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Richard F. Burton - "Supplemental Nights, Volume 5"

William H. Davies - "Foliage"

Nathaniel Hawthorne - "Old Ticonderoga, A Picture of The Past"

Unknown - "The Bible, King James version, Book 8: Ruth"

The Shaving of Shagpat, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> The Shaving of Shagpat, Complete




Now, at these words the beasts with men's heads wagged their tails, all
of them, from right to left, and kept their jaws from motion, staring
stupidly at the dishes; but the dishes began to send forth stealthy
steams, insidious whispers to the nose, silver intimations of
savouriness, so that they on a sudden set up a howl, and Shibli Bagarag
puckered his garments from them as from devouring dogs, and hastened from
that hall to a third, where at the entrance a damsel stood that smiled to
him, and led him into a vast marbled chamber, forty cubits high, hung
with draperies, and in it a hundred doors; and he was in the midst of a
very rose-garden of young beauties, such as the Blest behold in Paradise,
robed in the colours of the rising and setting sun; plump, with long,
black, languishing, almond-shaped eyes, and undulating figures. So they
cried to him, 'What greeting, O our King?'

Now, he counted twenty and seven of them, and, fitting his gallantry to
verse, answered:

Poor are the heavens that have not ye
To swell their glowing plenty;
Up there but one bright moon I see,
Here mark I seven-and-twenty.

The damsels laughed and flung back their locks at his flattery, sporting
with him; and he thought, 'These be sweet maidens! I will know if they be
illusions like Rabesqurat'; so, as they were romping, he slung his right
arm round one, and held the Lily to her, but there was no change in her
save that she winked somewhat and her eyes watered; and it was so with
the others, for when they saw him hold the Lily to one they made him do
so to them likewise. Then he took the phial, and touched their lips with
the waters, and lo! they commenced luting and laughing, and singing
verses, and prattling, laughing betweenwhiles at each other; and one, a
noisy one, with long, black, unquiet tresses, and a curved foot and
roguish ankle, sang as she twirled:

My heart is another's, I cannot be tender;
Yet if thou storm it, I fain must surrender.

And another, a fresh-cheeked, fair-haired, full-eyed damsel, strong upon
her instep and stately in the bearing of her shoulders, sang shrilly:

I'm of the mountains, and he that comes to me
Like eagle must win, and like hurricane woo me.

And another, reclining on a couch buried in dusky silks, like a butterfly
under the leaves, a soft ball of beauty, sang moaningly:

Here like a fruit on the branch am I swaying;
Snatch ere I fall, love! there's death in delaying.

And another, light as an antelope on the hills, with antelope eyes edged
with kohl, and timid, graceful movements, and small, white, rounded ears,
sang clearly:

Swiftness is mine, and I fly from the sordid;
Follow me, follow! and you'll be rewarded.

And another, with large limbs and massive mould, that stepped like a cow
leisurely cropping the pasture, and shook with jewels amid her black hair
and above her brown eyes, and round her white neck and her wrists, and on
her waist, even to her ankle, sang as with a kiss upon every word:

Sweet 'tis in stillness and bliss to be basking!
He who would have me, may have for the asking.

And another, with eyebrows like a bow, and arrows of fire in her eyes,
and two rosebuds her full moist parted pouting lips, sang, clasping her
hands, and voiced like the tremulous passionate bulbul in the shadows of
the moon:

Love is my life, and with love I live only;
Give me life, lover, and leave me not lonely.

And a seventh, a very beam of beauty, and the perfection of all that is
imagined in fairness and ample grace of expression and proportion, lo!
she came straight to Shibli Bagarag, and took him by the hand and pierced
him with lightning glances, singing:

Were we not destined to meet by one planet?
Can a fate sever us?--can it, ah! can it?

And she sang tender songs to him, mazing him with blandishments, so that
the aim of existence and the summit of ambition now seemed to him the
life of a king in that palace among the damsels; and he thought, 'Wah!
these be no illusions, and they speak the thing that is in them. Wullahy,
loveliness is their portion; they call me King.'

Then she that had sung to him said, 'Surely we have been waiting thee
long to crown thee our King! Thou hast been in some way delayed, O
glorious one!'

And he answered, 'O fair ones, transcending in affability, I have
stumbled upon obstructions in my journey hither, and I have met with
adventures, but of this crowning that was to follow them I knew nought.
Wullahy, thrice have I been saluted King; I whom fate selecteth for the
shaving of Shagpat, and till now it was a beguilement, all emptiness.'

