucharia.
The day of LALLA ROOKH’S departure from Delhi was as splendid as sunshine and pageantry could make it. The bazaars and baths were all covered with the richest tapestry; hundreds of gilded barges upon the Jumna floated with their banners shining in the water; while through the streets groups of beautiful children went strewing the most delicious flowers around, as in that Persian festival called the Scattering of the Roses;[6] till every part of the city was as fragrant as if a caravan of musk from Khoten had passed through it. The Princess, having taken leave of her kind father, who at parting hung a cornelian of Yemen round her neck, on which was inscribed a verse from the Koran, and having sent a considerable present to the Fakirs, who kept up the Perpetual Lamp in her sister’s tomb, meekly ascended the palankeen prepared for her; and, while Aurungzebe stood to take a last look from his balcony, the procession moved slowly on the road to Lahore.
Seldom had the Eastern world seen a cavalcade so superb. From the gardens in the suburbs to the Imperial palace, it was one unbroken line of splendour. The gallant appearance of the Rajahs and Mogul Lords, distinguished by those insignia of the Emperor’s favour,[7] the feathers of the egret of Cashmere in their turbans, and the small silver-rimmed kettledrums at the bows of their saddles;—the costly armour of their cavaliers, who vied, on this occasion, with the guards of the great Keder Khan,[8] in the brightness of their silver battle-axes and the massiness of their maces of gold;—the glittering of the gilt pine-apples[9] on the tops of the palankeens;—the embroidered trappings of the elephants, bearing on their backs small turrets, in the shape of little antique temples, within which the Ladies of LALLA ROOKH lay as it were enshrined;—the rose-coloured veils of the Princess’s own sumptuous litter,[10] at the front of which a fair young female slave sat fanning her through the curtains, with feathers of the Argus pheasant’s wing;[11]—and the lovely troop of Tartarian and Cashmerian maids of honour, whom the young King had sent to accompany his bride, and who rode on each side of the litter, upon small Arabian horses:—all was brilliant, tasteful, and magnificent, and pleased even the critical and fastidious FADLADEEN, Great Nazir or Chamberlain of the Haram, who was borne in his palankeen immediately after the Princess, and considered himself not the least important personage of the pageant.
FADLADEEN was a judge of everything,—from the pencilling of a Circassian’s eyelids to the deepest questions of science and literature; from the mixture of a conserve of rose-leaves to the composition of an epic poem: and such influence had his opinion upon the various tastes of the day, that all the cooks and poets of Delhi stood in awe of him. His political conduct and opinions were founded upon that line of Sadi,—“Should the Prince at noon-day say, It is night, declare that you behold the moon and stars.”—And his zeal for religion; of which Aurungzebe was a munificent protector,[12] was about as disinterested as that of the goldsmith who fell in love with the diamond eyes of the Idol of Jaghernaut.[13]
During the first days of their journey, LALLA ROOKH, who had passed all her life within the shadow of the Royal Gardens of Delhi,[14] found enough in the beauty of the scenery through which they passed to interest her mind, and delight her imagination; and when at evening, or in the heat of the day, they turned off from the high road to those retired and romantic places which had been selected for her encampments, sometimes on the banks of a small rivulet, as clear as the waters of the Lake of Pearl;[15] sometimes under the sacred shade of a Banyan tree, from which the view opened upon a glade covered with antelopes; and often in those hidden, embowered spots, described by one from the Isles of the West,[16] as “places of melancholy, delight, and safety, where all the company around was wild peacocks and turtle-doves;”—she felt a charm in these scenes, so lovely and so new to her, which, for a time, made her indifferent to every other amusement. But LALLA ROOKH was young, and the young love variety; nor could the conversation of her Ladies and the great Chamberlain, FADLADEEN, (the only persons, of course, admitted to her pavilion,) sufficiently enliven those many vacant hours, which were devoted neither to the pillow nor the palankeen. There was a little Persian slave who sung sweetly to the Vina, and who, now and then, lulled the Princess to sleep with the ancient ditties of her country, about the loves of Wamak and Ezra,[17] the fair-haired Zal and his mistress Rodahver;[18] not forgetting the combat of Rustam with the terrible White Demon.[19] At other times she was amused by those graceful dancing-girls of Delhi, who had been permitted by the Bramins of the Great Pagoda to attend her, much to the horror of the good Mussulman FADLADEEN, who could see nothing graceful or agreeable in idolaters, and to whom the very tinkling of their golden anklets[20] was an abomination.
