_Oriental Manners—Semifluids and Fingers—Spoons of Gold
and Silver prohibited—Church Plate—Quibbling Evasion of
Mahomet’s Precept—Modern Oriental Spoons—Substitutes for
Tumblers—Arabs at Dinner—Revenge of Hasan—Persian Spoons—A Vulgar
Ambassador—Cakes used as Napkins—Frolic of Tavernier and the King of
Persia—Proverbs—Sherbert Spoons—Curious Article in the Persian
Creed—Repartee—Chinese Spoons—Chopsticks—Sheathed Knives and
Spoons—Worn by Janizaries—‘Standard and Caldron’—Military
Romances—Ancient Beggars—Clack Dish and Spoon—Interesting
Family—Beggars and Lent—St. Giles._
A cursory reader of travels might imagine spoons unknown in the greater
part of the earth, so frequently are unguarded expressions to that
effect met with. We may therefore as well premise that the practice of
conveying _semifluid_ food to the mouth without them was formerly as
universal as handling flesh, meats at table without forks. With the
exception of Europe and European descendants, it is so still. Boiled
rice is the great pabulum of life to a majority of our species—with
millions it is the only food. Now, whether eaten by the scrupulous
Hindoo, delicate Persian, or fastidious Turk—people with whom
cleanliness is godliness, whose daily ablutions are religious duties—or
by the revolting Hottentot, the wild Arab, or revengeful Malay, it is
conveyed to the mouth with the hand alone. So general is this filthy
custom among people on opposite parts of the globe that it can hardly be
looked on in any other light than as a relic of times when mankind
formed one family—times when no forks were used but fingers, no other
knives than finger nails, and spoons had not been thought of—when men
and women clutched their food as parrots do, and raised it to their lips
like squirrels.
Suppose we add a few examples of the custom—not drawn from people
ignorant of spoons, but such as follow it from choice. The reflecting
reader will need no stronger proof of the still prevailing influence of
antediluvian usages, and of the humiliating fact, that like other
creatures, men are creatures of habit—that tenacity to the rude
practices of our forefathers is not always to be overcome by refinements
or reason.
The Hindoos use neither knives nor forks at table, ‘nor spoons except
with soup.’ Rice is served on banana leaves cut in the form of plates,
and fresh ones are had for every meal.
M. Loubere, ambassador to Siam in 1687, and the author of two volumes on
that country, says:—‘Ils n’ont à table, ny nappe, ny serviette, ny
cuillière, ny fourchette, ny couteau.’ [_Tome_ i. 101.] But that spoons
were known there, is clear from the oriental jewelry and plate presented
to the king of France by his royal brother of Siam, in 1685. Among other
things was ‘une _cuillière d’or_, au plus bel ouvrage du Japon.’—[_His.
Gen. Tome_ xii.]
One traveller says the natives of Madagascar use no spoons; another,
that they find substitutes for them and for dishes and ladles in the
leaves of the raven plant. According to a third, spoons are not
uncommon, while some of costly materials are occasionally to be met
with. Rice is considered the best of all dishes; and beef, mutton, fowls
and fish mere adjuncts. These, when cooked, are cut into small pieces,
and invariably served up on boiled rice, into which ‘horn spoons are
stuck,’ and for it alone used. The fore finger and thumb—a pair of
natural forceps—pick up the meat and deliver it into the mouth. When
Radama, king of the Island, died in 1828, immense treasure was buried
with him. His coffin was silver. To make it, fourteen thousand dollars
were melted and beaten into plates, which were fastened together with
silver rivets. Besides other valuables buried with him were a silver
_ladle_ and a _golden spoon_, for his use in another world.
The people of Barbary make no use of knives and forks, ‘and very rarely
of spoons.’ Like other orientals, they take up their food with the right
hand, and dexterously jerk it into the mouth. Caffres use neither
tables, knives nor plates, but sometimes call in the aid of forks and
spoons. Squatting round a boiling pot, each spears with a pointed stick
a piece of flesh, and leisurely eats it from the hand; When a missionary
arrived at Lattakoo, some colored ladies sent his party a present of
porridge in the pot in which it was made, but unaccompanied with
implements to eat it with; they never thought of spoons being used with
semifluid food, but naturally supposed that white as well as black men’s
fingers tasted every morsel swallowed. The Negroes of the Gambia, says
Moore, are not very proud in their furniture, for the greater part have
only a mat raised on a few sticks to sleep on, a jar for water, a
calabash for drinking, two or three mortars to pound rice, and
calabashes out of which they eat rice with _their hands_.
