Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

LITERE ORIENTALES.-SIXTH ARTICLE.

OTTOMAN POETRY.

MYSTICAL theology, or Gnosticism, as it was anciently termed, is a science common to most countries and all religions. Its prevalence, as we stated in a former article, was very extensive in the Ottoman empire, down to the close of the sixteenth century, and it exercised a more powerful influence over the minds of the intelligent classes than any other species of learning. Natural philosophers, historians, lawyers, and physicians, were to be found in Turkey, as elsewhere; but the Sheikhs and Durwishes wrote the best songs on the nature of Heaven, Deity, and the soul, and were the real leaders of public opinion. Living for the most part in solitudes and sepulchres, dead to a world they despised, and constantly absorbed in contemplation of the "inner mysteries," these devout men became poets, not from any natural impulse towards poetry, but from the circumstances of their position. The extraordinary experiences by which they were, or believed themselves to be, visited, carried them beyond themselves into a foreign sphere of thought, and left them no longer arbiters of their own modes of expression. That they sometimes failed to render themselves intelligible is less attributable to their phraseology, than to a want of spiritual training on the part of their readers. There is perhaps intrinsically no order of poetry superior to theirs; but it is also a science, and must be studied as such before its lofty harmonies can make themselves fully felt and heard within the soul.

"Every religious man," observes Shelley, "is a poet." This we take to be the truth. But it is not intellectual religion that constitutes the religious man. True religion must strike its roots in the soil of the spiri tual nature. And it must begin by the development of a feeling which some would consider rather more kindred to irreligion. In the religious man, hate must precede love. Such a man must first hate the spirit of the world. He must hate with immitiga

ble hatred all that the world lovesPleasure-Glory-Riches, "Yea, and his own life also." When his hatred is perfect, his love is born from it as its legitimate antithesis. This is Holy Love, commencing for the Highest Being, and terminating for the lowest, but not at all including the lover himself. It is then that his spirit becomes susceptible of all celestial influences. Poetry, divinest of all, springs up within him as a fountain; and he pours it forth upon the world in ever-flowing streams. By a process like to this it was that manynot all of the oriental recluses were first converted into poets. And not only were they poets in thought, in word, but their lives themselves, were poems.

The biographies of the Christian saints, it has occurred to us before now, might, if condensed into one imaginary history, form a nobler epic than any extant. We would assert the same thing of the biographies of the Mohammedan ascetics, who were saints also, after a fashion. What are the flesh-and-blood combats of Achilles, to the deadly conflicts of Alee Eben Boukaree with the Bowers of Darkness? How paltry appear the exploits of Orlando, beside the miracles of Zezzadallah! Marius, seated on the ruins of Carthage, is a striking sight; but Malek Barbaran, soaring into the air, and passing from town to town with the rapidity of an arrow, exhibits something more of the æsthetical. The poet-monk, Abd-ullah Zarvain," was always performing some pilgrimage or another.

He

passed his whole life under the cope of the blue sky. Whenever he rested, he sate by the side of a pit, whereinto he flung, as rubbish, all the food, money, and presents continually brought to him!" Fact or fiction, there is surely a deeper meaning in these few lines than in a dozen Odysseys.

"That pole of the pious, and pattern of the devoted-that Simoorgh (great bird) on the mountain of loneliness, and crocodile in the river of

unity, Ismael Sarbannee, was associated in good works with the Sheikh Ahmed. In their kitchen four hundred sheep were daily killed for travellers and the poor. The heads, limbs, and skins of these animals were gathered up and preserved; and every morning, when the shepherd arrived, he found all the sheep alive again, and drove them to pasture !" Mark that, reader, and produce its parallel, if you can, from Ariosto!

The Seyd Alee Doonkar was so emaciated from excessive austerities, "that his ribs projected like a staircase. Whoever mentions his name at dinnertime is secure from the Evil Eye and the attacks of the flies." Again: "That diver into the ocean of solitude, and leader of the Sofis, Alee Zarmast Batnoo, once erected an edifice for Fakeers. The chief beam of the building proving too short by three yards, he placed his foot upon it, and said, Thou hast grown up in the forest for my sake, and wilt thou not yield the just measure for a building intended for Fakeers?' Whereupon, behold! the beam lengthened by three yards, and became admirably adapted for the building. On another occasion, some person who was riding a horse it two dreadful lashes. gave The Sheikh sighed, and on some person's asking him the reason, he stripped off his clothes, and lo! there appeared on his own body the two lashes which the horse had received." Examples of this latter phenomenon, we

believe, have often been adduced by psychologists; but when and where do we meet them in poetry?

