Everybody has this last autumn[22] been either seeing the Ammergau
Passion Play or hearing about it; and to find any one who has seen it
and not been deeply interested and moved by it, is very rare. The
peasants of the neighboring country, the great and fashionable world,
the ordinary tourist, were all at Ammergau, and were all delighted; but
what is said to have been especially remarkable was the affluence there
of ministers of religion of all kinds. That Catholic peasants, whose
religion has accustomed them to show and spectacle, should be attracted
by an admirable scenic representation of the great moments in the
history of their religion, was natural; that tourists and the
fashionable world should be attracted by what was at once the fashion
and a new sensation of a powerful sort, was natural; that many of the
ecclesiastics present should be attracted there, was natural too. Roman
Catholic priests mustered strong, of course. The Protestantism of a
great number of the Anglican clergy is supposed to be but languid, and
Anglican ministers at Ammergau were sympathizers to be expected. But
Protestant ministers of the most unimpeachable sort, Protestant
Dissenting ministers, were there, too, and showing favor and sympathy;
and this, to any one who remembers the almost universal feeling of
Protestant Dissenters in this country, not many years ago, towards Rome
and her religion,—the sheer abhorrence of Papists and all their
practices,—could not but be striking. It agrees with what is seen also
in literature, in the writings of Dissenters of the younger and more
progressive sort, who show a disposition for regarding the Church of
Rome historically rather than polemically, a wish to do justice to the
undoubted grandeur of certain institutions and men produced by that
Church, quite novel, and quite alien to the simple belief of earlier
times, that between Protestants and Rome there was a measureless gulf
fixed. Something of this may, no doubt, be due to that keen eye for
Nonconformist business in which our great bodies of Protestant
Dissenters, to do them justice, are never wanting; to a perception that
the case against the Church of England may be yet further improved by
contrasting her with the genuine article in her own ecclesiastical line,
by pointing out that she is neither one thing nor the other to much
purpose, by dilating on the magnitude, reach, and impressiveness, on the
great place in history, of her rival, as compared with anything she can
herself pretend to. Something of this there is, no doubt, in some of the
modern Protestant sympathy for things Catholic. But in general that
sympathy springs, in Churchmen and Dissenters alike, from another and a
better cause,—from the spread of larger conceptions of religion, of man,
and of history, than were current formerly. We have seen lately in the
newspapers, that a clergyman, who in a popular lecture gave an account
of the Passion Play at Ammergau, and enlarged on its impressiveness, was
admonished by certain remonstrants, who told him it was his business,
instead of occupying himself with these sensuous shows, to learn to walk
by faith, not by sight, and to teach his fellow-men to do the same. But
this severity seems to have excited wonder rather than praise; so far
had those wider notions about religion and about the range of our
interest in religion, of which I have just spoken, conducted us. To this
interest I propose to appeal in what I am going to relate. The Passion
Play at Ammergau, with its immense audiences, the seriousness of its
actors, the passionate emotion of its spectators, brought to my mind
something of which I had read an account lately; something produced, not
in Bavaria nor in Christendom at all, but far away in that wonderful
East, from which, whatever airs of superiority Europe may justly give
itself, all our religion has come and where religion, of some sort or
other, has still an empire over men’s feelings such as it has nowhere
else. This product of the remote East I wish to exhibit while the
remembrance of what has been seen at Ammergau is still fresh; and we
will see whether that bringing together of strangers and enemies who
once seemed to be as far as the poles asunder, which Ammergau in such a
remarkable way effected, does not hold good and find a parallel even in
Persia.
-----
Footnote 22:
1871.