They marked his bewildered state, and some knelt before him, some held
their arms out adoringly, some leaned to him with glistening looks, and
he was fast falling a slave to their flatteries, succumbing to them;
imagination fired him with the splendours due to one that was a king, and
the thought of wearing a crown again took possession of his soul, and he
cried, 'Crown me, O my handmaidens, and delay not to crown me; for, as
the poet says:

"The king without his crown
Hath a forehead like the clown";

and the circle of my head itcheth for the symbols of majesty.'

At these words of Shibli Bagarag they arose quickly and clapped their
hands, and danced with the nimble step of gladness, exclaiming, 'O our
King! pleasant will be the time with him!' And one smoothed his head and
poured oil upon it; one brought him garments of gold and silk inwoven;
one fetched him slippers like the sun's beam in brightness; others stood
together in clusters, and with lutes and wood-instruments, low-toned,
singing odes to him; and lo! one took a needle and threaded it, and gave
the thread into the hands of Shibli Bagarag, and with the point of the
needle she pricked certain letters on his right wrist, and afterwards
pricked the same letters on a door in the wall. Then she said to him, 'Is
it in thy power to make those letters speak?'

He answered, 'We will prove how that may be.'

So he flung some drops from the phial over the letters, and they glowed
the colour of blood and flashed with a report, and it was as if a fiery
forked-tongue had darted before them and spake the words written, and
they were, 'This is the crown of him who bath achieved his aim and
resteth here.' Thereupon, she stuck the needle in the door, and he pulled
the thread, and the door drew apart, and lo! a small chamber, and on a
raised cushion of blue satin a glittering crown, thick with jewels as a
frost, such as Ambition pineth to wear, and the knees of men weaken and
bend beholding, and it lanced lights about it like a living sun. Beside
the cushion was a vacant throne, radiant as morning in the East, ablaze
with devices in gold and gems, a seat to fill the meanest soul with
sensations of majesty and tempt dervishes to the sitting posture. Shibli
Bagarag was intoxicated at the sight, and he thought, 'Wah! but if I sit
on this throne and am a king, with that crown I can command men and
things! and I have but to say, Fetch Noorna, my betrothed, from yonder
pillar in the midst of the uproarious sea!--Let the hairy Shagpat be
shaved! and behold, slaves, thousands of them, do my bidding! Wullahy,
this is greatness!' Now, he made a rush to the throne, but the damsels
held him back, crying, 'Not for thy life till we have crowned thee, our
master and lord!'

Then they took the crown and crowned him with it; and he sat upon the
throne calmly, serenely, like a Sultan of the great race accustomed to
sovereignty, tempering the awfulness of his brows with benignant glances.
So, while he sat the damsels hid their faces and started some paces from
him, as unable to bear the splendour of his presence, and in a moment,
lo! the door closed between him and them, and he was in darkness. Then he
heard a voice of the damsels cry in the hall, 'The ninety and ninth!
Peace now for us and blissfulness with our lords, for now all are filled
save the door of the Sword, which maketh the hundredth.' After that he
heard the same voice say, 'Leave them, O my sisters!'

So he listened to the noise of their departing, and knew he had been
duped. Surely his soul cursed him as he sat crowned and throned in that
darkness! He seized the crown to dash it to the earth, but the crown was
fixed on his forehead and would not come off; neither had he force to
rise from the throne. Now, the thought of Noorna, his betrothed, where
she rested waiting for him to deliver her, filled Shibli Bagarag with the
extremes of anguish; and he lifted his right arm and dashed it above his
head in the violence of his grief, striking in the motion a hidden gong
that gave forth a burst of thunder and a roll of bellowings, and lo! the
door opened before him, and the throne as he sat on it moved out of the
chamber into the hall where he had seen the damsels that duped him, and
on every side of the hall doors opened; and he marvelled to see men, old
and young, beardless and venerable, sitting upon thrones and crowned with
crowns, motionless, with eyes like stones in the recesses. He thought,
'These be other dupes! Wallaby! a drop of the waters of Paravid upon
their lips might reveal mysteries, and guide me to the Sword of my
seeking.' So, as he considered how to get at them from the seat of his
throne, his gaze fell on a mirror, and he beheld the crown on his
forehead what it was, bejewelled asses' ears stiffened upright, and
skulls of monkeys grinning with gems! The sight of that crowning his head
convulsed Shibli Bagarag with laughter, and, as he laughed, his seat upon
the throne was loosened, and he pitched from it, but the crown stuck to
him and was tenacious of its hold as the lion that pounceth upon a
victim. He bowed to the burden of necessity, and took the phial, and
touched the lips of one that sat crowned on a throne with the waters in
the phial; and it was a man of exceeding age, whitened with time, and in
the long sweep of his beard like a mountain clad with snow from the peak
that is in the sky to the base that slopeth to the valley. Then he
addressed the old man on his throne, saying, 'Tell me, O King! how camest
thou here? and in search of what?'

