CAMELOT FANTASIES

Notes

[The references are, except in the first note only, to the stanzas of
 the Fifth edition.]

(Stanza I.) Flinging a Stone into the Cup was the signal for "To
 Horse!" in the Desert.

(II.) The "False Dawn"; Subhi Kazib, a transient Light on the Horizon
 about an hour before the Subhi sadik or True Dawn; a well-known
 Phenomenon in the East.

(IV.) New Year. Beginning with the Vernal Equinox, it must be
remembered; and (howsoever the old Solar Year is practically
 superseded by the clumsy Lunar Year that dates from the Mohammedan
 Hijra) still commemorated by a Festival that is said to have been
 appointed by the very Jamshyd whom Omar so often talks of, and whose
 yearly Calendar he helped to rectify.

"The sudden approach and rapid advance of the Spring," says Mr.
 Binning, "are very striking. Before the Snow is well off the Ground,
 the Trees burst into Blossom, and the Flowers start from the Soil. At
 Naw Rooz (their New Year's Day) the Snow was lying in patches on the
 Hills and in the shaded Vallies, while the Fruit-trees in the Garden
 were budding beautifully, and green Plants and Flowers springing upon
 the Plains on every side--

  'And on old Hyems' Chin and icy Crown
    An odorous Chaplet of sweet Summer buds
    Is, as in mockery, set--'--

Among the Plants newly appear'd I recognized some Acquaintances I had
 not seen for many a Year: among these, two varieties of the Thistle; a
 coarse species of the Daisy, like the Horse-gowan; red and white
 clover; the Dock; the blue Cornflower; and that vulgar Herb the
 Dandelion rearing its yellow crest on the Banks of the Water-courses."
 The Nightingale was not yet heard, for the Rose was not yet blown: but
 an almost identical Blackbird and Woodpecker helped to make up
 something of a North-country Spring.

"The White Hand of Moses."  Exodus iv. 6; where Moses draws forth his
 Hand--not, according to the Persians, "leprous as Snow," but white, as
 our May-blossom in Spring perhaps. According to them also the Healing
 Power of Jesus resided in his Breath.

(V.) Iram, planted by King Shaddad, and now sunk somewhere in the
 Sands of Arabia. Jamshyd's Seven-ring'd Cup was typical of the 7
 Heavens, 7 Planets, 7 Seas, &c., and was a Divining Cup.

(VI.) Pehlevi, the old Heroic Sanskrit of Persia. Hafiz also speaks
 of the Nightingale's Pehlevi, which did not change with the People's.

I am not sure if the fourth line refers to the Red Rose looking
 sickly, or to the Yellow Rose that ought to be Red; Red, White, and
 Yellow Roses all common in Persia. I think that Southey in his Common-
 Place Book, quotes from some Spanish author about the Rose being White
 till 10 o'clock; "Rosa Perfecta" at 2; and "perfecta incarnada" at 5.

(X.) Rustum, the "Hercules" of Persia, and Zal his Father, whose
 exploits are among the most celebrated in the Shahnama. Hatim Tai, a
 well-known type of Oriental Generosity.

(XIII.) A Drum--beaten outside a Palace.

(XIV.) That is, the Rose's Golden Centre.

(XVIII.) Persepolis: call'd also Takht-i-Jam-shyd--THE THRONE OF
 JAMSHYD, "King Splendid," of the mythical Peshdadian Dynasty, and
 supposed (according to the Shah-nama) to have been founded and built
 by him. Others refer it to the Work of the Genie King, Jan Ibn
 Jan--who also built the Pyramids--before the time of Adam.

BAHRAM GUR.--Bahram of the Wild Ass--a Sassanian Sovereign--had also
 his Seven Castles (like the King of Bohemia!) each of a different
 Colour: each with a Royal Mistress within; each of whom tells him a
 Story, as told in one of the most famous Poems of Persia, written by
 Amir Khusraw: all these Sevens also figuring (according to Eastern
 Mysticism) the Seven Heavens; and perhaps the Book itself that Eighth,
 into which the mystical Seven transcend, and within which they
 revolve. The Ruins of Three of those Towers are yet shown by the
 Peasantry; as also the Swamp in which Bahram sunk, like the Master of
 Ravenswood, while pursuing his Gur.

  The Palace that to Heav'n his pillars threw,
   And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew--
     I saw the solitary Ringdove there,
   And "Coo, coo, coo," she cried; and "Coo, coo, coo."

[Included in Nicolas's edition as No. 350 of the Rubaiyat, and also in
 Mr. Whinfield's translation.]

This Quatrain Mr. Binning found, among several of Hafiz and others,
 inscribed by some stray hand among the ruins of Persepolis. The
 Ringdove's ancient Pehlevi Coo, Coo, Coo, signifies also in Persian
 "Where? Where? Where?"  In Attar's "Bird-parliament" she is reproved
 by the Leader of the Birds for sitting still, and for ever harping on
 that one note of lamentation for her lost Yusuf.

Apropos of Omar's Red Roses in Stanza xix, I am reminded of an old
 English Superstition, that our Anemone Pulsatilla, or purple "Pasque
 Flower," (which grows plentifully about the Fleam Dyke, near
 Cambridge,) grows only where Danish Blood has been spilt.

(XXI.) A thousand years to each Planet.

(XXXI.) Saturn, Lord of the Seventh Heaven.

(XXXII.) ME-AND-THEE: some dividual Existence or Personality distinct
 from the Whole.