-----
Count Gobineau, formerly Minister of France at Teheran and at Athens,
published, a few years ago, an interesting book on the present state of
religion and philosophy in Central Asia. He is favorably known also by
his studies in ethnology. His accomplishments and intelligence deserve
all respect, and in his book on religion and philosophy in Central Asia
he has the great advantage of writing about things which he has followed
with his own observation and inquiry in the countries where they
happened. The chief purpose of his book is to give a history of the
career of Mirza Ali Mahommed, a Persian religious reformer, the original
_Bâb_, and the founder of _Bâbism_, of which most people in England have
at least heard the name. Bab means _gate_, the door or gate of life; and
in the ferment which now works in the Mahometan East, Mirza Ali
Mahommed,—who seems to have been made acquainted by Protestant
missionaries with our Scriptures and by the Jews of Shiraz with Jewish
traditions, to have studied, besides, the religion of the Ghebers, the
old national religion of Persia, and to have made a sort of amalgam of
the whole with Mahometanism,—presented himself, about five-and-twenty
twenty years ago, as _the door_, _the gate_ of life; found disciples,
sent forth writings, and finally became the cause of disturbances which
led to his being executed on the 19th of July, 1849, in the citadel of
Tabriz. The Bâb and his doctrines are a theme on which much might be
said; but I pass them by, except for one incident in the Bâb’s life,
which I will notice. Like all religious Mahometans, he made the
pilgrimage to Mecca; and his meditations at that center of his religion
first suggested his mission to him. But soon after his return to Bagdad
he made another pilgrimage; and it was in this pilgrimage that his
mission became clear to him, and that his life was fixed. “He desired”—I
will give an abridgment of Count Gobineau’s own words—“to complete his
impressions by going to Kufa, that he might visit the ruined mosque
where Ali was assassinated, and where the place of his murder is still
shown. He passed several days there in meditation. The place appears to
have made a great impression on him; he was entering on a course which
might and must lead to some such catastrophe as had happened on the very
spot where he stood, and where his mind’s eye showed him the Imam Ali
lying at his feet, with his body pierced and bleeding. His followers say
that he then passed through a sort of moral agony which put an end to
all the hesitations of the natural man within him. It is certain that
when he arrived at Shiraz, on his return, he was a changed man. No
doubts troubled him any more: he was penetrated and persuaded; his part
was taken.”
This Ali also, at whose tomb the Bâb went through the spiritual crisis
here recorded, is a familiar name to most of us. In general our
knowledge of the East goes but a very little way; yet almost every one
has at least heard the name of Ali, the Lion of God, Mahomet’s young
cousin, the first person, after his wife, who believed in him, and who
was declared by Mahomet in his gratitude his brother, delegate, and
vicar. Ali was one of Mahomet’s best and most successful captains. He
married Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet; his sons, Hassan and
Hussein, were, as children, favorites with Mahomet, who had no son of
his own to succeed him, and was expected to name Ali as his successor.
He named no successor. At his death (the year 632 of our era) Ali was
passed over, and the first caliph, or _vicar_ and _lieutenant_ of
Mahomet in the government of the state, was Abu-Bekr; only the spiritual
inheritance of Mahomet, the dignity of Imam, or _Primate_, devolved by
right on Ali and his children. Ali, lion of God as in war he was, held
aloof from politics and political intrigue, loved retirement and prayer,
was the most pious and disinterested of men. At Abu-Bekr’s death he was
again passed over in favor of Omar. Omar was succeeded by Othman, and
still Ali remained tranquil. Othman was assassinated, and then Ali,
chiefly to prevent disturbance and bloodshed, accepted (A. D. 655) the
caliphate. Meanwhile, the Mahometan armies had conquered Persia, Syria,
and Egypt; the Governor of Syria, Moawiyah, an able and ambitious man,
set himself up as caliph, his title was recognized by Amrou, the
Governor of Egypt, and a bloody and indecisive battle was fought in
Mesopotamia between Ali’s army and Moawiyah’s. Gibbon shall tell the
rest:—“In the temple of Mecca three Charegites or enthusiasts discoursed
of the disorders of the church and state; they soon agreed that the
deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the Viceroy of
Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion. Each of the
assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger, devoted his life, and
secretly repaired to the scene of action. Their resolution was equally
desperate; but the first mistook the person of Amrou, and stabbed the
deputy who occupied his seat; the prince of Damascus was dangerously
hurt by the second; Ali, the lawful caliph, in the mosque of Kufa,
received a mortal wound from the hand of the third.”