The Sumatrans, says Marsden, use at table neither knives nor spoons, nor
any substitute for them. They take up rice and other victuals with the
thumb and fingers, and dexterously throw it into the mouth. Rice is
boiled generally in a joint of bamboo, and by the time it is cooked the
vessel is nearly destroyed. Their manner of boiling the grain is to let
it simmer over a slow fire, drawing off the water by degrees ‘with a
flat ladle or spoon.’
The Bashee Islanders take meat from the pot in which it is cooked with
their fingers, as the Moors do pillau, using no spoons. At Mindanao the
common food is sago and rice. When served up, each person dips his
fingers in water, to prevent the glutinous food from sticking to them;
then taking a handful out of the platter, squeezes it into a lump, and
crams it into his mouth. [_Dampier._]
When Kotzebue was at Owhyhee, Tamaahmaah, the king, who possessed
European table utensils, including spoons, used a gourd for a basin at
dinner, and fed himself like an Asiatic, dipping his fingers into the
taro dough, and conveying it to his mouth with the same implements. He
observed to the Russian navigator: ‘This is the custom in my country,
and I will not depart from it.’ The same slovenly way of eating was
observed from the king to the lowest menial. Mr. Farnham, in his ‘Scenes
in the Pacific,’ is more particular: “The mode of conveying _poi_ to
their mouths was quite primitive. The fore and middle fingers served
instead of a spoon. These they inserted to the depth of the knuckles,
and having raised as much as would lie upon them, and by a very
dexterous whirl brought it into a globular shape upon the tips, they
thrust it into their mouths and licked the fingers clean for another
essay.”
When Captain John Smith, the hero and historian of Virginia was a slave
among the Turks, his stomach was sorely tried. In his chapter on Turkish
diet, he says pillau was served out to his captors in great bowls; they
sat ‘round it on the ground, and after they have raked it thorow so oft
as they please with their foule fists, the remainder was for the
christian slaves.’
Nearly 200 years have elapsed since Van Sleb visited Egypt. He was once
entertained at an extraordinary banquet given by a rich Arab; but ‘wine
was wanting, and spoons, knives and forks.’ ‘The modern Egyptians;’ says
Lane, ‘seldom use at table either knives or forks; the thumb and two
fingers of the right hand serve for every thing not fluid. Spoons are
used for soup and thin rice, or other things not easily conveyed to the
mouth without them.’ The same writer, speaking ‘on meals and the manner
of eating,’ in a note to his translation of the ‘Thousand and One
Tales,’ remarks: ‘The table is usually placed upon a round cloth spread
in the middle of the floor, or in a corner next two of the deewáns or
low seats, which generally extend along three sides of the room: it is
composed of a large round tray of silver, or tinned copper or brass,
supported by a stool commonly about 15 or 16 inches high, made of wood
and generally inlaid with mother of pearl, tortoise shell, &c. The
dishes are of silver, of tinned copper or china; several are placed upon
the tray, and around them are dispersed some round flat cakes of bread,
with _spoons_ of _box-wood_, _ebony_, or other material.’
