Persian humour is a stealthier thing than English humour. We like to
laugh; the sudden surprise pleases us. But these old ruminative
observers of life, even if they rapped out a sarcasm now and then, were
normally happiest when their fancy was playing quietly around an idea:
fetching similes for it from every quarter and accumulating
extravagances. Thus: "It is related by Abu 'l-Khattab Ibn Aun Al-Hariri,
the poet and grammarian, that he went one day to visit An-Nami, and
found him seated. His hair was white like the Thaghama when in flower,
but one single black hair still remained.
"'Sir!' said Ibn Aun, 'there is a black hair in your head.'
"'Yes,' replied An-Nami, 'it is the sole remnant of my youth, and I am
pleased with it; I have even written verses on it.'
"Then, at the request of Ibn Aun, he recited these lines: _In that head
a single hair still appeared, preserving its blackness; 'twas a sight
which rejoiced the eyes of my friends. I said to my white hairs, which
had put it in fear: 'I implore you! respect it as a stranger. A dark
African spouse will not long remain in the house where the second wife
is white of skin.'_"
One of the worthiest representatives of the humorists of the book is Abu
Dulama, a black Abyssinian, whose wits never failed him. Here is the
poem which he recited when ordered by Ruh, the governor of Basra, to
attack one of the enemy single-handed: _I fly to Ruh for refuge; let
him not send me to a combat in which I shall bring disgrace upon the
tribe of Asad. Your father Al-Muhallab left you as a legacy the love of
death; but such a legacy as that I have inherited from none. And this I
know well, that the act of drawing near to enemies produces a separation
between souls and bodies._
Ruh positively declared, however, that Abu Dulama should go forth and
fight, enforcing the command with the pertinent question, "Why do you
receive pay from the sultan?"
"To fight for him," replied Abu.
"Then," said Ruh, "why not go forth and attack that enemy of God?"
"If I go forth to him, O Emir," replied the Abyssinian, "I shall be sent
to join those who are dead and gone; and the condition I made with the
sultan was, to fight for him, but not to die for him."
Another wit, Osama Ibn Murshid, having had a tooth drawn, produced the
following verses, either at the time, for the delectation of the
dentist, or afterwards, when seated among his friends: _I had a
companion of whom I was never tired, who suffered in my service, and
laboured with assiduity; whilst we were together I never saw him; and
when he appeared before my eyes, we had parted for ever._
This is how Osama wrote when the house of a miser was burnt down: _See
how the progress of time constrains us to acknowledge that there is a
destiny. Ibn Talib never lit a fire in his house, through avarice, yet
by fire it was destroyed._
"One thing," says Ibn Khallikan, in the notice of this satirist, "brings
on another." He then proceeds: "Abu 'l-Hasan Yahya Abd Al-Azim Al-Misri,
surnamed Al-Jazzar, recited to me the following verses which he had
composed on another literary man at Cairo, far advanced in age, who,
being attacked by a cutaneous eruption, anointed himself with sulphur:
_O, learned master, hearken to the demand of a friend devoid of sarcasm:
thou art old, and of course art near to the fire of hell; why then
anoint thyself with sulphur?_"
As a further quite unnecessary proof of the antiquity of jests which we
think new, I might append to this excellent sarcasm by a friend devoid
of sarcasm the story, often now told, of the rival chemists in a
provincial town, one of whom was old-fashioned and costly, and the other
new and cheap. To the costly one, who had asked too much for sulphur, a
customer remarked that if he went to the new shop opposite he could get
it for fourpence; which brought from the old-fashioned chemist, weary of
this competition, the admirable retort that if he went still farther, to
a certain place, he would get it for nothing.
East and West join hands again. When I was a boy living in a town by the
sea, one of my heroes in real life--whom I never knew, but admired
fearfully from a distance--was a famous stockbroker, whose splendid name
I could give if I chose. One of his many mansions was here, and I used
to see him often as he managed the finest pair of horses on the south
coast, which he drove in a phaeton with red wheels, always smoking a
cigar as he did so. Many were the stories told of his princely Victor
Radnor-ish ways, one of which credited him with a private compartment on
the train, into which his guests walked without a ticket--a magnificent
idea!--and another stated that he bought his trousers a hundred pairs
at a time. And then I open this book and read that Barjawan, an
Ethiopian eunuch, after being stabbed to death by the prince's
umbrella-bearer, was found to possess a thousand pairs of trousers.
Not a little of the humorous effect of these Persian sayings comes from
their dry frankness. For example: Ibn Omair, a trustworthy traditionist,
when, once, he was ill, and a person sent his excuses for not going to
visit him, answered: "I cannot reproach a person for not visiting me,
whom I myself should not go to visit were he sick." Modern would-be wits
might take the hint; for with candour so scarce, and self-criticism
usually ending in a verdict of complete innocence, the blurted naked
truth, not unaccompanied by a sidelong thrust at the speaker's own
fallibility, would always produce the required laugh.