The Shaving of Shagpat, Complete

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

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So when they were alone Noorna gazed on the youth wistfully, and said in
a soft tone, 'Thou art dazed with the adventure, O youth! Surely there is
one kiss owing me: art thou willing? Am I reduced to beg it of thee? Or
dream'st thou?'

He lifted his head and replied, 'Even so.'

Thereat he stood up languidly, and went to her and kissed her. And she
smiled and said, 'I wot it will be otherwise, and thou wilt learn
swiftness of limb, brightness of eye, and the longing for earthly
beatitude, when next I ask thee, O my betrothed!'

Lo! while she spake, new light seemed in her; and it was as if a splendid
jewel were struggling to cast its beams through the sides of a crystal
vase smeared with dust and old dirt and spinnings of the damp spider. He
was amazed, and cried, 'How's this? What change is passing in thee?'

She said, 'Joy in thy kiss, and that I have 'scaped Shagpat.'

Then he: 'Shagpat? How? had that wretch claim over thee ere I came?'

But she looked fearfully at the corners of the room and exclaimed, 'Hush,
my betrothed! speak not of him in that fashion, 'tis dangerous; and my
power cannot keep off his emissaries at all times.' Then she said, 'O my
betrothed, know me a sorceress ensorcelled; not that I seem, but that I
shall be! Wait thou for the time and it will reward thee. What! thou
think'st to have plucked a wrinkled o'erripe fruit,--a mouldy pomegranate
under the branches, a sour tamarind? 'Tis well! I say nought, save that
time will come, and be thou content. It is truly as I said, that I have
thee between me and Shagpat; and that honoured one of this city thought
fit in his presumption to demand me in marriage at the hands of my
father, knowing me wise, and knowing the thing that transformed me to
this, the abominable fellow! Surely my father entertained not his
proposal save with scorn; but the King looked favourably on it, and it is
even now matter of reproach to Feshnavat, my father, that he withholdeth
me from Shagpat.'

Quoth Shibli Bagarag, 'A clothier, O Noorna, control the Vizier! and
demand of him his daughter in marriage! and a clothier influence the King
against his Vizier!'--tis, wullahy! a riddle.'

She replied, ''Tis even so, eyes of mine, my betrothed! but thou know'st
not Shagpat, and that he is. Lo! the King, and all of this city save we
three, are held in enchantment by him, and made foolish by one hair
that's in his head.'

Shibli Bagarag started in his seat like one that shineth with a
discovery, and cried, 'The Identical!'

Then she, sighing, ''Tis that indeed! but the Identical of Identicals,
the chief and head of them, and I, woe's me! I, the planter of it.'

So he said, 'How so?'

But she cried, 'I'll tell thee not here, nor aught of myself and him, and
the Genie held in bondage by me, till thou art proved by adventure, and
we float peacefully on the sea of the Bright Lily: there shalt thou see
me as I am, and hear my story, and marvel at it; for 'tis wondrous, and a
manifestation of the Power that dwelleth unseen.'

So Shibli Bagarag pondered awhile on the strange nature of the things she
hinted, and laughter seized him as he reflected on Shagpat, and the whole
city enchanted by one hair in his head; and he exclaimed, 'O Noorna,
knoweth he, Shagpat, of the might in him?'

She answered, 'Enough for his vain soul that homage is paid to him, and
he careth not for the wherefore!'

Shibli Bagarag fixed his eyes on the deep-flowered carpets of the floor,
as if reading there a matter quaintly written, and smiled, saying, 'What
boldness was mine--the making offer to shear Shagpat, the lion in his
lair, he that holdeth a whole city in enchantment! Wah! 'twas an instance
of daring!'

And Noorna said, 'Not only an entire city, but other cities affected by
him, as witness Oolb, whither thou wilt go; and there be governments and
states, and conditions of men remote, that hang upon him, Shagpat. 'Tis
even so; I swell not his size. When thou hast mastered the Event, and
sent him forth shivering from thy blade like the shorn lamb, 'twill be
known how great a thing has been achieved, and a record for the
generations to come; choice is that historian destined to record it!'

