George Meredith
The Shaving of Shagpat; an Arabian entertainment. Complete
Thereupon he exulted, and his mind strutted through the future of his days, and down the ladder of all time, exacting homage from men, his brethren; and ‘twas beyond the art of Noorna to fix him to the present duties of the enterprise: he was as feathered seed before the breath of vanity.
Now, while the twain discoursed, she of the preparations for shaving Shagpat, he of his completion of the deed, and the honours due to him as Master of the Event, Feshnavat the Vizier returned to them from his entertainment of the Cadi; and he had bribed him to silence with a mighty bribe. So he called to them—
‘Ho! be ye ready to commence the work? and have ye advised together as to the beginning? True is that triplet:
“Whatever enterprize man hath,
For waking love or curbing wrath,
‘Tis the first step that makes a path.”
And how have ye determined as to that first step?’
Noorna replied, ‘O my father! we have not decided, and there hath been yet no deliberation between us as to that.’
Then he said, ‘All this while have ye talked, and no deliberation as to that! Lo, I have drawn the Cadi to our plot, and bribed him with a mighty bribe; and I have prepared possible disguises for this nephew of the barber; and I have had the witnesses of thy betrothal despatched to foreign parts, far kingdoms in the land of Roum, to prevent tattling and gabbling; and ye that were left alone for debating as to the great deed, ye have not yet deliberated as to that! Is’t known to ye, O gabblers, aught of the punishment inflicted by Shahpesh, the Persian, on Khipil, the Builder?—a punishment that, by Allah!’
Shibli Bagarag said, ‘How of that punishment, O Vizier?’
And the Vizier narrated as followeth.
AND THIS IS THE PUNISHMENT OF SHAHPESH, THE PERSIAN, ON KHIPIL, THE BUILDER
They relate that Shahpesh, the Persian, commanded the building of a palace, and Khipil was his builder. The work lingered from the first year of the reign of Shahpesh even to his fourth. One day Shahpesh went to the riverside where it stood, to inspect it. Khipil was sitting on a marble slab among the stones and blocks; round him stretched lazily the masons and stonecutters and slaves of burden; and they with the curve of humorous enjoyment on their lips, for he was reciting to them adventures, interspersed with anecdotes and recitations and poetic instances, as was his wont. They were like pleased flocks whom the shepherd hath led to a pasture freshened with brooks, there to feed indolently; he, the shepherd, in the midst.
Now, the King said to him, ‘O Khipil, show me my palace where it standeth, for I desire to gratify my sight with its fairness.’
Khipil abased himself before Shahpesh, and answered, ‘‘Tis even here, O King of the age, where thou delightest the earth with thy foot and the ear of thy slave with sweetness. Surely a site of vantage, one that dominateth earth, air, and water, which is the builder’s first and chief requisition for a noble palace, a palace to fill foreign kings and sultans with the distraction of envy; and it is, O Sovereign of the time, a site, this site I have chosen, to occupy the tongues of travellers and awaken the flights of poets!’
Shahpesh smiled and said, ‘The site is good! I laud the site! Likewise I laud the wisdom of Ebn Busrac, where he exclaims:
“Be sure, where Virtue faileth to appear,
For her a gorgeous mansion men will rear;
And day and night her praises will be heard,
Where never yet she spake a single word.”’
Then said he, ‘O Khipil, my builder, there was once a farm servant that, having neglected in the seed-time to sow, took to singing the richness of his soil when it was harvest, in proof of which he displayed the abundance of weeds that coloured the land everywhere. Discover to me now the completeness of my halls and apartments, I pray thee, O Khipil, and be the excellence of thy construction made visible to me!’
Quoth Khipil, ‘To hear is to obey.’
He conducted Shahpesh among the unfinished saloons and imperfect courts and roofless rooms, and by half erected obelisks, and columns pierced and chipped, of the palace of his building. And he was bewildered at the words spoken by Shahpesh; but now the King exalted him, and admired the perfection of his craft, the greatness of his labour, the speediness of his construction, his assiduity; feigning not to behold his negligence.
Presently they went up winding balusters to a marble terrace, and the King said, ‘Such is thy devotion and constancy in toil, Khipil, that thou shaft walk before me here.’
He then commanded Khipil to precede him, and Khipil was heightened with the honour. When Khipil had paraded a short space he stopped quickly, and said to Shahpesh, ‘Here is, as it chanceth, a gap, O King! and we can go no further this way.’
Shahpesh said, ‘All is perfect, and it is my will thou delay not to advance.’
Khipil cried, ‘The gap is wide, O mighty King, and manifest, and it is an incomplete part of thy palace.’