The leading customs through all the East, with regard to eating, are in
fact similar. When people sit at table their legs are crossed under
them. They perform topical ablutions before and after meals, at which
knives and spoons are seldom seen. When the master of the family is
present, he first puts his hand in the dish, and the rest in order after
him. There is another particular with which the reader should be
acquainted, in order to understand why _wooden_ spoons chiefly are used
by wealthy orientals. The poorer classes have spoons of horn, wood,
brass, and iron; and a few silver and golden ones may occasionally be
found on the tables of princes and rich men; but such are not common,
and for this reason: _they were prohibited_ by Mahomet. “Verily, [said
he,] the fire of hell will roar like the bellowings of a camel in the
bellies of those who eat and drink from vessels of gold and silver.” No
articles of plate are allowed in mosques, and formerly they were
excluded from christian churches. “Exuperius, Bishop of Tholose,
ministered the holie supper with a glasse cup and a wicker basket. The
Triburien Council disputed whether golden or woodden vessels should be
used. Boniface, the martyr, said when they were golden priests, they had
woodden cups, but now being woodden priests, they will have golden
challices.” [_P. Martyr, on ‘Ornaments of Churches.’_]
Some rich Mahommedans, however, like other rich people, contrive, while
obeying literally a precept they do not like, to depart widely from its
spirit. Indeed no law, divine or human, can repress the love of
distinction. Hunger breaks through stone walls, but pride bursts through
brass ones. Believers in the Koran are forbid to eat of drink out of
gold or silver utensils. ‘True,’ quoth a worldly-minded mufti; ‘_that_
applies only to things put to the lips, not to trays, dishes,
wash-basins, knives, nor yet to the _handles_ of spoons, for none of
these things come in contact with the mouth.’ Awful would be the fury of
the prophet, could he hear his doctrines thus explained away; and how
would his indignation boil could he read the following extract from a
travelling giaour’s remarks on the manners of his people: ‘As for
pillau, and other soft and liquid meats, the Turks have spoons, though
not of gold and silver, which they are forbidden by the law to put into
their mouths. Those at the tables of persons of distinction are
generally of _agate_, _amber_, or other scarce material, with _handles_
of gold or silver gilt, and set with _jewels_; for the parts which enter
not the mouth _may be_ of those metals!’ [_Motraye._]
In the ‘Grande Description,’ tome ii, E. M. are two Egyptian spoons of
the kind, being richly ornamented. They are shown in _Figs. 6, 7, Plate
V._ ‘Cuillers en ecaille, ornées d’ambre, de corail et de nacre.’ [_Fig.
8_ is enlarged from a cut in Jacob Cat’s works.] _Fig. 9_—another
Turkish spoon, elaborately enriched in both bowl and handle.
The Turks and other orientals seldom drink at meals, but when they do it
is out of spoons; hence if they do not employ them always as we do, they
put them in requisition where we do not. The wealthy have a variety of
pleasant drinks, consisting of diluted peach, cherry, and raspberry
syrups. Each person has by him a _wooden spoon_, with which he lades the
syrup out of bowls, taking ever and anon spoonfuls of it, and so
suspends his thirst. [_Tavernier._] A sweet drink, composed of raisins
boiled in sugar and scented with rose water, is drunk by ladies out of
ladles, or spoons of tortoise shell, and sometimes of cocoa nut.
[_Lane._]
Near the custom house, says Commodore Porter, is the most famous eating
place in all Constantinople. Persons who like what is good go there to
regale themselves with kibobs, a dish in great favor with the Turks. It
consists of pieces of mutton or lamb cut into small mouthfuls and
seasoned; then strung on an iron skewer and exposed to the heat of an
oven of peculiar construction. They are, when done, served up in their
own gravy, or in kaymar, which is cream. There is also served with them
a soft flat kind of bread or pancake, which, as no knives or forks are
made use of, suits admirably as a means of conveying the kibobs and
kaymar to the mouth, whence they soon find their way into the stomach.
The bread is called Firna Pidésé. With this mess they give you a large
vessel filled with sherbet, or a drink prepared from dried grapes, and
to each person is given a _large spoon_ to sip it.
The manners of Arabs at table are repulsive. ‘They use neither knives
nor forks, nor even spoons, unless for food wholly liquid.’ They have
been observed to plunge their filthy hands into milk placed before them,
and thus raise the liquid to the lips. Before sitting down they repeat a
short prayer beginning thus:—“In the name of the most merciful God.” The
instant it is finished all hands are in the food—and lo, it has
vanished! “In the middle of all was a large wooden bowl, in which were
the camel’s bones and a thin broth in which they were boiled. Knives,
forks, and spoons are silly, impertinent things in the esteem of Arabs;
however, being known to use such things, we had large wooden spoons laid
before us.” [_Jour. to Tadmor_, 1691.]
