THE TWO DEAF MEN AND THE TRAVELLER--THE DEAF PERSIAN AND THE
HORSEMAN--LAZY SERVANTS--CHINESE HUMOUR: THE RICH MAN AND THE SMITHS;
HOW TO KEEP PLANTS ALIVE; CRITICISING A PORTRAIT--THE PERSIAN COURTIER
AND HIS OLD FRIEND--THE SCRIBE--THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE WIT--THE
PERSIAN AND HIS CAT--A LIST OF BLOCKHEADS--THE ARAB AND HIS CAMEL--A
WITTY BAGHDÁDÍ--THE UNLUCKY SLIPPERS.
It is well known that deaf men generally dislike having their infirmity
alluded to, and even endeavour to conceal it as much as possible.
Charles Lamb, or some other noted wit, seeing a deaf acquaintance on the
other side of the street one day while walking with a friend, stopped
and motioned to him; then opened his mouth as if speaking in a loud
tone, but saying not a word. "What are you bawling for?" demanded the
deaf one. "D'ye think I can't hear?"--Two Eastern stories I have met
with are most diverting examples of this peculiarity of deaf folks. One
is related by my friend Pandit Natésa Sastrí in his _Folk-Lore of
Southern India_, of which a few copies were recently issued at
Bombay.[29] A deaf man was sitting one day where three roads crossed,
when a neatherd happened to pass that way. He had lately lost a good cow
and a calf, and had been seeking them some days. When he saw the deaf
man sitting by the way he took him for a soothsayer, and asked him to
find out by his knowledge of magic where the cow would likely be found.
The herdsman was also very deaf, and the other, without hearing what he
had said, abused him, and said he wished to be left undisturbed, at the
same time stretching out his hand and pointing at his face. This
pointing the herd supposed to indicate the direction where the lost cow
and calf should be sought; thus thinking (for he, too, had not heard a
word of what the other man had said to him), the herd went off in
search, resolving to present the soothsayer with the calf if he found it
with the cow. To his joy, and by mere chance, of course, he found them
both, and, returning with them to the deaf man (still sitting by the
wayside), he pointed to the calf and asked him to accept of it. Now, it
so happened that the calf's tail was broken and crooked, and the deaf
man supposed that the herdsman was blaming him for having broken it, and
by a wave of his hand he denied the charge. This the poor deaf neatherd
mistook for a refusal of the calf and a demand for the cow, so he said:
"How very greedy you are, to be sure! I promised you the calf, and not
the cow." "Never!" exclaimed the deaf man in a rage. "I know nothing of
you or your cow and calf. I never broke the calf's tail." While they
were thus quarrelling, without understanding each other, a third man
happened to pass, and seeing his opportunity to profit by their
deafness, he said to the neatherd in a loud voice, yet so as not to be
heard by the other deaf man: "Friend, you had better go away with your
cow. Those soothsayers are always greedy. Leave the calf with me, and I
shall make him accept it." The poor neatherd, highly pleased to have
secured his cow, went off, leaving the calf with the traveller. Then
said the traveller to the deaf man: "It is, indeed, very unlawful,
friend, for that neatherd to charge you with an offence which you did
not commit; but never mind, since you have a friend in me. I shall
contrive to make clear to him your innocence; leave this matter to me."
So saying, he walked away with the calf, and the deaf man went home,
well pleased that he had escaped from such a serious accusation.
[29] Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co., London, have in the press a
new edition of this work, to be entitled "_Tales of the
Sun; or, Popular Tales of Southern India_." I am
confident that the collection will be highly appreciated
by many English readers, while its value to
story-comparers can hardly be over-rated.
The other story is of a deaf Persian who was taking home a quantity of
wheat, and, coming to a river which he must cross, he saw a horseman
approach; so he said to himself: "When that horseman comes up, he will
first salute me, 'Peace be with thee'; next he will ask, 'What is the
depth of this river?' and after that he will ask, how many _máns_ of
wheat I have with me." (A _mán_ is a Persian weight, which seems to vary
in different places.) But the deaf man's surmises were all in vain; for
when the horseman came up to him, he cried: "Ho! my man, what is the
depth of this river?" The deaf one replied: "Peace be with thee, and the
mercy of Allah and his blessing." At this the horseman laughed, and
said: "May they cut off thy beard!" The deaf one rejoined: "To my neck
and bosom." The horseman said: "Dust be on thy mouth!" The deaf man
answered: "Eighty _máns_ of it."
* * * * *
The laziness of domestics is a common complaint in this country at the
present day, but surely never was there a more lazy servant than the
fellow whose exploits are thus recorded: A Persian husbandman one night
desired his servant to shut the door, and the man said it was already
shut. In the morning his master bade him open the door, and he coolly
replied that, foreseeing this request, he had left it open the preceding
night. Another night his master bade him rise and see whether it rained.
But he called for the dog that lay at the door, and finding his paws
dry, answered that the night was fair; then being desired to see whether
the fire was extinguished, he called the cat, and finding her paws cold,
replied in the affirmative.--This story had gained currency in Europe in
the 13th century, and it forms one of the mediæval _Latin Stories_
edited, for the Percy Society, by Thos. Wright, where it is entitled,
"De Maimundo Armigero." There is another Persian story of a lazy fellow
whose master, being sick, said to him: "Go and get me some medicine."
"But," rejoined he, "it may happen that the doctor is not at home." "You
will find him at home." "But if I do find him at home he may not give me
the medicine," quoth the servant. "Then take this note to him and he
will give it to you." "Well," persisted the fellow, "he may give me the
medicine, but suppose it does you no good?" "Villain!" exclaimed his
master, out of all patience, "will you do as I bid you, instead of
sitting there so coolly, raising difficulties?" "Good sir," reasoned
this lazy philosopher, "admitting that the medicine should produce some
effect, what will be the ultimate result? We must all die some time, and
what does it matter whether it be to-day or to-morrow?"
* * * * *
The Chinese seem not a whit behind other peoples in appreciating a good
jest, as has been shown by the tales and _bon mots_ rendered into French
by Stanislas Julien and other eminent _savans_. Here are three specimens
of Chinese humour:
A wealthy man lived between the houses of two blacksmiths, and was
constantly annoyed by the noise of their hammers, so that he could not
get rest, night or day. First he asked them to strike more gently; then
he made them great promises if they would remove at once. The two
blacksmiths consented, and he, overjoyed to get rid of them, prepared a
grand banquet for their entertainment. When the banquet was over, he
asked them where they were going to take up their new abodes, and they
replied--to the intense dismay of their worthy host, no doubt: "He who
lives on the left of your house is going to that on the right; and he
who lives on your right is going to the house on your left."
There is a keen satirical hit at the venality of Chinese judges in our
next story. A husbandman, who wished to rear a particular kind of
vegetable, found that the plants always died. He consulted an
experienced gardener as to the best means of preventing the death of
plants. The old man replied: "The affair is very simple; with every
plant put down a piece of money." His friend asked what effect money
could possibly have in a matter of this kind. "It is the case
now-a-days," said the old man, "that where there is money _life_ is
safe, but where there is none death is the consequence."
The tale of Apelles and the shoemaker is familiar to every schoolboy,
but the following story of the Chinese painter and his critics will be
new to most readers: A gentleman having got his portrait painted, the
artist suggested that he should consult the passers-by as to whether it
was a good likeness. Accordingly he asked the first that was going past:
"Is this portrait like me?" The man said: "The _cap_ is very like." When
the next was asked, he said: "The _dress_ is very like." He was about to
ask a third, when the painter stopped him, saying: "The cap and the
dress do not matter much; ask the person what he thinks of the face."
The third man hesitated a long time, and then said: "The _beard_ is very
like."
* * * * *
And now we shall revert once more to Persian jests, many of which are,
however, also current in India, through the medium of the Persian
language. When a man becomes suddenly rich it not unfrequently follows
that he becomes as suddenly oblivious of his old friends. Thus, a
Persian having obtained a lucrative appointment at court, a friend of
his came shortly afterwards to congratulate him thereon. The new
courtier asked him: "Who are you? And why do you come here?" The other
coolly replied: "Do you not know me, then? I am your old friend, and am
come to condole with you, having heard that you had lately lost your
sight."--This recalls the clever epigram:
When Jack was poor, the lad was frank and free;
Of late he's grown brimful of pride and pelf;
You wonder that he don't remember me?
Why, don't you see, Jack has forgot himself!
The humour of the following is--to me, at least--simply exquisite: A man
went to a professional scribe and asked him to write a letter for him.
The scribe said that he had a pain in his foot. "A pain in your foot!"
echoed the man. "I don't want to send you to any place that you should
make such an excuse." "Very true," said the scribe; "but, whenever I
write a letter for any one, I am always sent for to read it, because no
one else can make it out."--And this is a very fair specimen of ready
wit: During a season of great drought in Persia, a schoolmaster at the
head of his pupils marched out of Shíráz to pray (at the tomb of some
saint in the suburbs) for rain, when they were met by a waggish fellow,
who inquired where they were going. The preceptor informed him, and
added that, no doubt, Allah would listen to the prayers of innocent
children. "Friend," quoth the wit, "if that were the case, I fear there
would not be a schoolmaster left alive."
The "harmless, necessary cat" has often to bear the blame of
depredations in which she had no share--especially the "lodging-house
cat"; and, that such is the fact in Persia as well as nearer our own
doors, let a story related by the celebrated poet Jámí serve as
evidence: A husband gave a _mán_ of meat to his wife, bidding her cook
it for his dinner. The woman roasted it and ate it all herself, and when
her husband asked for the meat she said the cat had stolen it. The
husband weighed the cat forthwith, and found that she had not increased
in weight by eating so much meat; so, with a hundred perplexing
thoughts, he struck his hand on his knee, and, upbraiding his wife,
said: "O lady, doubtless the cat, like the meat, weighed one _mán_; the
meat would add another _mán_ thereto. This point is not clear to
me--that two _máns_ should become one _mán_. If this is the cat, where
is the meat? And if this is the meat, why has it the form of the cat?"
Readers of our early English jest-books will perhaps remember the story
of a court-jester being facetiously ordered by the king to make out a
list of all the fools in his dominions, who replied that it would be a
much easier task to write down a list of all the wise men. I fancy there
is some trace of this incident in the following Persian story, though
the details are wholly different: Once upon a time a party of merchants
exhibited to a king some fine horses, which pleased him so well that he
bought them, and gave the merchants besides a large sum of money to pay
for more horses which they were to bring from their own country. Some
time after this the king, being merry with wine, said to his chief
vazír: "Make me out a list of all the blockheads in my kingdom." The
vazír replied that he had already made out such a list, and had put his
Majesty's name at the top. "Why so?" demanded the king. "Because," said
the vazír, "you gave a great sum of money for horses to be brought by
merchants for whom no person is surety, nor does any one know to what
country they belong; and this is surely a sign of stupidity." "But what
if they should bring the horses?" The vazír readily replied: "If they
should bring the horses, I should then erase your Majesty's name and put
the names of the merchants in its place."[30]
[30] A similar incident is found in the 8th chapter of the
Spanish work, _El Conde Lucanor_, written, in the 14th
century, by Prince Don Juan Manuel, where a pretended
alchemist obtains from a king a large sum of money in
order that he should procure in his own distant country
a certain thing necessary for the transmutation of the
baser metals into gold. The impostor, of course, did not
return, and so on, much the same as in the above.--Many
others of Don Manuel's tales are traceable to Eastern
sources; he was evidently familiar with the Arabic
language, and from his long intercourse with the Moors
doubtless became acquainted with Asiatic story-books.
His manner of telling the stories is, however, wholly
his own, and some of them appear to be of his own
invention.--There is a variant of the same story in
_Pasquils Jests and Mother Bunches Merriments_, in which
a servant enters his master's name in a list of all the
fools of his acquaintance, because he had lately lent
his cousin twenty pounds.
Everybody knows the story of the silly old woman who went to market with
a cow and a hen for sale, and asked only five shillings for the cow, but
ten pounds for the hen. But no such fool was the Arab who lost his
camel, and, after a long and fruitless search, anathematised the errant
quadruped and her father and her mother, and swore by the Prophet that,
should he find her, he would sell her for a dirham (sixpence). At length
his search was successful, and he at once regretted his oath; but such
an oath must not be violated, so he tied a cat round the camel's neck,
and went about proclaiming: "I will sell this camel for a dirham, and
this cat for a hundred dínars (fifty pounds); but I will not sell one
without the other." A man who passed by and heard this exclaimed: "What
a very desirable bargain that camel would be if she had not such a
_collar_ round her neck!"[31]
[31] A variant of this occurs in the _Heptameron_, an
uncompleted work in imitation of the _Decameron_,
ascribed to Marguerite, queen of Navarre (16th century),
but her _valet de chambre_ Bonaventure des Periers is
supposed to have had a hand in its composition. In Novel
55 it is related that a merchant in Saragossa on his
death-bed desired his wife to sell a fine Spanish horse
for as much as it would fetch and give the money to the
mendicant friars. After his death his widow did not
approve of such a legacy, but, in order to obey her late
husband's will, she instructed a servant to go to the
market and offer the horse for a ducat and her cat for
ninety-nine ducats, both, however, to be sold together.
A gentleman purchased the horse and the cat, well
knowing that the former was fully worth a hundred
ducats, and the widow handed over one ducat--for which
the horse was nominally sold--to the mendicant friars.
For readiness of wit the Arabs would seem to compare very favourably
with any race, European or Asiatic, and many examples of their
felicitous repartees are furnished by native historians and grammarians.
One of the best is: When a khalíf was addressing the people in a mosque
on his accession to the khalífate, and told them, among other things in
his own praise, that the plague which had so long raged in Baghdád had
ceased immediately he became khalíf; an old fellow present shouted: "Of
a truth, Allah was too merciful to give us both _thee_ and the plague at
the same time."
* * * * *
The story of the Unlucky Slippers in Cardonne's _Mélanges de Littérature
Orientale_ is a very good specimen of Arabian humour:[32]
[32] Cardonne took this story from a Turkish work entitled
"_Ajá'ib el-ma'ásir wa ghará'ib en-nawádir_ (the Wonders
of Remarkable Incidents and Rarities of Anecdotes)," by
Ahmed ibn Hemdem Khetkhody, which was composed for
Sultan Murád IV, who reigned from A.D. 1623 to 1640.
In former times there lived in the famous city of Baghdád a miserly old
merchant named Abú Kasim. Although very rich, his clothes were mere
rags; his turban was of coarse cloth, and exceedingly dirty; but his
slippers were perfect curiosities--the soles were studded with great
nails, while the upper leathers consisted of as many different pieces as
the celebrated ship Argos. He had worn them during ten years, and the
art of the ablest cobblers in Baghdád had been exhausted in preventing a
total separation of the parts; in short, by frequent accessions of nails
and patches they had become so heavy that they passed into a proverb,
and anything ponderous was compared to Abú Kasim's slippers. Walking one
day in the great bazaar, the purchase of a large quantity of crystal was
offered to this merchant, and, thinking it a bargain, he bought it. Not
long after this, hearing that a bankrupt perfumer had nothing left to
sell but some rose-water, he took advantage of the poor man's
misfortune, and purchased it for half the value. These lucky
speculations had put him into good humour, but instead of giving an
entertainment, according to the custom of merchants when they have made
a profitable bargain, Abú Kasim deemed it more expedient to go to the
bath, which he had not frequented for some time. As he was undressing,
one of his acquaintances told him that his slippers made him the
laughing-stock of the whole city, and that he ought to provide himself
with a new pair. "I have been thinking about it," he answered; "however,
they are not so very much worn but they will serve some time longer."
While he was washing himself, the kází of Baghdád came also to bathe.
Abú Kasim, coming out before the judge, took up his clothes but could
not find his slippers--a new pair being placed in their room. Our miser,
persuaded, because he wished it, that the friend who had spoken to him
about his old slippers had made him a present, without hesitation put on
these fine ones, and left the bath highly delighted. But when the kází
had finished bathing, his servants searched in vain for his slippers;
none could be found but a wretched pair, which were at once identified
as those of Abú Kasim. The officers hastened after the supposed thief,
and, bringing him back with the theft on his feet, the kází, after
exchanging slippers, committed him to prison. There was no escaping from
the claws of justice without money, and, as Abú Kasim was known to be
very rich, he was fined in a considerable sum.
On returning home, our merchant, in a fit of indignation, flung his
slippers into the Tigris, that ran beneath his window. Some days after
they were dragged out in a fisherman's net that came up more heavy than
usual. The nails with which the soles were thickly studded had torn the
meshes of the net, and the fisherman, exasperated against the miserly
Abú Kasim and his slippers--for they were known to everyone--determined
to throw them into his house through the window he had left open. The
slippers, thrown with great force, reached the jars of rose-water, and
smashed them in pieces, to the intense consternation of the owner.
"Cursed slippers!" cried he, tearing his beard, "you shall cause me no
farther mischief!" So saying, he took a spade and began to dig a hole in
his garden to bury them. One of his neighbours, who had long borne him
ill-will, perceiving him busied in digging the ground, ran at once to
inform the governor that Abú Kasim had discovered some hidden treasure
in his garden. Nothing more was needful to rouse the cupidity of the
commandant. In vain did our miser protest that he had found no treasure;
and that he only meant to bury his old slippers. The governor had
counted on the money, so the afflicted man could only preserve his
liberty at the expense of a large sum of money. Again heartily cursing
the slippers, in order to effectually rid himself of them, he threw them
into an aqueduct at some distance from the city, persuaded that he
should now hear no more of them. But his evil genius had not yet
sufficiently plagued him: the slippers got into the mouth of the pipe
and stopped the flow of the water. The keepers of the aqueduct made
haste to repair the damage, and, finding the obstruction was caused by
Abú Kasim's slippers, complained of this to the governor, and once more
was Abú Kasim heavily fined, but the governor considerately returned him
the slippers. He now resolved to burn them, but, finding them thoroughly
soaked with water, he exposed them to the sun upon the terrace of his
house. A neighbour's dog, perceiving the slippers, leaped from the
terrace of his master's house upon that of Abú Kasim, and, seizing one
of them in his mouth, he let it drop into the street: the fatal slipper
fell directly on the head of a woman who was passing at the time, and
the fright as well as the violence of the blow caused her to miscarry.
Her husband brought his complaint before the kází, and Abú Kasim was
again sentenced to pay a fine proportioned to the calamity he was
supposed to have occasioned. He then took the slippers in his hand, and,
with a vehemence that made the judge laugh, said: "Behold, my lord, the
fatal instruments of my misfortune! These cursed slippers have at length
reduced me to poverty. Vouchsafe, therefore, to publish an order that no
one may any more impute to me the disasters they may yet occasion." The
kází could not refuse his request, and thus Abú Kasim learned, to his
bitter cost, the danger of wearing his slippers too long.