So was shaved Shagpat, the son of Shimpoor, the son of Shoolpi, the son
of Shullum, by Shibli Bagarag, of Shiraz, according to preordainment.
The chronicles relate, that no sooner had he mastered the Event, than men
on the instant perceived what illusion had beguiled them, and, in the
words of the poet,--
The blush with which their folly they confess
Is the first prize of his supreme success.
Even Bootlbac, the drum-beater, drummed in homage to him, and the four
Kings were they that were loudest in their revilings of the spouse of
Kadza, and most obsequious in praises of the Master. The King of the City
was fain to propitiate his people by a voluntary resignation of his
throne to Shibli Bagarag, and that King took well to heart the wisdom of
the sage, when he says:
Power, on Illusion based, o'ertoppeth all;
The more disastrous is its certain fall!
Surely Shibli Bagarag returned the Sword to the Sons of Aklis, flashing
it in midnight air, and they, with the others, did reverence to his
achievement. They were now released from the toil of sharpening the Sword
a half-cycle of years, to wander in delight on the fair surface of the
flowery earth, breathing its roses, wooing its brides; for the mastery of
an Event lasteth among men the space of one cycle of years, and after
that a fresh Illusion springeth to befool mankind, and the Seven must
expend the concluding half-cycle in preparing the edge of the Sword for a
new mastery. As the poet declareth in his scorn:
Some doubt Eternity: from life begun,
Has folly ceased within them, sire to son?
So, ever fresh Illusions will arise
And lord creation, until men are wise.
And he adds:
That is a distant period; so prepare
To fight the false, O youths, and never spare!
For who would live in chronicles renowned
Must combat folly, or as fool be crowned.
Now, for the Kings of Shiraz and of Gaf, Shibli Bagarag entertained them
in honour; but the King of Oolb he disgraced and stripped of his robes,
to invest Baba Mustapha in those royal emblems--a punishment to the
treachery of the King of Oolb, as is said by Aboo Eznol:
When nations with opposing forces, rash,
Shatter each other, thou that wouldst have stood
Apart to profit by the monstrous feud,
Thou art the surest victim of the crash.
Take colours of whichever side thou wilt,
And stedfastly thyself in battle range;
Yet, having taken, shouldst thou dare to change,
Suspicion hunts thee as a thing of guilt.
Baba Mustapha, was pronounced Sovereign of Oolb, amid the acclamations of
the guard encamped under the command of Ravaloke, without the walls.
No less did Shibli Bagarag honour the benefactor of Noorna, making him
chief of his armies; and he, with his own hand, bestowed on the good old
warrior the dress of honour presented to him by the Seven Sons,
charactered with all the mysteries of Aklis, a marvel lost to men in the
failure to master the Illusion now dominating earth.
So, then, of all that had worshipped Shagpat, only Kadza clung to him,
and she departed with him into the realms of Rabesqurat, who reigned
there, divided against herself by the stroke of the Sword. The Queen is
no longer mighty, for the widening of her power has weakened it, she
being now the mistress of the single-thoughted, and them that follow one
idea to the exclusion of a second. The failure in the unveiling of her
last-cherished Illusion was in the succumbing frailty of him that
undertook the task, the world and its wise men having come to the belief
that in thwackings there was ignominy to the soul of man, and a tarnish
on the lustre of heroes. On that score, hear the words of the poet, a
vain protest:
Ye that nourish hopes of fame!
Ye who would be known in song!
Ponder old history, and duly frame
Your souls to meek acceptance of the thong.
Lo! of hundreds who aspire,
Eighties perish-nineties tire!
They who bear up, in spite of wrecks and wracks,
Were season 'd by celestial hail of thwacks.
Fortune in this mortal race
Builds on thwackings for its base;
Thus the All-Wise doth make a flail a staff,
And separates his heavenly corn from chaff.
Think ye, had he never known
Noorna a belabouring crone,
Shibli Bagarag would have shaved Shagpat
The unthwack'd lives in chronicle a rat!
'Tis the thwacking in this den
Maketh lions of true men!
So are we nerved to break the clinging mesh
Which tames the noblest efforts of poor flesh.
Feshnavat became the Master's Vizier, and Abarak remained at the right
hand of Shibli Bagarag, his slave in great adventure. No other condition
than bondage gave peace to Abarak. He was of the class enumerated by the
sage:
Who, with the strength of giants, are but tools,
The weighty hands which serve selected fools.