The old man's lips moved, and he muttered in deep tones, 'When cometh he
of the ninety-and-ninth door?'

So Shibli Bagarag cried, 'Surely he is before thee, in Aklis.'

And the old man said, 'Let him ask no secrets; but when he hath reached
the Sword forget not to flash it in this hall, for the sake of
brotherhood in adventure.'

After that he would answer no word to any questioning.




THE SONS OF AKLIS

Now, Shibli Bagarag thought, 'The poet is right in Aklis as elsewhere, in
his words:

"The cunning of our oft-neglected wit
Doth best the keyhole of occasion fit";

and whoso looketh for help from others looketh the wrong way in an
undertaking. Wah! I will be bold and batter at the hundredth door, which
is the door of the Sword.' So he advanced straightway to the door, which
was one of solid silver, charactered with silver letters, and knocked
against it three knocks; and a voice within said, 'What spells?'

He answered, 'Paravid; Garraveen; and the Lily of the Sea!'

Upon that the voice said, 'Enter by virtue of the spells!' and the silver
door swung open, discovering a deep pit, lightened by a torch, and across
it, bridging it, a string of enormous eggs, rocs' eggs, hollowed, and so
large that a man might walk through them without stooping. At the side of
each egg three lamps were suspended from a claw, and the shell passage
was illumined with them from end to end. Shibli Bagarag thought, 'These
eggs are of a surety the eggs of the Roc mastered by Aklis with his
sword!' Now, as the sight of Shibli Bagarag grew familiar to the place,
he beheld at the bottom of the pit a fluttering mass of blackness and two
sickly eyes that glittered below.

Then thought he, 'Wah! if that be the Roc, and it not dead, will the bird
suffer one to defile its eggs with other than the sole of the foot,
naked?' He undid his sandals and kicked off the slippers given him by the
damsels that had duped him, and went into the first egg over the abyss,
and into the second, and into the third, and into the fourth, and into
the fifth. Surely the eggs swung with him, and bent; and the fear of
their breaking and he falling into the maw of the terrible bird made him
walk unevenly. When he had come to the seventh egg, which was the last,
it shook and swung violently, and he heard underneath the flapping of the
wings of the Roc, as with eagerness expecting a victim to prey upon. He
sustained his soul with the firmness of resolve and darted himself
lengthwise to the landing, clutching a hold with his right hand; as he
did so, the bridge of eggs broke, and he heard the feathers of the bird
in agitation, and the bird screaming a scream of disappointment as he
scrambled up the sides of the pit.

Now, Shibli Bagarag failed not to perform two prostrations to Allah, and
raised the song of gratitude for his preservation when he found himself
in safety. Then he looked up, and lo! behind a curtain, steps leading to
an anteroom, and beyond that a chamber like the chamber of kings where
they sit in state dispensing judgements, like the sun at noon in
splendour; and in the chamber seven youths, tall and comely young men,
calm as princes in their port, each one dressed in flowing robes, and
with a large glowing pearl in the front of their turbans. They advanced
to meet him, saying, 'Welcome to Aklis, thou that art proved worthy! 'Tis
holiday now with us'; and they took him by the hand and led him with them
in silence past fountain-jets and porphyry pillars to where a service
with refreshments was spread, meats, fowls with rice, sweetmeats,
preserves, palateable mixtures, and monuments of the cook's art, goblets
of wine like liquid rubies. Then one of the youths said to Shibli
Bagarag, 'Thou hast come to us crowned, O our guest! Now, it is not our
custom to pay homage, but thou shalt presently behold them that will, so
let not thy kingliness droop with us, but feast royally.'

And Shibli Bagarag said, 'O my princes, surely it is a silly matter to
crown a mouse! Humility hath depressed my stature! Wullahy, I have had
warning in the sticking of this crown to my brows, and it sticketh like
an abomination.'

They laughed at him, saying, 'It was the heaviness of that crown which
overweighted thee in the bridge of the abyss, and few be they that bear
it and go not to feed the Roc.'