Having no arabesque spoon, plain or jewelled, to lay before the reader,
we present him with a gem of another kind—one first brought to light as
an Ishmaelite sat down to dinner. It is an old remark that hunger
induces ill humor—that men are more disposed to anger when waiting for a
meal, than when rising from the table. As Hasan, the son and successor
of Ali was one day about to dine, a slave let a dish of hot pillau drop
on him! An unprecedented insult to the dread leader of the faithful!
Now, how did the startled caliph, as his eyes glistened and his face
assumed the color of fire, act—he at whose nod the heads of a dozen men
would have flown for a less offence from their owners’ shoulders? We
have seen a servant of the pope’s slain for spilling hot broth on a
scholar, and an ambassador of his holiness flying for his life on that
occasion to a steeple; we know too how a pagan Roman acted when one of
his servants let a porcelain dish fall, at a supper given to
Augustus—viz: ordered the offender to be sunk in a fish-pond wherein the
monster fattened lampreys on human flesh! an order which thrilled
Octavius with horror.
The revenge of Hasan exceeded them both; and it was based on a verse of
the Koran! In the third chapter of that book is the following
passage:—“Paradise is prepared for those who give alms in prosperity and
adversity; who bridle their anger and forgive men, for God loveth the
beneficent.” Dreading the caliph’s resentment, the poor slave dropped on
his knees, and in an agony exclaimed, “Paradise is for those who bridle
their anger—” “I—I am, not angry,” was the unexpected reply. The
trembling supplicant proceeded—“and for those who forgive men—” “I
forgive you,” was the life-sparing answer—thus emboldened, the youth
meekly added, “for God loveth the beneficent.” “Since it is so,” said
Hasan, whose brow the angel of forgiveness had now smoothed, and lit up
his face with virtue’s own smile—“I give you your liberty and four
hundred pieces of silver”!
If there is a more beautiful episode in human annals, we have not met
with it. Who would compare Alexander to Hasan—who is not enraptured at
the intelligence and ready wit of the young Arab slave; at the
inspiration which led him to quote and beautifully invert the order of a
passage so suited to the exigencies of the moment—and who does not envy
Hasan the heavenly feast he enjoyed in the place of the dish he had
lost?
PERSIAN SPOONS.—The Persians, says Tavernier, eat their broths with
wooden spoons. Their rice, which is made thick, they take up with their
fingers, and wipe their hands upon handkerchiefs. Invited with the
Venetian ambassador to sup with a Persian grandee, the representative of
the doge, he remarks, ‘committed an absurdity, for there are no [few]
silver or gold spoons in Persia, but only long wooden ladles that reach
a great way. Now, the ambassador, reaching his ladle to a porcelain
dish, full of scalding hot pottage, clapped it presently into his mouth,
but finding it so hot that he could not endure it, after several scurvy
faces threw it out of his mouth into his hand, in presence of all the
company.’
John Bell says an entertainment given to the Russian ambassador at
Ispahan consisted of sweetmeats, ice water in golden basins, rice boiled
with butter, fowls, mutton, lambs, &c. The whole was served in gold and
china dishes. ‘But according to the custom of the country, we had
neither napkins, spoons, knives nor forks. The shah himself eat with his
fingers, and every one followed his example. Thin cakes made of wheat
flour were used to _wipe our fingers_.’—a practice of the Romans, whose
slaves afterwards ate the cakes. Fryer visited Persia 170 years ago, and
observed the wealthy drink wine out of ‘long thin wooden spoons,’ but he
was in error in saying ‘spoons are not in use, unless to drink sherbet
with.’
Tavernier is one of the most interesting of old travellers. His details
of oriental life are vivid and fresh as if drawn yesterday. He had, from
his profession as a merchant-jeweller and goldsmith, access to every
court. Haying spent forty years in his travels, he was personally known
to most Asiatic princes, and his arrival was often hailed by them with
joy. On his sixth and last visit to Ispahan, he was warmly greeted by
the king, who seems to have been a real toper. Two days after reaching
the city, the traveller was waited on early in the morning, by a chief
officer of state, accompanied by a jesuit and two Dutchmen, (favorites
of the monarch,) and requested to attend them to the palace. Upon
entering, they found his majesty seated upon a low-pallet; before him
were fruits, sweetmeats, two bottles of Schiras wine and a golden cup.