The events through which we have thus rapidly run ought to be kept in
mind, for they are the elements of Mahometan history: any right
understanding of the state of the Mahometan world is impossible without
them. For that world is divided into the two great sects of Shiahs and
Sunis. The Shiahs are those who reject the first three caliphs as
usurpers, and begin with Ali as the first lawful successor of Mahomet;
the Sunis recognize Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman, as well as Ali, and
regard the Shiahs as impious heretics. The Persians are Shiahs, and the
Arabs and Turks are Sunis. Hussein, one of Ali’s two sons, married a
Persian princess, the daughter of Yezdejerd the last of the Sassanian
kings, the king whom the Mahometan conquest of Persia expelled; and
Persia, through this marriage, became specially connected with the house
of Ali. “In the fourth age of the Hegira,” says Gibbon, “a tomb, a
temple, a city, arose near the ruins of Kufa. Many thousands of the
Shiahs repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God; and the
desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of the Persians,
who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than the pilgrimage of
Mecca.”
But to comprehend what I am going to relate from Count Gobineau, we must
push our researches into Mahometan history a little further than the
assassination of Ali. Moawiyah died in the year 680 of our era, nearly
fifty years after the death of Mahomet. His son Yezid succeeded him on
the throne of the caliphs at Damascus. During the reign of Moawiyah
Ali’s two sons, the Imams, Hassan and Hussein, lived with their families
in religious retirement at Medina, where their grandfather Mahomet was
buried. In them the character of abstention and renouncement, which we
have noticed in Ali himself, was marked yet more strongly; but, when
Moawiyah died, the people of Kufa, the city on the lower Euphrates where
Ali had been assassinated, sent offers to make Hussein caliph if he
would come among them, and to support him against the Syrian troops of
Yezid. Hussein seems to have thought himself bound to accept the
proposal. He left Medina, and, with his family and relations, to the
number of about eighty persons, set out on his way to Kufa. Then ensued
the tragedy so familiar to every Mahometan, and to us so little known,
the tragedy of Kerbela. “O death,” cries the bandit-minstrel of Persia,
Kurroglou, in his last song before his execution, “O death, whom didst
thou spare? Were even Hassan and Hussein, those footstools of the throne
of God on the seventh heaven, spared by thee. _No! thou madest them
martyrs at Kerbela._”
We cannot do better than again have recourse to Gibbon’s history for an
account of this famous tragedy. “Hussein traversed the desert of Arabia
with a timorous retinue of women and children; but, as he approached the
confines of Irak, he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the
country, and suspected either the defection or the ruin of his party.
His fears were just; Obeidallah, the governor of Kufa, had extinguished
the first sparks of an insurrection; and Hussein, in the plain of
Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of 5000 horse, who intercepted his
communication with the city and the river. In a conference with the
chief of the enemy he proposed the option of three conditions:—that he
should be allowed to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier
garrison against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of
Yezid. But the commands of the caliph or his lieutenant were stern and
absolute, and Hussein was informed that he must either submit as a
captive and a criminal to the Commander of the Faithful, or expect the
consequences of his rebellion. “Do you think,” replied he, “to terrify
me with death?” And during the short respite of a night he prepared,
with calm and solemn resignation, to encounter his fate. He checked the
lamentations of his sister Fatima, who deplored the impending ruin of
his house. “Our trust,” said Hussein, “is in God alone. All things, both
in heaven and earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My
brother, my father, my mother, were better than I, and every Mussulman
has an example in the Prophet.” He pressed his friends to consult their
safety by a timely flight; they unanimously refused to desert or survive
their beloved master, and their courage was fortified by a fervent
prayer and the assurance of paradise. On the morning of the fatal day he
mounted on horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Koran in the
other; the flanks and rear of his party were secured by the tent-ropes
and by a deep trench, which they had filled with lighted fagots,
according to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with
reluctance; and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to
claim the partnership of inevitable death. In every close onset or
single combat the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but the
surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance with a cloud of
arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain. A truce was
allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the battle at length
expired by the death of the last of the companions of Hussein.”
The details of Hussein’s own death will come better presently; suffice
it at this moment to say he was slain, and that the women and children
of his family were taken in chains to the Caliph Yezid at Damascus.
Gibbon concludes the story thus: “In a distant age and climate, the
tragic scene of the death of Hussein will awaken the sympathy of the
coldest reader. On the annual festival of his martyrdom, in the devout
pilgrimage to his sepulcher, his Persian votaries abandon their souls to
the religious phrenzy of sorrow and indignation.”