But these and many other diversions were repeated till they lost all their charm, and the nights and noondays were beginning to move heavily, when, at length, it was recollected that, among the attendants sent by the bridegroom, was a young poet of Cashmere, much celebrated throughout the valley for his manner of reciting the Stories of the East, on whom his Royal Master had conferred the privilege of being admitted to the pavilion of the Princess, that he might help to beguile the tediousness of the journey by some of his most agreeable recitals. At the mention of a poet, FADLADEEN elevated his critical eyebrows, and, having refreshed his faculties with a dose of that delicious opium[21] which is distilled from the black poppy of the Thebais, gave orders for the minstrel to be forthwith introduced into the presence.
The Princess, who had once in her life seen a poet from behind the screens of gauze in her Father’s hall, and had conceived from that specimen no very favourable ideas of the Caste, expected but little in this new exhibition to interest her;—she felt inclined, however, to alter her opinion on the very first appearance of FERAMORZ. He was a youth about LALLA ROOKH’S own age, and graceful as that idol of women, Crishna,[22]—such as he appears to their young imaginations, heroic, beautiful, breathing music from his very eyes, and exalting the religion of his worshippers into love. His dress was simple, yet not without some marks of costliness; and the ladies of the Princess were not long in discovering that the cloth, which encircled his high Tartarian cap, was of the most delicate kind that the shawl-goats of Tibet supply.[23] Here and there, too, over his vest, which was confined by a flowered girdle of Kashan, hung strings of fine pearl, disposed with an air of studied negligence:—nor did the exquisite embroidery of his sandals escape the observation of these fair critics; who, however they might give way to FADLADEEN upon the unimportant topics of religion and government, had the spirit of martyrs in every thing relating to such momentous matters as jewels and embroidery.
For the purpose of relieving the pauses of recitation by music, the young Cashmerian held in his hand a kitar;—such as, in old times, the Arab maids of the West used to listen to by moonlight in the gardens of the Alhambra—and, having premised, with much humility, that the story he was about to relate was founded on the adventures of that Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,[24] who, in the year of the Hegira 163, created such alarm throughout the Eastern Empire, made an obeisance to the Princess, and thus began:—
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The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan[25]
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In that delightful Province of the Sun, The first of Persian lands he shines upon, Where all the loveliest children of his beam, Flow’rets and fruits, blush over every stream,[26] And, fairest of all streams, the MURGA roves Among MEROU’S[27] bright palaces and groves;— There on that throne, to which the blind belief Of millions rais’d him, sat the Prophet-Chief, The Great MOKANNA. O’er his features hung The Veil, the Silver Veil, which he had flung In mercy there, to hide from mortal sight His dazzling brow, till man could bear its light. For, far less luminous, his votaries said, Were ev’n the gleams, miraculously shed O’er MOUSSA’S[28] cheek,[29] when down the Mount he trod, All glowing from the presence of his God!
On either side, with ready hearts and hands, His chosen guard of bold Believers stands; Young fire-eyed disputants, who deem their swords, On points of faith, more eloquent than words; And such their zeal, there’s not a youth with brand Uplifted there, but, at the Chief’s command, Would make his own devoted heart its sheath, And bless the lips that doom’d so dear a death! In hatred to the Caliph’s hue of night,[30] Their vesture, helms and all, is snowy white; Their weapons various—some equipp’d for speed, With javelins of the light Kathaian reed;[31] Or bows of buffalo horn and shining quivers Fill’d with the stems[32] that bloom on IRAN’S rivers;[33] While some, for war’s more terrible attacks, Wield the huge mace and ponderous battle-axe; And as they wave aloft in morning’s beam The milk-white plumage of their helms, they seem Like a chenar-tree grove,[34] when winter throws O’er all its tufted heads his feathering snows.
Between the porphyry pillars, that uphold The rich moresque-work of the roof of gold, Aloft the Haram’s curtain’d galleries rise, Where, through the silken net-work, glancing eyes, From time to time, like sudden gleams that glow Through autumn clouds, shine o’er the pomp below.— What impious tongue, ye blushing saints, would dare To hint that aught but Heaven hath plac’d you there? Or that the loves of this light world could bind, In their gross chain, your Prophet’s soaring mind? No—wrongful thought!—commission’d from above To people Eden’s bowers with shapes of love, (Creatures so bright, that the same lips and eyes They wear on earth will serve in Paradise,) There to recline among Heaven’s native maids, And crown the’ Elect with bliss that never fades— Well hath the Prophet-Chief his bidding done; And every beauteous race beneath the sun, From those who kneel at BRAHMA’S burning founts,[35] To the fresh nymphs bounding o’er YEMEN’S mounts; From PERSIA’S eyes of full and fawn-like ray To the small, half-shut glances of KATHAY;[36] And GEORGIA’S bloom, and AZAB’S darker smiles, And the gold ringlets of the Western Isles; All, all are there;—each Land its flower hath given, To form that fair young Nursery for Heaven!
But why this pageant now? this arm’d array? What triumph crowds the rich Divan to-day With turban’d heads, of every hue and race, Bowing before that veil’d and awful face, Like tulip-beds,[37] of different shape and dyes, Bending beneath the’ invisible West-wind’s sighs! What new-made mystery now, for Faith to sign, And blood to seal, as genuine and divine, What dazzling mimickry of God’s own power Hath the bold Prophet plann’d to grace this hour?
Not such the pageant now, though not less proud; Yon warrior youth, advancing from the crowd, With silver bow, with belt of broider’d crape, And fur-bound bonnet of Bucharian shape,[38] So fiercely beautiful in form and eye, Like war’s wild planet in a summer sky; That youth to-day,—a proselyte, worth hordes Of cooler spirits and less practis’d swords,— Is come to join, all bravery and belief, The creed and standard of the heaven-sent Chief.
Though few his years, the West already knows Young AZIM’S fame;—beyond the’ Olympian snows, Ere manhood darken’d o’er his downy cheek, O’erwhelm’d in fight and captive to the Greek,[39] He linger’d there, till peace dissolv’d his chains;— Oh, who could, even in bondage, tread the plains Of glorious GREECE, nor feel his spirit rise Kindling within him? who, with heart and eyes, Could walk where Liberty had been, nor see The shining foot-prints of her Deity, Nor feel those godlike breathings in the air, Which mutely told her spirit had been there? Not he, that youthful warrior,—no, too well For his soul’s quiet work’d the’ awakening spell; And now, returning to his own dear land, Full of those dreams of good that, vainly grand, Haunt the young heart,—proud views of human-kind, Of men to Gods exalted and refin’d,— False views, like that horizon’s fair deceit, Where earth and heaven but _seem_, alas, to meet!— Soon as he heard an Arm Divine was rais’d To right the nations, and beheld, emblaz’d On the white flag MOKANNA’S host unfurl’d, Those words of sunshine, “Freedom to the World,” At once his faith, his sword, his soul obey’d The’ inspiring summons; every chosen blade That fought beneath that banner’s sacred text Seem’d doubly edg’d, for this world and the next; And ne’er did Faith with her smooth bandage bind Eyes more devoutly willing to be blind, In virtue’s cause;—never was soul inspir’d With livelier trust in what it most desir’d, Than his, the’ enthusiast there, who kneeling, pale With pious awe, before that Silver Veil, Believes the form, to which he bends his knee, Some pure, redeeming angel, sent to free This fetter’d world from every bond and stain, And bring its primal glories back again!