There was also a small wooden vat or cistern full of wine, and a golden
spoon or ladle which held nearly a pint. The bottles and cup were for
the king; the vat and spoon for his guests.
It would be disagreeable to many readers, were we to recite the
particulars of the succeeding debauch—one in which the spoon acted so
prominent a part, despite of every precept of the Koran. Suffice to say,
‘the entertainment’ was kept up for seventeen hours! being diversified
with feasting, music and dancing. At short intervals ‘the great ladle
went about smartly,’ the king insisting that ‘no man should leave a
drop.’ Tavernier thus winds up the account:—“We had droll’d together
till eleven o’clock at night, when the king started another
question—whether any one present could sing? It happened that there was
one Monsieur Daulier there, who played on the virginals, and pretended
to sing a court air. His voice being high-pitched, the king did not like
it, as the Persians prefer the base. Perceiving this, and being in a
merry vein, though I knew not a note, yet having a deep and clear voice,
I sung an old air, beginning thus:—
‘Fill all the bowls, then—fill ’em high!
Fill all the glasses there—for why
Should every creature drink but I?’”
The king was ravished, crying out, ‘Baricala! Baricala!’ an exclamation
equivalent to ‘Oh! the works of God!’
Wine, as well as ‘plate,’ is prohibited, but rich Persians make no
scruple about either. They excuse themselves when overtaken by liquor,
by quoting a proverb which certainly was not designed to encourage
drunkenness:—‘Equal sin in a spoonful as in a potful.’ Hence, after
tasting a small quantity, they have no compunction about swallowing the
largest. But such reasoning is not confined to oriental sinners; we have
too many who exclaim, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’—‘As well be
hanged for a sheep as a lamb.’
Morier, describing a dinner given to the British embassy, says, there
was placed before each guest a tray, on which stood three china bowls,
filled with sherbets; two made of sweet liquors, and one an exquisite
species of lemonade. There were besides, fruits ready cut, plates with
elegant little arrangements of sweetmeats and confectionery, and smaller
cups of sweet sherbet; the whole of which were placed most
symmetrically, and were quite inviting even by their appearance. In the
vases of sherbet were _spoons made of the pear tree_, with very deep
bowls, and worked so delicately that the long handles just slightly
_bent_ when carried to the mouth.
If the reader has any curiosity to behold a Persian sherbet spoon, let
him turn to _Plate V. Figs. 10, 11_, represent one, preserved with
others of a similar form and different sizes in the Philadelphia Museum.
It is fifteen inches long, and made of box-wood or pear tree. The handle
is thin and ornamented with designs formed by openings cut entirely
through. The junction of the handle with the bowl is strengthened by a
pierced semicircular piece, shown in _Fig. 10_, and exhibiting a very
novel feature.
From what has been said, the reader will be no longer surprised at
Mahommedans associating the spoon with the pleasures of heaven; yet
unless he had been informed of its employment in drinking wine upon
earth, he could scarcely comprehend that part of the Persian creed which
states that Rusuen, the porter of paradise, opens to faithful
Mahommedans the gates of heaven; and when seated on the banks of the
fountain Kauser, the great camel driver himself hands round to each _the
water of life in a_ LADLE.
As a specimen of Persian repartee, we may here introduce an anecdote,
which, if not associated with the spoon, is at least connected with one
of the ingredients of soup. An Ispahan dealer in pot-herbs,
remonstrating against the imposition of an exorbitant tax, was ordered
by the governor to pay it or leave the city. “I cannot pay it, and
whither can I go,” ejaculated the poor man—knowing no place where he
could live, out of the reach of the oppressor, or his equally rapacious
relatives. “You may proceed to Schiras or Kashan, if you like those
cities better than this.” “Yes; but your brother is in power in one, and
your nephew in the other; what relief can I expect in either?” “Proceed,
then; to court, and complain to the king,” replied the extortioner.