Now, this was how it was in the case of Baba Mustapha, and the four
Kings, and Feshnavat, and Abarak, and Ravaloke, and Kadza, together with
Shagpat; but, in the case of Noorna bin Noorka, surely she was withering
from a sting of the scorpion shot against her bosom, but the Seven Sons
of Aklis gave her a pass into Aklis on the wings of Koorookh, and
Gulrevaz, the daughter of Aklis, tended her, she that was alone capable
of restoring her, and counteracting the malice of the scorpion by the
hand of purity. So Noorna, prospered; but Shibli Bagarag drooped in
uncertainty of her state, and was as a reaper in a field of harvest,
around whom lie the yellow sheaves, and the brown beam of autumn on his
head, the blaze of plenty; yet is he joyless and stands musing, for one
is away who should be there, and without whom the goblet of Success
giveth an unsweetened draught, and there is nothing pleasant in life, and
the flower on the summit of achievement is blighted. At last, as he was
listlessly dispensing justice in the Great Hall, seven days after the
mastery of the Event, lo, Noorna, in air, borne by Gulrevaz, she fair and
fresh in the revival of health and beauty, and the light of constant
love. Of her entry into the Great Hall, to the embrace of her betrothed,
the poet exclaims, picturing her in a rapture:
Her march is music, and my soul obeys
Each motion, as a lute to cunning fingers
I see the earth throb for her as she sways
Wave-like in air, and like a great flower lingers
Heavily over all, as loath to leave
What loves her so, and for her loss would grieve.
But oh, what other hand than heaven's can paint
Her eyes, and that black bow from which their lightning
Pierces afar! long lustrous eyes, that faint
In languor, or with stormy passion brightening:
Within them world in world lights up from sleep,
And gives a glimpse of the eternal deep.
Sigh round her, odorous winds; and, envious rose,
So vainly envious, with such blushes gifted,
Bow to her; die, strangled with jealous throes,
O Bulbul! when she sings with brow uplifted;
Gather her, happy youth, and for thy gain
Thank Him who could such loveliness ordain.
Surely the Master of the Event advanced to her in the glory of a Sultan,
and seated her beside him in majesty, and their contract of marriage was
read aloud in the Hall, and witnessed, and sealed: joyful was he! Then
commenced that festival which lasted forty days, and is termed the
Festival of the honours of hospitality to the Sons of Aldis, wherein the
head-cook of the palace, Uruish, performed wonders in his science, and
menaced the renown of Zrmack, the head-cook of King Shamshureen. Even so
the confectioner, Dob, excelled himself in devices and inventions, and
his genius urged him to depict in sugars and pastes the entire adventures
of Shibli Bagarag in search of the Sword. Honour we Uruish and Do-b! as
the poet sayeth:
Divide not this fraternal twain;
One are they, and one should for ever remain:
As to sweet close in fine music we look,
So the Confectioner follows the Cook.
And one of the Sons of Aklis, Zaragal, beholding this masterpiece of Dob,
which was served to the guests in the Great Hall on the fortieth evening,
was fair to exclaim in extemporaneous verse:
Have I been wafted to a rise
Of banquet spread in Paradise,
Dower'd with consuming powers divine;--
That I, who have not fail'd to dine,
And greatly,
Fall thus upon the cater and wine
Sedately?
So there was feasting in the Hall, and in the City, and over Earth; great
pledging the Sovereign of Barbers, who had mastered an Event, and become
the benefactor of his craft and of his kind. 'Tis certain the race of the
Bagarags endured for many centuries, and his seed were the rulers of men,
and the seal of their empire stamped on mighty wax the Tackle of Barbers.
Now, of the promise made by the Sons of Aklis to visit Shibli Bagarag
before their compulsory return to the labour of the Sword, and recount to
him the marvel of their antecedent adventures; and of the love and grief
nourished in the souls of men by the beauty and sorrowful eyes of
Gulrevaz, that was mined the Bleeding Lily, and of her engagement to tell
her story, on condition of receiving the first-born of Noorna to nurse
for a season in Aklis; and of Shibli Bagarag's restoration of towns and
monuments destroyed by his battle with Karaz; and of the constancy of
passion of Shibli Bagarag for Noorna, and his esteem for her sweetness,
and his reverence for her wisdom; and of the glory of his reign, and of
the Songs and Sentences of Noorna, and of his Laws for the protection and
upholding of women, in honour of Noorna, concerning which the Sage has
said:
Were men once clad in them, we should create
A race not following, but commanding, fate:
--of all these records, and of the reign of Baba Mustapha in Oolb, surely
the chronicles give them in fulness; and they that have searched say of
them, there is matter therein for the amusement of generations.