Thus the tombs of Ali and of his son, the Meshed Ali and the Meshed
Hussein, standing some thirty miles apart from one another in the plain
of the Euphrates, had, when Gibbon wrote, their yearly pilgrims and
their tribute of enthusiastic mourning. But Count Gobineau relates, in
his book of which I have spoken, a development of these solemnities
which was unknown to Gibbon. Within the present century there has
arisen, on the basis of this story of the martyrs of Kerbela, a drama, a
Persian national drama, which Count Gobineau, who has seen and heard it,
is bold enough to rank with the Greek drama as a great and serious
affair, engaging the heart and life of the people who have given birth
to it; while the Latin, English, French, and German drama is, he says,
in comparison a mere pastime or amusement, more or less intellectual and
elegant. To me it seems that the Persian _tazyas_—for so these pieces
are called—find a better parallel in the Ammergau Passion Play than in
the Greek drama. They turn entirely on one subject—the sufferings of the
_Family of the Tent_, as the Imam Hussein and the company of persons
gathered around him at Kerbela are called. The subject is sometimes
introduced by a prologue, which may perhaps one day, as the need of
variety is more felt, become a piece by itself; but at present the
prologue leads invariably to the martyrs. For instance: the Emperor
Tamerlane, in his conquering progress through the world, arrives at
Damascus. The keys of the city are brought to him by the governor; but
the governor is a descendant of one of the murderers of the Imam
Hussein; Tamerlane is informed of it, loads him with reproaches, and
drives him from his presence. The emperor presently sees the governor’s
daughter splendidly dressed, thinks of the sufferings of the holy women
of the Family of the Tent, and upbraids and drives her away as he did
her father. But after this he is haunted by the great tragedy which has
been thus brought to his mind, and he cannot sleep and cannot be
comforted. He calls his vizier, and his vizier tells him that the only
way to soothe his troubled spirit is to see a _tazya_. And so the
_tazya_ commences. Or, again (and this will show how strangely, in the
religious world which is now occupying us, what is most familiar to us
is blended with that of which we know nothing): Joseph and his brethren
appear on the stage, and the old Bible story is transacted. Joseph is
thrown into the pit and sold to the merchants, and his blood-stained
coat is carried by his brothers to Jacob; Jacob is then left alone,
weeping and bewailing himself; the angel Gabriel enters, and reproves
him for his want of faith and constancy, telling him that what he
suffers is not a hundredth part of what Ali, Hussein, and the children
of Hussein will one day suffer. Jacob seems to doubt it; Gabriel, to
convince him, orders the angels to perform a _tazya_ of what will one
day happen at Kerbela. And so the _tazya_ commences.
These pieces are given in the first ten days of the month of Moharrem,
the anniversary of the martyrdom at Kerbela. They are so popular that
they now invade other seasons of the year also; but this is the season
when the world is given up to them. King and people, every one is in
mourning; and at night and while the _tazyas_ are not going on,
processions keep passing, the air resounds with the beating of breasts
and with litanies of “O Hassan! Hussein!” while the Seyids,—a kind of
popular friars claiming to be descendants of Mahomet, and in whose
incessant popularizing and amplifying of the legend of Kerbela in their
homilies during pilgrimages and at the tombs of the martyrs, the
_tazyas_, no doubt, had their origin,—keep up by their sermons and hymns
the enthusiasm which the drama of the day has excited. It seems as if no
one went to bed; and certainly no one who went to bed could sleep.
Confraternities go in procession with a black flag and torches, every
man with his shirt torn open, and beating himself with the right hand on
the left shoulder in a kind of measured cadence to accompany a canticle
in honor of the martyrs. These processions come and take post in the
theaters where the Seyids are preaching. Still more noisy are the
companies of dancers, striking a kind of wooden castanets together, at
one time in front of their breasts, at an other time behind their heads,
and marking time with music and dance to a dirge set up by the
bystanders, in which the names of the Imams perpetually recur as a
burden. Noisiest of all are the Berbers, men of a darker skin and
another race, their feet and the upper part of their body naked, who
carry, some of them tambourines and cymbals, others iron chains and long
needles. One of their race is said to have formerly derided the Imams in
their affliction, and the Berbers now appear in expiation of that crime.