Then said Shahpesh, ‘O Khipil, I see no distinction between one part and another; excellent are all parts in beauty and proportion, and there can be no part incomplete in this palace that occupieth the builder four years in its building: so advance, do my bidding.’
Khipil yet hesitated, for the gap was of many strides, and at the bottom of the gap was a deep water, and he one that knew not the motion of swimming. But Shahpesh ordered his guard to point their arrows in the direction of Khipil, and Khipil stepped forward hurriedly, and fell in the gap, and was swallowed by the water below. When he rose the second time, succour reached him, and he was drawn to land trembling, his teeth chattering. And Shahpesh praised him, and said, ‘This is an apt contrivance for a bath, Khipil O my builder! well conceived; one that taketh by surprise; and it shall be thy reward daily when much talking hath fatigued thee.’
Then he bade Khipil lead him to the hall of state. And when they were there Shahpesh said, ‘For a privilege, and as a mark of my approbation, I give thee permission to sit in the marble chair of yonder throne, even in my presence, O Khipil.’
Khipil said, ‘Surely, O King, the chair is not yet executed.’
And Shahpesh exclaimed, ‘If this be so, thou art but the length of thy measure on the ground, O talkative one!’
Khipil said, ‘Nay, ‘tis not so, O King of splendours! blind that I am! yonder’s indeed the chair.’
And Khipil feared the King, and went to the place where the chair should be, and bent his body in a sitting posture, eyeing the King, and made pretence to sit in the chair of Shahpesh, as in conspiracy to amuse his master.
Then said Shahpesh, ‘For a token that I approve thy execution of the chair, thou shalt be honoured by remaining seated in it up to the hour of noon; but move thou to the right or to the left, showing thy soul insensible of the honour done thee, transfixed thou shah be with twenty arrows and five.’
The King then left him with a guard of twenty-five of his body-guard; and they stood around him with bent bows, so that Khipil dared not move from his sitting posture. And the masons and the people crowded to see Khipil sitting on his master’s chair, for it became rumoured about. When they beheld him sitting upon nothing, and he trembling to stir for fear of the loosening of the arrows, they laughed so that they rolled upon the floor of the hall, and the echoes of laughter were a thousand-fold. Surely the arrows of the guards swayed with the laughter that shook them.
Now, when the time had expired for his sitting in the chair, Shahpesh returned to him, and he was cramped, pitiable to see; and Shahpesh said, ‘Thou hast been exalted above men, O Khipil! for that thou didst execute for thy master has been found fitting for thee.’
Then he bade Khipil lead the way to the noble gardens of dalliance and pleasure that he had planted and contrived. And Khipil went in that state described by the poet, when we go draggingly, with remonstrating members,
Knowing a dreadful strength behind,
And a dark fate before.
They came to the gardens, and behold, these were full of weeds and nettles, the fountains dry, no tree to be seen—a desert. And Shahpesh cried, ‘This is indeed of admirable design, O Khipil! Feelest thou not the coolness of the fountains?—their refreshingness? Truly I am grateful to thee! And these flowers, pluck me now a handful, and tell me of their perfume.’
Khipil plucked a handful of the nettles that were there in the place of flowers, and put his nose to them before Shahpesh, till his nose was reddened; and desire to rub it waxed in him, and possessed him, and became a passion, so that he could scarce refrain from rubbing it even in the King’s presence. And the King encouraged him to sniff and enjoy their fragrance, repeating the poet’s words:
Methinks I am a lover and a child,
A little child and happy lover, both!
When by the breath of flowers I am beguiled
From sense of pain, and lulled in odorous sloth.
So I adore them, that no mistress sweet
Seems worthier of the love which they awake:
In innocence and beauty more complete,
Was never maiden cheek in morning lake.
Oh, while I live, surround me with fresh flowers!
Oh, when I die, then bury me in their bowers!
And the King said, ‘What sayest thou, O my builder? that is a fair quotation, applicable to thy feelings, one that expresseth them?’
Khipil answered, ‘‘Tis eloquent, O great King! comprehensiveness would be its portion, but that it alludeth not to the delight of chafing.’
Then Shahpesh laughed, and cried, ‘Chafe not! it is an ill thing and a hideous! This nosegay, O Khipil, it is for thee to present to thy mistress. Truly she will receive thee well after its presentation! I will have it now sent in thy name, with word that thou followest quickly. And for thy nettled nose, surely if the whim seize thee that thou desirest its chafing, to thy neighbour is permitted what to thy hand is refused.’
The King set a guard upon Khipil to see that his orders were executed, and appointed a time for him to return to the gardens.