"One day, the Khodja Kotb-ed-Deen, that worker of glorious miracles, being plunged in an ecstasy of devotion, his heart fell out of his mouth. Upon this he directed his attendants to wrap it up, broken and burned as it was, in white linen, and preserve it till his death, to put it with him into his grave; which they did." A somewhat sublimer subject this for painter and poet, we fancy, than Petrarch's loss of his heart at first sight of Laura!

The Sheikh Abu-Poosh enjoyed a high reputation for holiness in Stambool, about the close of the fifteenth century. News being one day brought to him that his son Divannee had died of the plague, he repaired to the young man's house, and raised him from the dead by simply pronouncing the word, "Arise!" Divannee immediately dedicated himself to a life of penance and contemplation. He was one of the most celebrated poets of his time, and his songs are to this day chanted in chorus by the Mevleevee Ďurwishes, as they swim through the mazes of that

"Mystical dance which yonder starry sphere
Of planets, and of fixed, in all her wheels,
Resembles nearest."*

We give a portion of his "Ode to the Prophet Ahmed." The omitted stanzas the reader need not regret, for they would be utterly unintelligible to him.

Kasseed in Praise of the Prophet Ahmed.

In Sheenaha,† the chief of idols is thy Hair.
Ya Alla-hu! Ya Alla-hu!
Belief and Unbelief raise altars to thy Hair.
Ya Alla-hu! Ya Alla-hu!

The Djinnee § of the air are dazzled, and despair,
While the Blind seek their sight

In the light

Of thy Hair.

Ya Alla-hu!

Ya Alla-hu!

With rapture all behold

the glory of thy Head.

Ya Alla-hu!

Ya Alla-hu!

* Milton.

+ China.

+ 0 High GOD! This is commonly abbreviated to Ya Hu, (0 High!) and sometimes simply to Hu, (High!) an exclamation which some European travellers have mistaken for a meaningless howl.

§ Genii.

[blocks in formation]

Embody none can know save those that read the Eyes.

[blocks in formation]

The devils, thine old foes, oft curse that House of Woes;
But thy friends find their strength

In the length

Of thy Nose.

Ya Alla-hu! Ya Alla-hu!

[blocks in formation]

† A Gouth is a Durwish of a distinguished order of sanctity. The word, how ever, is rather Persian, or Afghanee, than Turkish.

The highest Seyds and Seers

shall gaze for endless years

On the great treasure-hoard

GOD hath stored

In thine Ears.

Ya Alla-hu!

Ya Allah-hu!

Thus we whirl, and chant, and whirl,
We pale Mevléevee Durwishes,
Following Wisdom's path of pearl,
And ever studying her wishes.
Sneer not, worldling! In thy brains
The Light of Life is dark to thee,
Nor can all their phosphor-grains
Yield even a single spark to thee.
Count not Frenzy wholly Folly,
Call not all romances lies;
Golden meaning past thy weening
In our hymns and dances lies.
Rather ponder what on yonder

Tomb the Sheikh Bou-Benan says -
"Fallen Man hath need of prayer,
And mystic rites, and penances.
He must weep and howl for years;
No Inner Sun will rise in him
Till he quench by seas of tears

The Hell of Self that lies in him."

This "Inner Sun," which the mystics beheld in themselves, was regarded by the more illuminated as a reflection from the Spiritual Sun of Heaven; but other notions were entertained concerning it by the fanatical. Thus, the Arabian Mansur Halladj maintained the identity of himself with the Source of Divine Light; and Nezeemee, also an Arabian, but who wrote most of his works in Turkish, promulgated the doctrine that the soul

is interblended with the Essence of Deity as a raindrop is with the ocean. Both were put to death as heretics; and it would appear that Nezeemee's imprudence in particular was generally condemned by "the Initiated." His brother Khanwan, among the rest, reproaches him, and in much such a style as a German psychologist might adopt in denouncing an itinerant quack mesmeriser:

Unhappy man!-thy mother's son
Demands of thee, What hast thou done?
E-bey!* thou hast proclaimed aloud
The Secret to the vulgar crowd!
Wouldst let a stranger, then, behold
Thy hidden hoards of gems and gold?