At first their music and their march proceed slowly together, but
presently the music quickens, the chain and needle-bearing Berbers move
violently round, and begin to beat themselves with their chains and to
prick their arms and cheeks with the needles—first gently, then with
more vehemence; till suddenly the music ceases, and all stops. So we are
carried back, on this old Asiatic soil, where beliefs and usages are
heaped layer upon layer and ruin upon ruin, far past the martyred Imams,
past Mahometanism, past Christianity, to the priests of Baal gashing
themselves with knives and to the worship of Adonis.
The _tekyas_, or theaters for the drama which calls forth these
celebrations, are constantly multiplying. The king, the great
functionaries, the towns, wealthy citizens like the king’s goldsmith, or
any private person who has the means and the desire, provide them. Every
one sends contributions; it is a religious act to furnish a box or to
give decorations for a _tekya_; and as religious offerings, all gifts
down to the smallest are accepted. There are tekyas for not more than
three or four hundred spectators, and there are tekyas for three or four
thousand. At Ispahan there are representations which bring together more
than twenty thousand people. At Teheran, the Persian capital, each
quarter of the town has its tekyas, every square and open place is
turned to account for establishing them, and spaces have been expressly
cleared, besides, for fresh tekyas. Count Gobineau describes
particularly one of these theaters,—a tekya of the best class, to hold
an audience of about four thousand,—at Teheran. The arrangements are
very simple. The tekya is a walled parallelogram, with a brick platform,
_sakou_, in the center of it; this sakou is surrounded with black poles
at some distance from each other, the poles are joined at the top by
horizontal rods of the same color, and from these rods hang colored
lamps, which are lighted for the praying and preaching at night when the
representation is over. The _sakou_, or central platform, makes the
stage; in connection with it, at one of the opposite extremities of the
parallelogram lengthwise, is a reserved box, _tâgnumâ_, higher than the
_sakou_. This box is splendidly decorated, and is used for peculiarly
interesting and magnificent tableaux,—the court of the Caliph, for
example—which occur in the course of the piece. A passage of a few feet
wide is left free between the stage and this box; all the rest of the
space is for the spectators, of whom the foremost rows are sitting on
their heels close up to this passage, so that they help the actors to
mount and descend the high steps of the _tâgnumâ_ when they have to pass
between that and the _sakou_. On each side of the _tâgnumâ_ are boxes,
and along one wall of the enclosure are other boxes with fronts of
elaborate woodwork, which are left to stand as a permanent part of the
construction; facing these, with the floor and stage between, rise tiers
of seats as in an amphitheater. All places are free; the great people
have generally provided and furnished the boxes, and take care to fill
them; but if a box is not occupied when the performance begins, any
ragged street-urchin or beggar may walk in and seat himself there. A row
of gigantic masts runs across the middle of the space, one or two of
them being fixed in the _sakou_ itself; and from these masts is
stretched an immense awning which protects the whole audience. Up to a
certain height these masts are hung with tiger and panther skins, to
indicate the violent character of the scenes to be represented. Shields
of steel and of hippopotamus skin, flags, and naked swords, are also
attached to these masts. A sea of color and splendor meets the eye all
round. Woodwork and brickwork disappear under cushions, rich carpets,
silk hangings, India muslin embroidered with silver and gold, shawls
from Kerman and from Cashmere. There are lamps, lusters of colored
crystal, mirrors, Bohemian and Venetian glass, porcelain vases of all
degrees of magnitude from China and from Europe, paintings and
engravings, displayed in profusion everywhere. The taste may not always
be soberly correct, but the whole spectacle has just the effect of
prodigality, color, and sumptuousness which we are accustomed to
associate with the splendors of the Arabian Nights.