“Alas! your brother, the Hajee, is prime minister.” “Well then,” said
the irritated minister, “go to the _devil_, and trouble me no more!”
“Ah! but the holy man your deceased father is with _him_”! said the
persevering dealer in esculents. The spectators laughed, the governor
followed their example, and promised to examine and redress the bold
green-grocer’s wrongs.
CHINESE SPOONS.—In China and neighboring countries, spoons are often of
earthenware. At an entertainment given to the British embassy in Cochin
China, the table was loaded with every imaginable delicacy. The number
of dishes piled in three rows, one above the other, exceeded a hundred.
Before each person was placed boiled rice in place of bread, and two
porcupine quills by way of knife and fork. ‘The spoons were of
_porcelain_, and somewhat in the form of small shovels.’ [_Staunton._]
‘We were in want of every accommodation, even of forks and spoons, for
the former are not used in China, and the latter are made of porcelain,
with very short handles.’ [_Van Braam._]
CHOPSTICKS.—But of Chinese peculiarities, few things have excited more
interest than chopsticks—two small rods or wires, which at table perform
the same duties as our forks and spoons. Enclosed in a sheath along with
a knife, they are suspended from the sash of every gentleman. See _Fig.
12_, _Plate V._ for the sheath. The original is before us. It is 7
inches long, and half an inch wide, made of bamboo, and neatly covered
with tortoise shell, in which no joint can be detected. A minute brass
band goes round the middle and each end. A ring is attached to the upper
one, and on a strip of metal is a proverb or moral sentence. An ivory
handled knife, (left out in the cut) with a strong blade, and rough as
the grindstone left it, occupies one half of the sheath. As both sticks
are alike, one only is figured. They are square rods of ivory, eight
inches long, one-fifth of an inch thick at the smaller ends, and rather
thicker at the other, which are held in the hand. The thick parts, like
the handle of the knife, project out of the case. Sometimes they are
round and have their ends pointed with silver. When used, they are held
in the right hand, between the forefinger and thumb. A toothpick
occasionally finds a place in the sheath.
The dexterity with which chopsticks are used, and the celerity with
which food disappears before them, show how appropriate is their
name—_kwae tsze_, ‘nimble lads.’ A native readily picks up objects small
as pin heads, while fruitless attempts of foreigners to convey with them
a piece of edible bird’snest to the mouth, often afford amusement to
Chinese hosts. The eating apparatus of the poorer classes consists of
chopsticks and bowls. If they possess no table or bench, the large pot
of rice is placed on the floor, and they squat round, with their feet
inwards, just the contrary way from the Jews and Romans. A portion of
rice is transferred by a ladle to each member’s bowl. This he holds in
one hand close to the chin, and with the ‘nimble lads’ pushes the food
into his mouth till the latter is crammed; then wiping the sticks across
the edge of the bowl, he takes up with them, as with forceps, a piece of
fish, meat, or whatever else is on the table, and thrusts it in edgewise
as a relish. After a while the mouth is ready for more, and the nimble
lads are again set to work. [_See Chinese Rep. Vol._ iii.]
Chopsticks are interesting relics of antediluvian days; for their origin
is to be traced to the twigs by which barbarians scrape semifluid food
from natural cups into the mouth; such as travellers use when dining on
cuscous, while far distant from dwellings and destitute of artificial
spatulæ. South Sea islanders thus gather taro dough out of cocoa shells,
and American Indians scrape samp out of baskets.
A sheathed eating-knife was worn at the belt by the Celts, Gauls,
Germans, Saxons and Anglo-Saxons, and by their descendants down to
recent times. It was an essential part of the personal equipment of
gentlemen, laborers and artisans. Even ladies wore them as they wear
scissors now. An old saying arose from the practice, intimating that
appearances are often deceptive:—“In a sheath of gold may be a knife of
lead.” ‘Among the Celts,’ says Macpherson, ‘as at this day in France,
guests carried their own knives and _forks_ [?] enclosed in the same
sheath with the dagger.’ Highlanders carry the _skene dhu_ or knife, and
a fork, in a horn or other sheath—the handle of the knife being
sometimes hollowed out for the reception of snuff. _Spoons_ also were
worn in like manner. Every Janizary had one, and there is no reason to
suppose the custom originated with them.