Now, they feasted together, interchanging civilities, offering to each
other choice morsels, dainties. And the anecdotes of Shibli Bagarag, his
simplicity and his honesty, and his vanity and his airiness, and the
betraying tongue of the barber, diverted the youths; and they plied him
with old wine till his stores of merriment broke forth and were as a
river swollen by torrents of the mountain; and the seven youths laughed
at him, spluttering with laughter, lurching with it. Surely, he described
to them the loquacity of Baba Mustapha his uncle, and they laughed so
that their chins were uppermost; but at his mention of Shagpat greater
gravity was theirs, and they smoothed their faces solemnly, and the sun
of their merriment was darkened for awhile. Then they took to flinging
about pellets of a sugared preparation, and reciting verses in praise of
jovial living, challenging to drink this one and that one, passing the
cup with a stanza. Shibli Bagarag thought, 'What a life is this led by
these youths! a fair one! 'Tis they that be the sons of Aklis who sharpen
the Sword of Events; yet live they in jollity, skimming from the
profusion of abundance that which floateth!'

Now, marking him contemplative, one of the youths shouted, 'The King
lacketh homage!'

And another called, 'Admittance for his people!'

Then the seven arose and placed Shibli Bagarag on an elevation in the
midst of them, and lo! a troop of black slaves leading by the collar,
asses, and by a string, monkeys. Now, for the asses they brayed to the
Evil One, and the monkeys were prankish, pulling against the string, till
they caught sight of Shibli Bagarag. Then was it as if they had been
awestricken; and they came forward to him with docile steps, eyeing the
crown on his head, and prostrated themselves, the asses and the monkeys,
like creatures in whom glowed the lamp of reason and the gift of
intelligence. So Shibli Bagarag drooped his jaw and was ashamed, and he
cried, 'my princes! am I a King of these?'

They answered, 'A King in mightiness! Sultan of a race!'

So he said, 'It is certain I shall need physic to support such a
sovereignty! And I must be excused liberal allowances of old wine to sit
in state among them. Wullahy! they were best gone for awhile. Send them
from me, O my princes! I sicken.'

And he called to the animals, 'Away! begone!' frowning.

Then said the youths, 'Well commanded! and like a King! See, they troop
from thy presence obediently.'

Now the animals fled from before the brows of Shibli Bagarag, and when
the chamber was empty of them the seven young men said, 'Of a surety thou
wert flattered to observe the aspect of these animals at beholding thee.'

But he cried, 'Not so, O my princes; there is nought flattering in the
homage of asses and monkeys.'

Then they said, 'O Sultan of asses, ruler of monkeys, better that than
thyself an ass and an ape! As was said by Shah Kasirwan, "I prefer being
king of beasts worshipped by beasts, rather than a crowned beast
worshipped by men"; and it was well said. Wullahy! the kings of Roum
quote it.'

Now Shibli Bagarag was not rendered oblivious of the Sword of his quest
by the humour of these youths, or the wine-bibbings, and he exclaimed
while they were turning up the heels of their cups, 'O ye sons of Aklis,
know that I have come hither for the Sword sharpened by your hands, for
the releasing of my betrothed, Noorna bin Noorka, daughter of the Vizier
Feshnavat, and for the shaving of Shagpat.'

While he was proceeding to recount the story of his search for the Sword,
they said, 'Enough, O potentate of the braying class and of the
scratching tribe! we have seen thee through the eye of Aklis since the
time of thy first thwacking. What says the poet?

"A day for toil and a day for rest
Gives labour zeal, and pleasure zest."

So, of thy seeking let us hear to-morrow; but now drink with us, and make
merry, and touch the springs of memory; spout forth verses, quaint ones,
suitable to the hour and the entertainment. Wullahy! drink with us! taste
life! Let the humours flow.'

Then they made a motion to some slaves, and presently a clattering of
anklets struck the ear of Shibli Bagarag: and he beheld dancing-girls,
moons of beauty and elegance, and they danced wild dances, and dances
graceful and leopard-like and serpent-like in movement; and the youths
flung flowers at them, applauding them. Then came other sets of dancers
even lovelier, more languishing; and again others with tambourines and
musical instruments, that sang ravishingly. So the senses of Shibli
Bagarag were all taken with what he saw and heard, and ate and drank; and
by degrees a mist came before his eyes, and the sweet sounds and voices
of the girls grew distant, and it was with difficulty he kept his back
from the length of the cushions that were about him. Then he thought of
Noorna, and that she sang to him and danced, and when he rose to embrace
her she was Rabesqurat by the light of the Lily! And he thought of
Shagpat, and that in shaving him the blade was checked in its rapid
sweep, and blunted by a stumpy twine of hair that waxed in size and
became the head of Karaz that gulped at him a wide devouring gulp, and
took him in, and flew up with him, leaving Shagpat half sheared. Then he
thought himself struggling halfway down the throat of the monstrous Roc,
and that, when he was wholly inside the Roc, he was in a wide-arched
passage crowded with lamps, and at the end of the passage Noorna in the
clutch of Karaz, she shouting, 'The Sword, the Sword!'