In marked contrast with this display is the poverty of scenic
contrivance and stage illusion. The subject is far too interesting and
too solemn to need them. The actors are visible on all sides, and the
exits, entrances, and stage-play of our theaters are impossible; the
imagination of the spectator fills up all gaps and meets all
requirements. On the Ammergau arrangements one feels that the
archæologists and artists of Munich have laid their correct finger; at
Teheran there has been no schooling of this sort. A copper basin of
water represents the Euphrates; a heap of chopped straw in a corner is
the sand of the desert of Kerbela, and the actor goes and takes up a
handful of it, when his part requires him to throw, in Oriental fashion,
dust upon his head. There is no attempt at proper costume; all that is
sought is to do honor to the personages of chief interest by dresses and
jewels which would pass for rich and handsome things to wear in modern
Persian life. The power of the actors is in their genuine sense of the
seriousness of the business they are engaged in. They are, like the
public around them, penetrated with this, and so the actor throws his
whole soul into what he is about, the public meets the actor halfway,
and effects of extraordinary impressiveness are the result. “The actor
is under a charm,” says Count Gobineau; “he is under it so strongly and
completely that almost always one sees Yezid himself (the usurping
caliph), the wretched Ibn-Said (Yezid’s general), the infamous Shemer
(Ibn-Said’s lieutenant), at the moment they vent the cruellest insults
against the Imams whom they are going to massacre, or against the women
of the Imam’s family whom they are ill-using, burst into tears and
repeat their part with sobs. The public is neither surprised nor
displeased at this; on the contrary, it beats its breast at the sight,
throws up its arms towards heaven with invocations of God, and redoubles
its groans. So it often happens that the actor identifies himself with
the personage he represents to such a degree that, when the situation
carries him away, he cannot be said to act, he _is_ with such truth,
such complete enthusiasm, such utter self-forgetfulness, what he
represents, that he reaches a reality at one time sublime, at another
terrible, and produces impressions on his audience which it would be
simply absurd to look for from our more artificial performances. There
is nothing stilted, nothing false, nothing conventional; nature, and the
facts represented, themselves speak.”
The actors are men and boys, the parts of angels and women being filled
by boys. The children who appear in the piece are often the children of
the principal families of Teheran; their appearance in this religious
solemnity (for such it is thought) being supposed to bring a blessing
upon them and their parents. “Nothing is more touching,” says Count
Gobineau, “than to see these little things of three or four years old,
dressed in black gauze frocks with large sleeves, and having on their
heads small round black caps embroidered with silver and gold, kneeling
beside the body of the actor who represents the martyr of the day,
embracing him, and with their little hands covering themselves with
chopped straw for sand in sign of grief. These children evidently,” he
continues, “do not consider themselves to be acting; they are full of
the feeling that what they are about is something of deep seriousness
and importance; and though they are too young to comprehend fully the
story, they know, in general, that it is a matter sad and solemn. They
are not distracted by the audience, and they are not shy, but go through
their prescribed part with the utmost attention and seriousness, always
crossing their arms respectfully to receive the blessing of the Imam
Hussein; the public beholds them with emotions of the liveliest
satisfaction and sympathy.”
The dramatic pieces themselves are without any author’s name. They are
in popular language, such as the commonest and most ignorant of the
Persian people can understand, free from learned Arabic words,—free,
comparatively speaking, from Oriental fantasticality and hyperbole. The
Seyids, or popular friars, already spoken of, have probably had a hand
in the composition of many of them. The Moollahs, or regular
ecclesiastical authorities, condemn the whole thing. It is an innovation
which they disapprove and think dangerous; it is addressed to the eye,
and their religion forbids to represent religious things to the eye; it
departs from the limits of what is revealed and appointed to be taught
as the truth, and brings in novelties and heresies;—for these dramas
keep growing under the pressure of the actor’s imagination and emotion,
and of the imagination and emotion of the public, and receive new
developments every day. The learned, again, say that these pieces are a
heap of lies, the production of ignorant people, and have no words
strong enough to express their contempt for them. Still, so irresistible
is the vogue of these sacred dramas that, from the king on the throne to
the beggar in the street, every one, except perhaps the Moollahs,
attends them, and is carried away by them. The Imams and their families
speak always in a kind of lyrical chant, said to have rhythmical
effects, often of great pathos and beauty; their persecutors, the
villains of the piece, speak always in prose.