_Fig. 13_, _Plate V._ represents a brass sheath holding three knives and
a spoon, such as the warlike infantry of the Turks formerly were
furnished with, and which they wore pendent from, or stuck in, the
girdle. At the time Motraye wrote, the spoon had been removed, being
then worn in a perpendicular sheath in _front of the cap_, occupying the
place of the head dress of modern troops, where we may suppose it
sometimes warded off a blow aimed at the head of its owner, as well as
refreshing him when a battle was over. This prominent disposition of the
spoon by the Janizaries was appropriate enough, since each regiment had
its own _soup kettle_, which in process of time acquired a sort of
prescriptive sanctity, and formed as it were the _chief standard_ of the
regiment; while the officers and other military functionaries derived
_their titles_ from their various supposed employments as cooks,
waiters, or scullions! The Spaniards have a proverb which reflects light
on this strange custom:—‘Pendon y caldera’—the standard and caldron. In
the Moorish wars, a Castilian who undertook to raise a regiment, was
privileged by the king to carry a standard as the sign of his authority
to enlist troops; while a caldron figured on it indicated that he fed
them at his own cost.
Let not modern warriors laugh at this; for if posterity judge them from
‘Tableux,’ ‘Military Adventures,’ and other fashionable novels,
descriptive of the foraging and bivouacing of epauletted gourmands and
legal bucaniers, which constitute so large a portion of the light
literature of the day, the old Turkish legions, God wot, will lose
nothing in the comparison; for knives, forks, plates, spoons, the bottle
and the glass, are infinitely more conspicuous than such things ever
were with the Moslem. But it is a new thing under the sun for the most
horrible of all crimes—that which includes every other, and surpasses
the power of devils to commit, to be treated in books as a bagatelle,
for the amusement of drawing-room loungers and boarding-school misses.
Would that these literary warriors electrified the reading world with
equally vivid details of the blessings their own countrymen have derived
from their valor—how every victory has lessened the laborer’s toil and
increased the artisan’s comforts, diminished the price of bread, and
poured abundance among a happy population—how their liberties have
increased with their armies, and taxes been reduced with their
conquests—how—but we are digressing.
_Fig. 14_, _Plate V._—one of the numerous illustrations of the ‘Romance
of the Rose,’ a French poetical satire, written by Guillaume de Lois,
and translated by Chaucer. As a portrait of a female mendicant of the
middle ages, it is not without interest, independently of the spoon
which ornaments the felt hat. The distressed condition of the lady’s
wardrobe and her famishing looks are described in the poem:—
“She was like thing for hanger dede,
That lad her life onely by brede,
Kneden with eisel stronge and egre,
And thereto she was leane and megre;
And she was clad ful poorely,
All in an olde torne courtpy,
As she were all with dogges torne
And botn behind and eke beforne.
Clouted was she beggerly.”
The poet is speaking of avarice, which the ancient illustrator depicts
in the aspect and costume of a beggar. The alms-dish, suspended from the
wrist, was the professional badge of mendicants in the remotest ages,
and has continued to be one to the present day. It dates back to the
fountain-head of Hindoo mythology. ‘Gunga was produced by the sweat of
Vishnu’s foot, which Brahma caught in his _alms dish_.’ The Pandaroons
and other beggars of India eat from it the rice given them. Fryer,
describing the Fakirs, says, ‘they beg up and down like our bedlams with
an horn and a bowl.’
The spoon is also carried by Asiatic as well as old European beggars.
‘Persian Durweeshes in Egypt have oblong bowls of cocoa-nut or metal, in
which they receive alms and put their food. They carry also a wooden
_spoon_.’ [_Lane._]
It was a daily custom to distribute victuals at the gates of monasteries
and rich houses. Of such, we often read, ‘Pottage was given to every
poor person who begged.’ ‘All dinners being ended, the Vsher and Groome
of the Hall are to see the broken meate and drincke safely put into the
almes tubbes.’ [_Brathwait._] Every recipient was required to provide
his own bowl and spoon—a prudent precaution, since lepers or other
diseased persons were commonly among the applicants. It does not seem
possible that more appropriate symbols of want could have been adopted,
than those carried by ancient children of sorrow. What more touching
devices for moving the bowels of the compassionate than an empty bowl
and an unemployed spoon? There was even something expressive in the way
they were carried—the spoon as near the mouth as could be, and the
vacant dish in front of the empty stomach.