At the hour indicated Khipil stood before Shahpesh again. He was pale, saddened; his tongue drooped like the tongue of a heavy bell, that when it soundeth giveth forth mournful sounds only: he had also the look of one battered with many beatings. So the King said, ‘How of the presentation of the flowers of thy culture, O Khipil?’
He answered, ‘Surely, O King, she received me with wrath, and I am shamed by her.’
And the King said, ‘How of my clemency in the matter of the chafing?’
Khipil answered, ‘O King of splendours! I made petition to my neighbours whom I met, accosting them civilly and with imploring, for I ached to chafe, and it was the very raging thirst of desire to chafe that was mine, devouring eagerness for solace of chafing. And they chafed me, O King; yet not in those parts which throbbed for the chafing, but in those which abhorred it.’
Then Shahpesh smiled and said, ‘‘Tis certain that the magnanimity of monarchs is as the rain that falleth, the sun that shineth: and in this spot it fertilizeth richness; in that encourageth rankness. So art thou but a weed, O Khipil! and my grace is thy chastisement.’
Now, the King ceased not persecuting Khipil, under pretence of doing him honour and heaping favours on him. Three days and three nights was Khipil gasping without water, compelled to drink of the drought of the fountain, as an honour at the hands of the King. And he was seven days and seven nights made to stand with stretched arms, as they were the branches of a tree, in each hand a pomegranate. And Shahpesh brought the people of his court to regard the wondrous pomegranate shoot planted by Khipil, very wondrous, and a new sort, worthy the gardens of a King. So the wisdom of the King was applauded, and men wotted he knew how to punish offences in coin, by the punishment inflicted on Khipil the builder. Before that time his affairs had languished, and the currents of business instead of flowing had become stagnant pools. It was the fashion to do as did Khipil, and fancy the tongue a constructor rather than a commentator; and there is a doom upon that people and that man which runneth to seed in gabble, as the poet says in his wisdom:
If thou wouldst be famous, and rich in splendid fruits,
Leave to bloom the flower of things, and dig among the roots.
Truly after Khipil’s punishment there were few in the dominions of Shahpesh who sought to win the honours bestowed by him on gabblers and idlers: as again the poet:
When to loquacious fools with patience rare
I listen, I have thoughts of Khipil’s chair:
His bath, his nosegay, and his fount I see,—
Himself stretch’d out as a pomegranate-tree.
And that I am not Shahpesh I regret,
So to inmesh the babbler in his net.
Well is that wisdom worthy to be sung,
Which raised the Palace of the Wagging Tongue!
And whoso is punished after the fashion of Shahpesh, the Persian, on Khipil the Builder, is said to be one ‘in the Palace of the Wagging Tongue’ to this time.
THE GENIE KARAZ
Now, when the voice of the Vizier had ceased, Shibli Bagarag exclaimed, ‘O Vizier, this night, no later, I’ll surprise Shagpat, and shave him while he sleepeth: and he shall wake shorn beside his spouse. Wullahy! I’ll delay no longer, I, Shibli Bagarag.’
Said the Vizier, ‘Thou?’
And he replied, ‘Surely, O Vizier! thou knowest little of my dexterity.’
So the Vizier laughed, and Noorna bin Noorka laughed, and he was at a loss to interpret the cause of their laughter. Then said Noorna, ‘O my betrothed, there’s not a doubt among us of thy dexterity, nor question of thy willingness; but this shaving of Shagpat, wullahy! ‘tis longer work than what thou makest of it.’
And he cried, ‘How? because of the Chief of Identicals planted by thee in his head?’
She answered, ‘Because of that; but ‘tis the smallest opposer, that.’
Then the Vizier said, ‘Let us consult.’
So Shibli Bagarag gave ear, and the Vizier continued, ‘There’s first, the Chief of Identicals planted by thee in the head of that presumptuous fellow, O my daughter! By what means shall that be overcome?’
She said, ‘I rank not that first, O Feshnavat, my father; surely I rank first the illusions with which Rabesqurat hath surrounded him, and made it difficult to know him from his semblances, whenever real danger threateneth him.’
The Vizier assented, saying, ‘Second, then, the Chief of Identicals?’
She answered, ‘Nay, O my father; second, the weakness that’s in man, and the little probability of his finishing with Shagpat at one effort; and there is but a sole chance for whoso attempteth, and if he faileth, ‘tis forever he faileth.’
So the Vizier said, ‘Even I knew not ‘twas so grave! Third, then, the Chief of Identicals?’