The stage is under the direction of a choragus, called _oostad_, or
“master,” who is a sacred personage by reason of the functions which he
performs. Sometimes he addresses to the audience a commentary on what is
passing before them, and asks their compassion and tears for the
martyrs; sometimes in default of a Seyid, he prays and preaches. He is
always listened to with veneration, for it is he who arranges the whole
sacred spectacle which so deeply moves everybody. With no attempt at
concealment, with the book of the piece in his hand, he remains
constantly on the stage, gives the actors their cue, puts the children
and any inexperienced actor in their right places, dresses the martyr in
his winding-sheet when he is going to his death, holds the stirrup for
him to mount his horse, and inserts a supply of chopped straw into the
hands of those who are about to want it. Let us now see him at work.
The theater is filled, and the heat is great; young men of rank, the
king’s pages, officers of the army, smart functionaries of State, move
through the crowd with water-skins slung on their backs, dealing out
water all round, in memory of the thirst which on these solemn days the
Imams suffered in the sands of Kerbela. Wild chants and litanies, such
as we have already described, are from time to time set up, by a
dervish, a soldier, a workman in the crowd. These chants are taken up,
more or less, by the audience: sometimes they flag and die away for want
of support, sometimes they are continued till they reach a paroxysm, and
then abruptly stop. Presently a strange, insignificant figure in a green
cotton garment, looking like a petty tradesman of one of the Teheran
bazaars, mounts upon the _sakou_. He beckons with his hand to the
audience, who are silent directly, and addresses them in a tone of
lecture and expostulation, thus:—
“Well, you seem happy enough, Mussulmans, sitting there at your ease
under the awning; and you imagine Paradise already wide open to you. Do
you know what Paradise is? It is a garden, doubtless, but such a garden
as you have no idea of. You will say to me: ‘Friend, tell us what it is
like.’ I have never been there, certainly; but plenty of prophets have
described it, and angels have brought news of it. However, all I will
tell you is, that there is room for all good people there, for it is
330,000 cubits long. If you do not believe, inquire. As for getting to
be one of the good people, let me tell you it is not enough to read the
Koran of the Prophet (the salvation and blessing of God be upon him!);
it is not enough to do everything which this divine book enjoins; it is
not enough to come and weep at the _tazyas_, as you do every day, you
sons of dogs you, who know nothing which is of any use; it behoves,
besides, that your good works (if you ever do any, which I greatly
doubt) should be done in the name and for the love of Hussein. It is
Hussein, Mussulmans, who is the door to Paradise; it is Hussein,
Mussulmans, who upholds the world; it is Hussein, Mussulmans, by whom
comes salvation! Cry, Hassan, Hussein!”
And all the multitude cry: “O Hassan! O Hussein!”
“That is well; and now cry again.” And again all cry: “O Hassan! O
Hussein!” “And now,” the strange speaker goes on, “pray to God to keep
you continually in the love of Hussein. Come, make your cry to God.”
Then the multitude, as one man, throw up their arms into the air, and
with a deep and long-drawn cry exclaim: “_Ya Allah!_ O God!”
Fifes, drums, and trumpets break out; the _kernas_, great copper
trumpets five or six feet long, give notice that the actors are ready
and that the _tazya_ is to commence. The preacher descends from the
_sakou_, and the actors occupy it.
To give a clear notion of the cycle which these dramas fill, we should
begin, as on the first day of the Moharrem the actors begin, with some
piece relating to the childhood of the Imams, such as, for instance, the
piece called _The Children Digging_. Ali and Fatima are living at Medina
with their little sons Hassan and Hussein. The simple home and
occupations of the pious family are exhibited; it is morning, Fatima is
seated with the little Hussein on her lap, dressing him. She combs his
hair, talking caressingly to him all the while. A hair comes out with
the comb; the child starts. Fatima is in distress at having given the
child even this momentary uneasiness, and stops to gaze upon him
tenderly. She falls into an anxious reverie, thinking of her fondness
for the child, and of the unknown future in store for him. While she
muses, the angel Gabriel stands before her. He reproves her weakness: “A
hair falls from the child’s head,” he says, “and you weep; what would
you do if you knew the destiny that awaits him, the countless wounds
with which that body shall one day be pierced, the agony that shall rend
your own soul!” Fatima, in despair, is comforted by her husband Ali, and
they go together into the town to hear Mahomet preach. The boys and some
of their little friends begin to play; every one makes a great deal of
Hussein; he is at once the most spirited and the most amiable child of
them all. The party amuse themselves with digging, with making holes in
the ground and building mounds. Ali returns from the sermon and asks
what they are about; and Hussein is made to reply in ambiguous and
prophetic answers, which convey that by these holes and mounds in the
earth are prefigured interments and tombs. Ali departs again; there rush
in a number of big and fierce boys, and begin to pelt the little Imams
with stones. A companion shields Hussein with his own body, but he is
struck down with a stone, and with another stone Hussein, too, is
stretched on the ground senseless. Who are those boy-tyrants and
persecutors? They are Ibn-Said, and Shemer, and others, the future
murderers at Kerbela. The audience perceive it with a shudder; the
hateful assailants go off in triumph; Ali re-enters, picks up the
stunned and wounded children, brings them round, and takes Hussein back
to his mother Fatima.
