THE COVETOUS GOLDSMITH--THE KING WHO DIED OF LOVE--THE DISCOVERY OF
MUSIC--THE SEVEN REQUISITES OF A PERFECT WOMAN.
To quit, for the present at least, the regions of fable and magic, and
return to tales of common life: the 30th recital in Kádíri's abridged
text is of
_The Goldsmith who lost his Life through his Covetousness._
A soldier finds a purse of gold on the highway, and entrusts it to the
keeping of a goldsmith (how frequently do goldsmiths figure in these
stories--and never to the credit of the craft!), but when he comes to
demand it back the other denies all knowledge of it. The soldier cites
him before the kází, but he still persists in denying that he had ever
received any money from the complainant. The kází was, however,
convinced of the truth of the soldier's story, so he goes to the house
of the goldsmith, and privately causes two of his own attendants to be
locked up in a large chest that was in one of the rooms. He then
confines the goldsmith and his wife in the same room. During the night
the concealed men hear the goldsmith inform his wife where he had hidden
the soldier's money; and next morning, when the kází comes again and is
told by his men what they had heard the goldsmith say to his wife about
the money, he causes search to be made, and, finding it, hangs the
goldsmith on the spot.
* * * * *
Kázís are often represented in Persian stories as being very shrewd and
ingenious in convicting the most expert rogues, but this device for
discovering the goldsmith's criminality is certainly one of the
cleverest examples.
* * * * *
On the 36th Night of MS. (26th of Kádiri) the loquacious bird relates
the story of
_The King who died of Love for a Merchant's beautiful Daughter._
A merchant had a daughter, the fame of whose beauty drew many suitors
for her hand, but he rejected them all; and when she was of proper age
he wrote a letter to the king, describing her charms and
accomplishments, and respectfully offering her to him in marriage. The
king, already in love with the damsel from this account of her beauty,
sends his four vazírs to the merchant's house to ascertain whether she
was really as charming as her father had represented her to be. They
find that she far surpassed the power of words to describe; but,
considering amongst themselves that should the king take this bewitching
girl to wife, he would become so entangled in the meshes of love as
totally to neglect the affairs of the state, they underrate her beauty
to the king, who then gives up all thought of her. But it chanced one
day that the king himself beheld the damsel on the terrace of her house,
and, perceiving that his vazírs had deceived him, he sternly reprimanded
them, at the same time expressing his fixed resolution of marrying the
girl. The vazírs frankly confessed that their reason for misrepresenting
the merchant's daughter to him was their fear lest, possessing such a
charming bride, he should forget his duty to the state; upon which the
king, struck with their anxiety for his true interests, resolved to deny
himself the happiness of marrying the girl. But he could not suppress
his affection for her: he fell sick, and soon after died, the victim of
love.
* * * * *
This story forms the 17th of the Twenty-five Tales of a Demon (_Vetála
Panchavinsati_), according to the Sanskrit version found in the _Kathá
Sarit Ságara_; but its great antiquity is proved by the circumstance
that it is found in a Buddhistic work dating probably 200 years before
our era--namely, Buddhaghosha's Parables. "Dying for love," says
Richardson, "is considered amongst us as a mere poetical figure, and we
can certainly support the reality by few examples; but in Eastern
countries it seems to be something more, many words in the Arabic and
Persian languages which express love implying also melancholy; madness,
and death." Shakspeare affirms that "men have died, and worms have eaten
them, but not for love." There is, however, one notable instance of this
on record, in the story (as related by Warton, in his _History of
English Poetry_) of the gallant troubadour Geoffrey Rudel, who died for
love--and love, too, from hearsay description of the beauty of the
Countess of Tripoli.
* * * * *
On the 14th Night the Parrot entertains the Lady with a very curious
account of
_The Discovery of Music._
Some attribute, says the learned and eloquent feathered sage (according
to Gerrans), the discovery to the sounds made by a large stone against
the frame of an oil-press; and others to the noise of meat when
roasting; but the sages of Hind [India] are of opinion that it
originated from the following accident: As a learned Bráhman was
travelling to the court of an illustrious rájá he rested about the
middle of the day under the shade of a mulberry tree, on the top of
which he beheld a mischievous monkey climbing from bough to bough, till,
by a sudden slip, he fell upon a sharp-pointed shoot, which instantly
ripped up his belly and left his entrails suspended in the tree, while
the unlucky animal fell, breathless, on the dust of death. Some time
after this, as the Bráhman was returning, he accidentally sat down in
the same place, and, recollecting the circumstance, looked up, and saw
that the entrails were dried, and yielded a harmonious sound every time
the wind gently impelled them against the branches. Charmed at the
singularity of the adventure, he took them down, and after binding them
to the two ends of his walking-stick, touched them with a small twig, by
which he discovered that the sound was much improved. When he got home
he fastened the staff to another piece of wood, which was hollow, and by
the addition of a bow, strung with part of his own beard, converted it
to a complete instrument. In succeeding ages the science received
considerable improvements. After the addition of a bridge, purer notes
were extracted; and the different students, pursuing the bent of their
inclinations, constructed instruments of various forms, according to
their individual fancies; and to this whimsical accident we are indebted
for the tuneful ney and the heart-exhilarating rabáb, and, in short, all
the other instruments of wind and strings.
Having thus discoursed upon the discovery of music, the Parrot proceeds
to detail
_The Seven Requisites of a Perfect Woman._