She replied, ‘Third! which showeth the difficulty of the task. Read ye not, first, how the barber must come upon Shagpat and fix him for his operation; second, how the barber must be possessed of more than mortal strength to master him in so many strokes; third, how the barber must have a blade like no other blade in this world in sharpness, in temper, in velocity of sweep, that he may reap this crop which flourisheth on Shagpat, and with it the magic hair which defieth edge of mortal blades?’
Now, the Vizier sighed at the words, saying, ‘Powerful is Shagpat. I knew not the thing I undertook. I fear his mastery of us, and we shall be contemned—objects for the red finger of scorn.’
Noorna turned to Shibli Bagarag and asked, ‘Do the three bonds of enterprise—vengeance, ambition, and love—shrink in thee from this great contest?’
Shibli Bagarag said, ‘‘Tis terrible! on my head be it!’
She gazed at him a moment tenderly, and said, ‘Thou art worthy of what is in store for thee, O my betrothed! and I think little of the dangers, in contemplation of the courage in thee. Lo, if vengeance and ambition spur thee so, how will not love when added to the two?’
Then said she, ‘As to the enchantments and spells that shall overreach him, and as to the blade wherewith to shear him?’
Feshnavat exclaimed, ‘Yonder ‘s indeed where we stumble and are tripped at starting.’
But she cried, ‘What if I know of a sword that nought on earth or under resisteth, and before the keen edge of which all Illusions and Identicals are as summer grass to the scythe?’
They both shouted, ‘The whereabout of that sword, O Noorna!’
So she said, ‘‘Tis in Aklis, in the mountains of the Koosh; and the seven sons of Aklis sharpen it day and night till the adventurer cometh to claim it for his occasion. Whoso succeedeth in coming to them they know to have power over the sword, and ‘tis then holiday for them. Many are the impediments, and they are as holes where the fox haunteth. So they deliver to his hand the sword till his object is attained, his Event mastered, smitten through with it; and ‘tis called the Sword of Events. Surely, with it the father of the Seven vanquished the mighty Roc, Kroojis, that threatened mankind with ruin, and a stain of the Roc’s blood is yet on the hilt of the sword. How sayest thou, O Feshnavat,—shall we devote ourselves to get possession of that Sword?’
So the Vizier brightened at her words, and said, ‘O excellent in wisdom and star of counsel! speak further, and as to the means.’
Noorna bin Noorka continued, ‘Thou knowest, O my father, I am proficient in the arts of magic, and I am what I am, and what I shall be, by its uses. ‘Tis known to thee also that I hold a Genie in bondage, and can utter ten spells and one spell in a breath. Surely my services to the youth in his attainment of the Sword will be beyond price! Now to reach Aklis and the Sword there are three things needed—charms: and one is a phial full of the waters of Paravid from the wells in the mountain yon-side the desert; and one, certain hairs that grow in the tail of the horse Garraveen, he that roameth wild in the meadows of Melistan; and one, that the youth gather and bear to Aklis, for the white antelope Gulrevaz, the Lily of the Lovely Light that groweth in the hollow of the crags over the Enchanted Sea: with these spells he will command the Sword of Aklis, and nothing can bar him passage. Moreover I will expend in his aid all my subtleties, my transformations, the stores of my wisdom. Many seek this Sword, and people the realms of Rabesqurat, or are beasts in Aklis, or crowned Apes, or go to feed the Roc, Kroojis, in the abyss beneath the Roc’s-egg bridge; but there’s virtue in Shibli Bagarag: wullahy! I am wistful in him of the hand of Destiny, and he will succeed in this undertaking if he dareth it.’
Shibli Bagarag cried, ‘At thy bidding, O Noorna! Care I for dangers? I’m on fire to wield the Sword, and master the Event.’
Thereupon, Noorna bin Noorka arose instantly, and took him by the cheeks a tender pinch, and praised him. Then drew she round him a circle with her forefinger that left a mark like the shimmering of evanescent green flame, saying, ‘White was the day I set eyes on thee!’ Round the Vizier, her father, she drew a like circle; and she took an unguent, and traced with it characters on the two circles, and letters of strange form, arrowy, lance-like, like leaning sheaves, and crouching baboons, and kicking jackasses, and cocks a-crow, and lutes slack-strung; and she knelt and mumbled over and over words of magic, like the drone of a bee to hear, and as a roll of water, nothing distinguishable. After that she sought for an unguent of a red colour, and smeared it on a part of the floor by the corner of the room, and wrote on it in silver fluid a word that was the word ‘Eblis,’ and over that likewise she droned awhile. Presently she arose with a white-heated face, the sweat on her brow, and said to Shibli Bagarag and Feshnavat hurriedly and in a harsh tone, ‘How? have ye fear?’