But let us now come at once to the days of martyrdom and to Kerbela. One
of the most famous pieces of the cycle is a piece called the _Marriage
of Kassem_, which brings us into the very middle of these crowning days.
Count Gobineau has given a translation of it, and from this translation
we will take a few extracts. Kassem is the son of Hussein’s elder
brother, the Imam Hassan, who had been poisoned by Yezid’s instigation
at Medina. Kassem and his mother are with the Imam Hussein at Kerbela;
there, too, are the women and children of the holy family, Omm-Leyla,
Hussein’s wife, the Persian princess, the last child of Yezdejerd the
last of the Sassanides; Zeyneb, Hussein’s sister, the offspring, like
himself, of Ali and Fatima, and the granddaughter of Mahomet; his nephew
Abdallah, still a little child; finally, his beautiful daughter Zobeyda.
When the piece begins, the Imam’s camp in the desert has already been
cut off from the Euphrates and besieged several days by the Syrian
troops under Ibn-Said and Shemer, and by the treacherous men of Kufa.
The Family of the Tent were suffering torments of thirst. One of the
children had brought an empty water-bottle, and thrown it, a silent
token of distress, before the feet of Abbas, the uncle of Hussein; Abbas
had sallied out to cut his way to the river, and had been slain.
Afterwards Ali-Akber, Hussein’s eldest son, had made the same attempt
and met with the same fate. Two younger brothers of Ali-Akber followed
his example, and were likewise slain. The Imam Hussein had rushed amidst
the enemy, beaten them from the body of Ali-Akber, and brought the body
back to his tent; but the river was still inaccessible. At this point
the action of the _Marriage of Kassem_ begins. Kassem, a youth of
sixteen, is burning to go out and avenge his cousin. At one end of the
_sakou_ is the Imam Hussein seated on his throne; in the middle are
grouped all the members of his family; at the other end lies the body of
Ali-Akber, with his mother Omm-Leyla, clothed and veiled in black,
bending over it. The _kernas_ sound, and Kassem, after a solemn appeal
from Hussein and his sister Zeyneb to God and to the founders of their
house to look upon their great distress, rises and speaks to himself:
_Kassem._—“Separate thyself from the women of the harem, Kassem.
Consider within thyself for a little; here thou sittest, and presently
thou wilt see the body of Hussein, that body like a flower, torn by
arrows and lances like thorns, Kassem.
“Thou sawest Ali-Akber’s head severed from his body on the field of
battle, and yet thou livedst!
“Arise, obey that which is written of thee by thy father; to be slain,
that is thy lot, Kassem!
“Go, get leave from the son of Fatima, most honorable among women, and
submit thyself to thy fate, Kassem.”
Hussein sees him approach. “Alas,” he says, “it is the orphan
nightingale of the garden of Hassan, my brother!” Then Kassem speaks:
_Kassem._—“O God, what shall I do beneath this load of affliction? My
eyes are wet with tears, my lips are dried up with thirst. To live is
worse than to die. What shall I do, seeing what hath befallen Ali-Akber?
If Hussein suffereth me not to go forth, oh misery! For then what shall
I do, O God, in the day of the resurrection, when I see my father
Hassan? When I see my mother in the day of the resurrection, what shall
I do, O God, in my sorrow and shame before her? All my kinsmen are gone
to appear before the Prophet: shall not I also one day stand before the
Prophet; and what shall I do, O God, in that day?”