Low as young AZIM knelt, that motley crowd Of all earth’s nations sunk the knee and bow’d, With shouts of “ALLA!” echoing long and loud; While high in air, above the Prophet’s head, Hundreds of banners, to the sunbeam spread, Wav’d, like the wings of the white birds that fan The flying throne of star-taught SOLIMAN.[40] Then thus he spoke:—“Stranger, though new the frame “Thy soul inhabits now, I’ve track’d its flame “For many an age,[41] in every chance and change “Of that existence, through whose varied range,— “As through a torch-race, where, from hand to hand, “The flying youths transmit their shining brand,— “From frame to frame the unextinguish’d soul “Rapidly passes, till it reach the goal!
“Nor think ’tis only the gross Spirits, warm’d “With duskier fire and for earth’s medium form’d, “That run this course;—Beings, the most divine, “Thus deign through dark mortality to shine. “Such was the Essence that in ADAM dwelt, “To which all Heaven, except the Proud One, knelt:[42] “Such the refin’d Intelligence that glow’d “In MOUSSA’S[43] frame,—and, thence descending, flow’d “Through many a Prophet’s breast;[44]—in ISSA[45] shone, “And in MOHAMMED burn’d; till, hastening on, “(As a bright river that, from fall to fall “In many a maze descending, bright through all, “Finds some fair region where, each labyrinth past, “In one full lake of light it rests at last!) “That Holy Spirit, settling calm and free “From lapse or shadow, centres all in me!”
Again, throughout the’ assembly, at these words, Thousands of voices rung: the warriors’ swords Were pointed up to heaven; a sudden wind In the’ open banners played, and from behind Those Persian hangings, that but ill could screen The Haram’s loveliness, white hands were seen Waving embroider’d scarves, whose motion gave A perfume forth;—like those the Houris wave When beck’ning to their bowers the’ immortal Brave.
“But these,” pursued the Chief, “are truths sublime, “That claim a holier mood and calmer time “Than earth allows us now;—this sword must first “The darkling prison-house of Mankind burst “Ere Peace can visit them, or Truth let in “Her wakening daylight on a world of sin. “But then, celestial warriors, then, when all “Earth’s shrines and thrones before our banner fall; “When the glad Slave shall at these feet lay down “His broken chain, the tyrant Lord his crown, “The Priest his book, the Conqueror his wreath, “And from the lips of Truth one mighty breath “Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze “That whole dark pile of human mockeries;— “Then shall the reign of mind commence on earth, “And starting fresh, as from a second birth, “Man, in the sunshine of the world’s new spring, “Shall walk transparent, like some holy thing! “Then, too, your Prophet from his angel brow “Shall cast the Veil that hides its splendours now, “And gladden’d Earth shall, through her wide expanse, “Bask in the glories of this countenance!— “For thee, young warrior, welcome!—thou hast yet “Some tasks to learn, some frailties to forget, “Ere the white war-plume o’er thy brow can wave;— “But, once my own, mine all till in the grave!”
The pomp is at an end—the crowds are gone— Each ear and heart still haunted by the tone Of that deep voice, which thrilled like ALLA’S own! The Young all dazzled by the plumes and lances, The glittering throne, and Haram’s half-caught glances; The Old deep pondering on the promis’d reign Of peace and truth; and all the female train Ready to risk their eyes, could they but gaze A moment on that brow’s miraculous blaze!
But there was one, among the chosen maids, Who blush’d behind the gallery’s silken shades, One, to whose soul the pageant of to-day Has been like death:—you saw her pale dismay, Ye wondering sisterhood, and heard the burst Of exclamation from her lips, when first She saw that youth, too well, too dearly known, Silently kneeling at the Prophet’s throne.