They answered, ‘Our faith is in Allah, our confidence in thee.’
Said she then, ‘I summon the Genie I hold in bondage. He will be wrathful; but ye are secure from him. He’s this moment in the farthest region of earth, doing ill, as is his wont, and the wont of the stock of Eblis.’
So the Vizier said, ‘He’ll be no true helper, this Genie, and I care not for his company.’
She answered, ‘O my father! leave thou that to me. What says the poet?—
“It is the sapiency of fools,
To shrink from handling evil tools.”’
Now, while she was speaking, she suddenly inclined her ear as to a distant noise; but they heard nothing. Then, after again listening, she cried in a sharp voice, ‘Ho! muffle your mouths with both hands, and stir not from the ring of the circles, as ye value life and its blessings.’
So they did as she bade them, and watched her curiously. Lo! she swathed the upper and lower part of her face in linen, leaving the lips and eyes exposed; and she took water from an ewer, and sprinkled it on her head, and on her arms and her feet, muttering incantations. Then she listened a third time, and stooped to the floor, and put her lips to it, and called the name, ‘Karaz!’ And she called this name seven times loudly, sneezing between whiles. Then, as it were in answer to her summons, there was a deep growl of thunder, and the palace rocked, tottering; and the air became smoky and full of curling vapours. Presently they were aware of the cry of a Cat, and its miaulings; and the patch of red unguent on the floor parted and they beheld a tawny Cat with an arched back. So Noorna bin Noorka frowned fiercely at the Cat, and cried, ‘This is thy shape, O Karaz; change! for it serves not the purpose.’
The Cat changed, and was a Leopard with glowing yellow eyes, crouched for the spring. So Noorna bin Noorka stamped, and cried again, ‘This is thy shape, O Karaz; change! for it serves not the purpose.’
And the Leopard changed, and was a Serpent with many folds, sleek, curled, venomous, hissing.
Noorna bin Noorka cried in wrath, ‘This is thy shape, O Karaz; change! or thou’lt be no other till Eblis is accepted in Paradise.’
And the Serpent vanished. Lo! in its place a Genie of terrible aspect, black as a solitary tree seared by lightning; his forehead ridged and cloven with red streaks; his hair and ears reddened; his eyes like two hollow pits dug by the shepherd for the wolf, and the wolf in them. He shouted, ‘What work is it now, thou accursed traitress?’
Noorna replied, ‘I’ve need of thee!’
He said, ‘What shape?’
She answered, ‘The shape of an Ass that will carry two on its back, thou Perversity!’
Upon that, he cried, ‘O faithless woman, how long shall I be the slave of thy plotting? Now, but for that hair of my head, plucked by thy hand while I slept, I were free, no doer of thy tasks. Say, who be these that mark us?’
She answered, ‘One, the Vizier Feshnavat; and one, Shibli Bagarag of Shiraz, he that’s destined to shave Shagpat, the son of Shimpoor, the son of Shoolpi, the son of Shullum; and the youth is my betrothed.’
Now, at her words the whole Genie became as live coal with anger, and he panted black and bright, and made a stride toward Shibli Bagarag, and stretched his arm out to seize him; but Noorna, blew quickly on the circles she had drawn, and the circles rose up in a white flame high as the heads of those present, and the Genie shrank hastily back from the flame, and was seized with fits of sneezing. Then she said in scorn, ‘Easily, O Karaz, is a woman outwitted! Surely I could not guess what would be thy action! and I was wanting in foresight and insight! and I am a woman bearing the weight of my power as a woodman staggereth under the logs he hath felled!’
So she taunted him, and he still sneezing and bent double with the might of the sneeze. Then said Noorna in a stern voice, ‘No more altercation between us! Wait thou here till I reappear, Karaz!’
Thereupon, she went from them; and the two, Feshnavat and Shibli Bagarag, feared greatly being left with the Genie, for he became all colours, and loured on them each time that he ceased sneezing. He was clearly menacing them when Noorna returned, and in her hand a saddle made of hide, traced over with mystic characters and gold stripes.
So she cried, ‘Take this!’ Then, seeing he hesitated, she unclosed from her left palm a powder, and scattered
it over him; and he grew meek, and the bending knee of obedience was his, and he took the saddle. So she said, ‘‘Tis well! Go now, and wait outside the city in the shape of an Ass, with this saddle on thy back.’
The Genie groaned, and said, ‘To hear is to obey!’ And he departed with those words, for she held him in bondage. Then she calmed down the white flames of the circles that enclosed Shibli Bagarag and the Vizier Feshnavat, and they stepped forth, marvelling at the greatness of her sorceries that held such a Genie in bondage.