Now, while he felt for the Sword wherewith to release her from the Genie,
his eyes opened, and he saw day through a casement, and that he had
reposed on an embroidered couch in the corner of a stately room
ornamented with carvings of blue and gold. So while he wondered and
yawned, gaping, slaves started up from the floor and led him to a bath of
coloured marble, and bathed him in perfumed waters, and dressed him in a
dress of yellow silk, rich and ample. Then they paraded before him
through lesser apartments and across terraces, till they came to a great
hall; loftier and more spacious than any he had yet beheld, with
fountains at the two ends, and in the centre a tree with golden spreading
branches and leaves of gold; among the leaves gold-feathered birds, and
fruits of all seasons and every description--the drooping grape and the
pleasant-smelling quince, and the blood-red pomegranate, and the apricot,
and the green and rosy apple, and the gummy date, and the oily
pistachio-nut, and peaches, and citrons, and oranges, and the plum, and
the fig. Surely, they were countless in number, melting with ripeness,
soft, full to bursting; and the birds darted among them like sun-flashes.
Now, Shibli Bagarag thought, 'This is a wondrous tree! Wullahy! there is
nought like it save the tree in the hall of the Prophet in Paradise,
feeding the faithful!' As he regarded it he heard his name spoken in the
hall, and turning he beheld seven youths in royal garments, that were
like the youths he had feasted with, and yet unlike them, pale, and stern
in their manners, their courtesy as the courtesy of kings. They said,
'Sit with us and eat the morning's meal, O our guest!'

So he sat with them under the low branches of the tree; and they whistled
the tune of one bird and of another bird, and of another, and lo! those
different birds flew down with golden baskets hanging from their bills,
and in the baskets fruits and viands and sweetmeats, and cool drinks. And
Shibli Bagarag ate from the baskets of the birds, watching the action of
the seven youths and the difference that was in them. He sought to make
them recognise him and acknowledge their carouse of the evening that was
past, but they stared at him strangely and seemed offended at the
allusion, neither would they hear mention of the Sword of his seeking.
Presently, one of the youths stood upon his feet and cried, "The time for
kings to sit in judgement!"

And the youths arose and led Shibli Bagarag to a hall of ebony, and
seated him on the upper seat, themselves standing about him; and lo!
asses and monkeys came before him, complaining of the injustice of men
and their fellows, in brays and bellows and hoots. Now, at the sight of
them again Shibli Bagarag was enraged, and he said to the youths, 'How!
do ye not mock me, O masters of Aklis!'

But they said only, 'The burden of his crown is for the King.'

He cooled, thinking, 'I will use a spell.' So he touched the lips of an
animal with the waters of Paravid, and the animal prated volubly in our
language of the kick this ass had given him, and the jibe of that monkey,
and of his desire of litigation with such and such a beast for pasture;
and the others when they spake had the same complaints to make. Shibli
Bagarag listened to them gravely, and it was revealed to him that he who
ruleth over men hath a labour and duties of hearing and judging and
dispensing judgement similar to those of him who ruleth over apes and
asses. Then said he, 'O youths, my princes! methinks the sitting in this
seat giveth a key to secret sources of wisdom; and I see what it is, the
glory and the exaltation coveted by men.' Now, he took from the asses and
the monkeys one, and said to it, 'Be my chief Vizier,' and to another,
'Be my Chamberlain!' and to another, 'Be my Treasurer!' and so on, till a
dispute arose between the animals, and jealousy of each other was visible
in their glances, and they appealed to him clamorously. So he said, 'What
am I to ye?'

They answered, 'Our King!'

And he said, 'How so?'

They answered, 'By the crowning of the brides of Aklis.'

Then he said, 'What be ye, O my subjects?'

They answered, 'Men that were searchers of the Sword and plunged into the
tank of temptation.'

And he said, 'How that?'

They answered, 'By the lures of vanity, the blinding of ambition, and
tasting the gall of the Roc.'

So Shibli Bagarag leaned to the seven youths, saying, 'O my princes, but
for not tasting the gall of the Roc I might be as one of these. Wullahy!
I the King am warned by base creatures.' Then he said to the animals,
'Have ye still a longing for the crown?'

And they cried, all of them, 'O light of the astonished earth, we care
for nought other than it.'

So he said, 'And is it known to ye how to dispossess the wearer of his
burden?'

They answered, 'By a touch of the gall of the Roc on his forehead.'

Then he lifted his arms, crying, 'Hie out of my presence! and whoso of ye
fetcheth a drop of the gall, with that one will I exchange the crown.'

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