Quoth he, looking eagerly at her, 'O Noorna, what is it in thy speech
affecteth me? Surely it infuseth the vigour of wine, old wine; and I
shiver with desire to shave Shagpat, and spin threads for the historian
to weave in order. I, wullahy! had but dry visions of the greatness
destined for me till now, my betrothed! Shall I master an Event in
shaving him, and be told of to future ages? By Allah and his Prophet
(praise be to that name!), this is greatness! Say, Noorna, hadst thou
foreknowledge of me and my coming to this city?'

So she said, 'I was on the roofs one night among the stars ere moonrise,
O my betrothed, and 'twas close on the rise of this very month's moon.
The star of our enemy, Shagpat, was large and red, mine as it were
menaced by its proximity, nigh swallowed in its haughty beams and the
steady overbearings of its effulgence. 'Twas so as it had long been, when
suddenly, lo! a star from the upper heaven that shot down between them
wildly, and my star took lustre from it; and the star of Shagpat trembled
like a ring on a tightened rope, and waved and flickered, and seemed to
come forward and to retire; and 'twas presently as a comet in the sky,
bright,--a tadpole, with large head and lengthy tail, in the assembly of
the planets. This I saw: and that the stranger star was stationed by my
star, shielding it, and that it drew nearer to my star, and entered its
circle, and that the two stars seemed mixing the splendour that was
theirs. Now, that sight amazed me, and my heart in its beating quickened
with the expectation of things approaching. Surely I rendered praise, and
pressed both hands on my bosom, and watched, and behold! the comet, the
illumined tadpole, was becoming restless beneath the joint rays of the
twain that were dominating him; and he diminished, and lashed his tail
uneasily, half madly, darting as do captured beasts from the fetters that
constrain them. Then went there from thy star--for I know now 'twas
thine--a momentary flash across the head of the tadpole, and again
another and another, rapidly, pertinaciously. And from thy star there
passed repeated flashes across the head of the tadpole, till his
brilliance was as 'twere severed from him, and he, like drossy silver, a
dead shape in the conspicuous heavens. And he became yellow as the
rolling eyes of sick wretches in pain, and shrank in his place like pale
parchment at the touch of flame; dull was he as an animal fascinated by
fear, and deprived of all power to make head against the foe, darkness,
that now beset him, and usurped part of his yet lively tail, and settled
on his head, and coated part of his body. So when this tadpole, that was
once terrible to me, became turbaned, shoed, and shawled with darkness,
and there was little of him remaining visible, lo! a concluding flash
shot from thy star, and he fell heavily down the sky and below the hills,
into the sea, that is the Enchanted Sea, whose Queen is Rabesqurat,
Mistress of Illusions. Now when my soul recovered from amazement at the
marvels seen, I arose and went from the starry roofs to consult my books
of magic, and 'twas revealed to me that one was wandering to a junction
with my destiny, and that by his means the great aim would of a surety be
accomplished--Shagpat Shaved! So my purpose was to discover him; and I
made calculations, and summoned them that serve me to search for such a
youth as thou art; fairly, O my betrothed, did I preconceive thee. And so
it was that I traced a magic line from the sand-hills to the city, and
from the outer hills to the sand-hills; and whoso approached by that line
I knew was he marked out as my champion, my betrothed,--a youth destined
for great things. Was I right? The egg hatcheth. Thou art already proved
by thwackings, seasoned to the undertaking, and I doubt not thou art he
that will finish with that tadpole Shagpat, and sit in the high seat, thy
name an odour in distant lands, a joy to the historian, the Compiler of
Events, thou Master of the Event, the greatest which time will witness
for ages to come.'

When she had spoken Shibli Bagarag considered her words, and the
knowledge that he was selected by destiny as Master of the Event inflated
him; and he was a hawk in eagerness, a peacock in pride, an ostrich in
fulness of chest, crying, 'O Noorna bin Noorka! is't really so? Truly it
must be, for the readers of planets were also busy with me at the time of
my birth, interpreting of me in excessive agitation; and the thing they
foretold is as thou foretellest. I am, wullahy! marked: I walk manifest
in the eye of Providence.'

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.'

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