(XXXVII.) One of the Persian Poets--Attar, I think--has a pretty story
 about this. A thirsty Traveller dips his hand into a Spring of Water
 to drink from. By-and-by comes another who draws up and drinks from
 an earthen bowl, and then departs, leaving his Bowl behind him. The
 first Traveller takes it up for another draught; but is surprised to
 find that the same Water which had tasted sweet from his own hand
tastes bitter from the earthen Bowl. But a Voice--from Heaven, I
 think--tells him the clay from which the Bowl is made was once Man;
 and, into whatever shape renew'd, can never lose the bitter flavour of
 Mortality.

(XXXIX.) The custom of throwing a little Wine on the ground before
 drinking still continues in Persia, and perhaps generally in the East.
 Mons. Nicolas considers it "un signe de liberalite, et en meme temps
 un avertissement que le buveur doit vider sa coupe jusqu'a la derniere
 goutte."  Is it not more likely an ancient Superstition; a Libation to
 propitiate Earth, or make her an Accomplice in the illicit Revel? Or,
 perhaps, to divert the Jealous Eye by some sacrifice of superfluity,
 as with the Ancients of the West? With Omar we see something more is
 signified; the precious Liquor is not lost, but sinks into the ground
 to refresh the dust of some poor Wine-worshipper foregone.

Thus Hafiz, copying Omar in so many ways: "When thou drinkest Wine
 pour a draught on the ground. Wherefore fear the Sin which brings to
 another Gain?"

(XLIII.) According to one beautiful Oriental Legend, Azrael
 accomplishes his mission by holding to the nostril an Apple from the
 Tree of Life.

This, and the two following Stanzas would have been withdrawn, as
 somewhat de trop, from the Text, but for advice which I least like to
 disregard.

(LI.) From Mah to Mahi; from Fish to Moon.

(LVI.) A Jest, of course, at his Studies. A curious mathematical
 Quatrain of Omar's has been pointed out to me; the more curious
 because almost exactly parallel'd by some Verses of Doctor Donne's,
 that are quoted in Izaak Walton's Lives! Here is Omar: "You and I are
 the image of a pair of compasses; though we have two heads (sc. our
 feet) we have one body; when we have fixed the centre for our circle,
 we bring our heads (sc. feet) together at the end."  Dr. Donne:

  If we be two, we two are so
      As stiff twin-compasses are two;
   Thy Soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
      To move, but does if the other do.

  And though thine in the centre sit,
      Yet when my other far does roam,
   Thine leans and hearkens after it,
      And rows erect as mine comes home.

  Such thou must be to me, who must
      Like the other foot obliquely run;
   Thy firmness makes my circle just,
      And me to end where I begun.

(LIX.) The Seventy-two Religions supposed to divide the World,
 including Islamism, as some think: but others not.

(LX.) Alluding to Sultan Mahmud's Conquest of India and its dark
 people.

(LXVIII.) Fanusi khiyal, a Magic-lanthorn still used in India; the
 cylindrical Interior being painted with various Figures, and so
 lightly poised and ventilated as to revolve round the lighted Candle
 within.

(LXX.) A very mysterious Line in the Original:

   O danad O danad O danad O--

breaking off something like our Wood-pigeon's Note, which she is said
 to take up just where she left off.

(LXXV.) Parwin and Mushtari--The Pleiads and Jupiter.

(LXXXVII.) This Relation of Pot and Potter to Man and his Maker
 figures far and wide in the Literature of the World, from the time of
 the Hebrew Prophets to the present; when it may finally take the name
 of "Pot theism," by which Mr. Carlyle ridiculed Sterling's
 "Pantheism."  My Sheikh, whose knowledge flows in from all quarters,
 writes to me--

"Apropos of old Omar's Pots, did I ever tell you the sentence I found
 in 'Bishop Pearson on the Creed'? 'Thus are we wholly at the disposal
 of His will, and our present and future condition framed and ordered
 by His free, but wise and just, decrees. Hath not the potter power
 over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and
 another unto dishonour? (Rom. ix. 21.)  And can that earth-artificer
 have a freer power over his brother potsherd (both being made of the
 same metal), than God hath over him, who, by the strange fecundity of
 His omnipotent power, first made the clay out of nothing, and then him
 out of that?'"

And again--from a very different quarter--"I had to refer the other
 day to Aristophanes, and came by chance on a curious Speaking-pot
 story in the Vespae, which I had quite forgotten.

"The Pot calls a bystander to be a witness to his bad treatment. The
 woman says, 'If, by Proserpine, instead of all this 'testifying'
 (comp. Cuddie and his mother in 'Old Mortality!') you would buy
yourself a rivet, it would show more sense in you!'  The Scholiast
 explains echinus as"

One more illustration for the oddity's sake from the "Autobiography of
 a Cornish Rector," by the late James Hamley Tregenna. 1871.

"There was one odd Fellow in our Company--he was so like a Figure in
 the 'Pilgrim's Progress' that Richard always called him the
 'ALLEGORY,' with a long white beard--a rare Appendage in those
 days--and a Face the colour of which seemed to have been baked in,
 like the Faces one used to see on Earthenware Jugs. In our Country-
 dialect Earthenware is called 'Clome'; so the Boys of the Village used
 to shout out after him--'Go back to the Potter, Old Clomeface, and get
 baked over again.'  For the 'Allegory,' though shrewd enough in most
 things, had the reputation of being 'saift-baked,' i.e., of weak
 intellect."

(XC.) At the Close of the Fasting Month, Ramazan (which makes the
 Mussulman unhealthy and unamiable), the first Glimpse of the New Moon
 (who rules their division of the Year) is looked for with the utmost
 Anxiety, and hailed with Acclamation. Then it is that the Porter's
 Knot maybe heard--toward the Cellar. Omar has elsewhere a pretty
 Quatrain about the same Moon--

"Be of Good Cheer--the sullen Month will die,
   And a young Moon requite us by and by:
     Look how the Old one meagre, bent, and wan
   With Age and Fast, is fainting from the Sky!"

          The End