As the lady figured on _Plate V._ represents a class of old artists
allied to modern chiffonniers, we trust no reader will take offence at
her presence. Having described spoons belonging to kings, why should we
not mention those owned by people, who, like kings, are fed at the
public expense? Every part of her gabardine seems ready to bid ‘good
bye’ to its neighbors, while many have already gone off, as certain
rents and gaps too plainly declare. Still, there is philosophy in the
disposal of the dress. If her organs of motion are wofully exposed, the
more noble parts of her person are carefully guarded from the
weather—perhaps on the principle of keeping ‘the head warm and feet
cold;’ an aphorism which Boerhaave acquired, praise for inverting,
though against the experience of swarms of young urchins, who scamper
about summer and winter with bare legs and feet; and contrary to the
advice of Locke, to bore holes in the soles of new shoes, that wind and
water might always have free ingress and egress! There was policy if not
humor in exhibiting the parts which the figure represents as denuded: in
approaching a mansion for alms, the wretched toes enforced the appeal,
and where their owner received nothing but curses, she quickly showed
the churls ‘a clean pair of heels.’
Beggars were not allowed to enter a house when they sought alms—a
circumstance from which a proverbial expression of ‘poor Richard’ is
derived:—‘Hunger looks in at the working-man’s door, but dares not
enter.’ Various devices were in vogue for giving notice of their
presence; sometimes a horn was blown, or other rude instrument played
on; but the usual music was produced by striking the dish with the spoon
or a cup. From this clattering the principal utensil became known as the
‘clap-dish,’ or ‘clack-dish.’
The useful arts arose in Asia; and poetry, painting, and music were born
there. Thence came the trumpet, harp, drum, cymbals, and what is older
than all, the musical clack-dish. The begging friars of Fo enforce their
demands by beating two pieces of bamboo, ‘or hammering a hollow piece of
wood with a stick.’ With similar instruments Chinese mendicants get up
such powerful solos and duets in front of shop doors, that the inmates,
whose organs of harmony sympathize not with the sounds, relieve the
musicians to get rid of the music. Lepers, when they attended markets to
beg corn, carried a rattle to warn people from touching them.
[Illustration:
_Plate 7_ _Modern_
]
There is an Italian female mendicant in one of the illustrations of
Ackerman’s ‘Forget me Not’ for 1843, which shows how little the
accoutrements and costume of this class have changed. With the exception
of a crutch, she of Italy might be taken for the ancient French damsel
on _Plate V._ An equal lack of covering is equally obvious about the
regions of the toes, and opposite extremities of her feet. The mantle
and skirts of an inner garment are ornamented with the same picturesque
fringe; a species of muffler or band holds up the chin, and kept the
miserable mouth shut when there was no occasion to open it; a tapered
hat covers the head; a _spoon_, stuck through the band, sets off the
hat, and an alms-dish hangs from the waist.
In a volume of ancient engravings now before us, one dated A. D. 1470
represents an itinerant charlatan, with his family and stock in trade.
He is playing on bagpipes, and bears two children in a basket strapped
to his back. His wife carries a young cherub and leads an ass laden with
panniers, out of which peep a couple of boys who have not learned to
walk. The eldest son, accompanied by the dog, goes before with an owl on
his shoulder. In the man’s hat are stuck a couple of _spoons_.
In the days of ecclesiastical rule, when monks were monarchs and lay
people could neither eat nor drink but as the Church pleased, a merciful
clause was at length introduced into the canons respecting lent, with
the view of removing a very serious obstacle to the salvation of those
who lived upon alms—a pleasing proof of the anxiety of ghostly fathers
to save (though only at the last extremity) the ghastly sheep in their
flocks. It was to this effect:—“Beggars, _when ready to affamish_ for
want, _may_ eat in lent time what they can get.”