Might not he prove a robber-guest,

And sheathe his khandjarf in thy breast?

Nezeemee, however, only made the matter worse by his reply:

Secret, boy? What secret? Told

O'er the globe from clime to clime

Is the mighty truth we hold ;

It resounds through Space and Time!
All things preach it; and this know, boy,

That were Nature dead and dumb,
Dead and dumb as trodden clod,

:

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Even the la la of the hautboy,

Even the rom-dom of the drum,
Still would peal the "I AM GOD!"

"Lord!" writes the Durwish Baba Kaighusiz, (Father without Anxiety,) who flourished in the reign of Murad III. and was author of the AbdallaNameh, (Book of the Servant of God)

"Lord! is this a dream and a phantasy? Or am I a man full of deceit? Or else, am I really one with the One and Only? Ha! the world is the body, and I am the soul thereof. I am the soul of worlds, nay the soul of souls! A singular treasure, a wonderful mind, a vast desolate desert also, have I discovered within me. I am one with the Source of Truth. Let no one look on me as another Mansur Halladj: I am an extraordinary being, though wearing the semblance of man. Glory to thee, O GOD! The world is the oyster: I am the pearl. I am Register of the entire Universe. The Near and the Far, the Great and the Little, are alike within me. Glory, O God, to thee, for the veil has fallen, the truth stands revealed, I behold my soul, I behold the sun in it, and the sea! The thorns of existence are gone, the rose remains ; my body is filled with light; I see how I am one with The All-in-All. From all hearts arises a voice, God alone is God, the I is GOD, GOD is I! Thou, O GOD, art the Light, and all things are in that Light, and that Light glorifies all things. It is a fearful mystery how and why I bear this human form; but this also symbolises a divine attribute. I exercise the sway of a Sultan; I am a diamond in the Mine of Fortune, an ocean that heaves in all bosoms. Yet, Lord! who will believe that Thy mysteries have been laid bare to me? O, where, or who, or what am I? In which region of space do I exist? In what sort of dream do I live and move?" remarkable circumstance that some few of the Mohammedans, when in this illuminated" state, forgot all distinctions of creed between themselves and others. "They mistake,"

It is a

:

remarks the Persian Djelal-ad-Deen Rumee, "who suppose the Moslem religion to be better than the Christian for my part, I am neither Moslem nor Christian, Jew, Guebre, nor Pagan; I am an intoxicated monk!" This was damnable heresy in the ears of the more orthodox Mystics, and they denounced it accordingly. It seemed to them a scandalous paradox that when a man attained the highest degree of religiousness he should find that he had no religion at all. A question, however, which neither party appears to have mooted is apt to arise in the mind of the western reader of these extravagant rhapsodies: Is the illuminated state always a test of moral merit? We are inclined to believe that it is not. It is certain that Christian, Moslem, and Hindoo alike are able, by continued habits of self-mortification, to make great advances in the knowledge of the interior life. Some years ago there was a Brahman in India who, when young, "took great delight in rolling himself among thorns and pointed stones," and in after-life "had a bed of sharp spikes made for himself, on which he Jay continually naked." This man's flesh at length became insensible to external stimuli, and he entered upon a state of spiritual beatitude even while in this world. But are we therefore to conclude that he was really holier and fitter for heaven than the Christian who leads a life of active benevolence, but practises no austerities? Surely not. Still the question has its difficulties; and it is evident that we must make further discoveries in psychology before it can be disposed of to our perfect satisfaction.

[ocr errors]

But to our poets. The following ditty, we fancy, will please many of our readers. It is not mystical, but it conveys a highly instructive moral. Its author's name does not occur in any of the Turkish biographies.

The Three Talismans.

Yes, Abd-Oolah, my friend, yes, it is here that thou findest me, Here in Massoudah's tomb, with the cold stone only to lie upon.

* Trans. of the Asiatic Soc. Vol. I.

VOL. XXVII.—No. 157.

E

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »