Bagdemagus

“ Saint George pricked up his ears at this, and eagerly inquired what it was. “This, you must understand, most noble Knight, is the renowned territory of Bagabornabou, second to none in the world in importance in the opinion of its inhabitants. None was so prosperous, none so flourishing, when a most horrible misfortune befell the land, in the appearance of a terrific green dragon, of huge proportions, who ranges up and down the country, creating devastation and dismay in every direction. No corner of the land is safe from his ravages ”

“ CHAPTER I In the Orient’s motley, twisted annals the tale of Ahmed el-Bagdadi’s—“the Thief of Bagdad,” as he is called in the ancient records—search for happiness, which is by the same token the tale of his adventures and exploits and love, has assumed in the course of time the character of something homeric, something epic and fabulous, something close-woven to the golden loom of the desert in both pattern and sweep of romance. ”

“ And the alarmed mother sighed while the peddler answered Karadeucq, who hung upon the stranger's words:
"The new Bagauders, my brave lad, are what the old ones were. Terrible to the oppressors, kind to the people."
"Do the people love them?"
"Whether they love them! Aëlian and Aman, the two chiefs of the first Bagaudy who were put to death nearly two centuries ago in an old Roman castle near Paris, at the confluence of the Seine and the Marne—Aëlian and Aman are to this day loved by the people as martyrs!"
"Ah! Theirs is a happy fate! To be still loved by the people after two centuries! ”

“ The great emperor Monomachus, learning of this, bade summon the Atsincan, to destroy by their magic art the beasts devouring his game. They, in obedience to the imperial behest, killed a quantity of wild beasts. King Bagrat heard of it, and summoning the Atsincan, said, “How have you killed these beasts?” “Sire,” said they, “our art teaches us to poison meat, which we put in a place frequented by these beasts; then climbing a tree, we attract them by imitating the cry of the animals; they assemble, eat the meat, and drop down dead. Only beasts born on Holy Saturday obey us not. ”

“ As he leaned nearer to the shouting dancers, wondering how his mother came to join in such orgies, she suddenly saw him, and pointing a finger at his shrinking figure cried:—
"There is the monster who prowls in our woods. Come on, sisters. I will be the first to strike the wild boar." Blinded by the madness that Bacchus had purposely inspired, she rushed upon the terrified king, followed by the crowd of half-crazed Bacchantes. In vain did Pentheus cry out that he was her son. ”

“ The victim waived his hand impatiently, and faintly exclaimed:
“You won’t do; somebody that’s better acquainted with God than you are must do it.”
“But, Baggs,” reasoned the barkeeper, “perhaps he’s been a preacher—you’d better not throw away a chance.”
“Don’t care if he has,” whispered Baggs; “he don’t look like any of the prayin’ people mother used to know.”
The would-be petitioner took his rebuff considerably to heart, and began, in a low and rapid voice, an argument with himself upon the duration of the state of grace. The Enders listened but indifferently, however ”

“ For we are bound in matter as Titans, through the great partibility of our nature; but we rise from the dark mire as Bacchuses. Hence we become more prophetic at the time of death: and Bacchus is the inspective guardian of death, because he is likewise of every thing pertaining to the Bacchic sacred rites. ”

“ But when he got there, instead of a region of fog and chaos, he only beheld another world much like our own, and he was greatly amazed, and exclaimed with a loud voice,—"Will my friends in Bagdad believe this?—but it is true, and I will so tell them." So he hastened down the mountain, and went with all the speed he could back to Bagdad; saying, "Bagdad," and giving gold to every [65] man he met, until he reached the kiosk of dreams, where his friends were smoking and looking at the gambols of the Tigris. ”

“ A sigh of relief escaped from Finnerty as the dogs slunk back and Pundit Bagh, seemingly none the worse, crouched again for battle.
"That is their way," Mahadua whispered; "they seek to cut Bagh in his vitals behind, while in front others spit poison in his eyes to blind him; the white froth that spouts from their mouths when they fight is poison."
Blood was dripping from the bison's neck as he faced about, but the snap at his neck had not discouraged him; his actions showed that he would battle to the end. ”

“ What are the flowers and the humble scents which for more than a thousand years have been offered to the spirit of that warrior, but now can never be offered again since there are none of his blood left to bring them, compared to the priceless balms, the jewels and the gold, that daily are poured upon the feet of Bagoas, the Chief Eunuch and Counsellor of the King of kings, who, did he know of those holy ones that sleep in the tomb of the race of Bagoas, doubtless would drag them out and cause Bagoas, the last of its blood, to fire them, that he might see a merry blaze? ”

“ Silenus. My good Scrub, the tigers of Bacchus know of daintier food than such marrowless bones and savourless flesh as you and I. The best thing you can do is to stretch yourself there beside Glaucus, and pretend that you are drunk. Bacchus may be angry at those who have carried me off, and his immediate punishment might be severe: he will do nothing to one who is in the power of wine, and by the time you can be reasonably sober his ire will have gone like the beads from a goblet. Scaramouch. I would not do so for a man, but gods may be encountered by such sleights. ”

“ An it please thee bid me fetch her to thee, so thou mayst ask a blessing of her...." And the Lady Bedrulbudour said to him, "Go and bring her to me; marry, this long while past I have still heard of her gifts and excellences and have yearned to see her, so I may ask a blessing of her, for that the folk are beyond measure abundant [in talk] of her [646] virtues." So the Aga went and brought the enchanter, disguised as Fatimeh, before the Lady Bedrulbudour; whereupon the Maugrabin offered up abundance of prayers for her, and none misdoubted of him but that he was Fatimeh the recluse. ”

“ For there in this mime, this puppet king upon the platform, with the tame tiger, Bagoas, that was about to tear out his throat, crouching at his feet, I saw the very type of all grandeur that is built of clay and not of spirit, since assuredly there is one grandeur of the earth and another of the spirit. Whether by the poison of Bagoas or by the fire of Isis, yonder man who stood triumphing over the mighty monarchs that lay coffined beneath his feet, like a wind-filled toad upon a consecrated altar, was about to die and then what of his triumph and what of his pomp? ”

“ The disorder in which the bodies were found, one with its head crushed down upon the bosom, the half-shut eye of one of the mute company, and other indications, seemed to point to such haste in the interment as might have been expected in the case of a King and his companions who had met with so tragic a fate. Accordingly, the discoverer announced in his famous telegram to the King of the Hellenes, and maintained in his works, that he had found Agamemnon and his household. ”

“ From the daily increase in the price of provisions, and the daily coining new lies to feed [Pg 236] the people with hopes instead of bread, I think things cannot remain long in their present position; yet the Lord knows. It is certain Bagdad is altogether ruined; and if those who belong to the neighbouring villages, and those who would leave it, were there ever so small an opening, were gone, the city would be a desert.
I had a patient with me to-day, who told me that, out of a family of sixteen, he alone remains from the plague. ”

“ Bagdad was no longer the city of peace, the seat of the caliphs; but the noblest conquest of Holacou could not be overlooked by his ambitious successor. The whole course of the Tigris and Euphrates, from the mouth to the sources of those rivers, was reduced to his obedience: he entered Edessa; and the Turkmans of the black sheep were chastised for the sacrilegious pillage of a caravan of Mecca. In the mountains of Georgia, the native Christians still braved the law and the sword of Mahomet, by three expeditions he obtained the merit of the gazie, or holy war ”

“ Ah—my Ahmed! Ah—my clever, clever Thief of Bagdad! let us see if your wisdom be as vast as ours and your wit as sharp as ours. Let us see if you will be able to solve the secret of the Enchanted Garden. How, my darling Ahmed, are you going to get out of here? ”

“ The Baiga cures ordinary maladies and the bites of snakes and scorpions by mesmeric passes fortified by the utterance of charms. He raises the dead in much the same manner as a witch does, but employs the spirit of the dead person in casting out other evil spirits by which his clients may be possessed. ”

“ It is the way in which he always finishes his evenings. His slaves will carry him to bed, and he will awake to-morrow morning without the suspicion of a headache. Bacchus, I verily believe, has a special favor for these fellows, and, truly, they do worship him with a most admirable earnestness. ”

“ In poems and in tales alone shall live the eternal memory of this city when I am dust and thou art dust, when the Bedouin shall build his hut upon my garden and drive his plough beyond the ruins of my palace, and all Bagdad is broken to the ground. Ah, if there shall ever arise a nation whose people have forgotten poetry or whose poets have forgotten the people, though they send their ships around Taprobane and their armies across the hills of Hindustan, though their city be greater than Babylon of old, though they mine a league into earth or mount to the stars on wings—what of them? ”

“ I have expatiated on the personal anecdotes which mark the character of the Mogul hero; but I shall briefly mention, 36 that he erected on the ruins of Bagdad a pyramid of ninety thousand heads; again visited Georgia; encamped on the banks of Araxes; and proclaimed his resolution of marching against the Ottoman emperor. Conscious of the importance of the war, he collected his forces from every province: eight hundred thousand men were enrolled on his military list ”

“ He was hardly ever sober, but he knew so much and understood the world so well, that one of the gods, named Bacchus, made Silenus his chief adviser and counselor. You will hear more of Bacchus later on. I will only tell you now that he was not one of the great gods of Olympus, but lived on the earth, like Pan. Only, while Pan was the god of all wild, savage nature, Bacchus was the god of nature as men make it: Bacchus taught men to turn Pan’s wild woods into corn-fields and gardens, to put bees into hives, and to make wine. ”

“ When Bagarag first, in his ignorance, offers to shave Shagpat, he has no idea whatever of the powers arrayed against him. What he wants is not at all in itself wrong; on the contrary it is in itself quite right. But what is quite right in one set of social conditions may seem to be quite wrong in another. Therefore the poor fellow is astonished to discover that the whole nation is against him, that the king is particularly offended with him, that all public opinion condemns him, would refuse him even the right to live in its midst. ”

“ Bacchus entered the ecclesiastical profession, as a jolly fat monk; at the recurrence of the summer solstice he may still be seen, with his fat friend Silenus, and a riotous crew, brandishing the thyrsus amid the dancing Corybantes.
Poor old Jupiter! His fate is terrible. Banished to an island in the North Sea, called the Island of Rabbits, he sits, withered, old, and decrepit, attended only by a lean, featherless eagle, the picture of grim despair; glad to pick up news from a chance whaler. ”

“ Not daring to leave the infant Bacchus in such a household, and fearing the further persecutions of Juno, Jupiter took the boy to Mount Nysa, where the nymphs—the Nysiades—guarded him faithfully. During his youth, Bacchus was made god of wine and revels, and was intrusted to the tutorship of Silenus, one of the most famous of the satyrs. This jovial old man had a bald head, pointed ears, a fat red face, and a body that was half man and half goat. ”

“ When any contagious disease appears, or whenever any of their relatives die, the Bagobos believe that the demon is asking them for victims, and they immediately hasten to offer them to him so that he may not kill them. ”

“ And Magus himself was a living picture among the motionless figures on the wall—a little old man, dressed in a shabby overcoat, a silk waistcoat, renewed twice in a score of years, and a very dirty pair of trousers, with a bald head, a face full of deep hollows, a wrinkled, callous skin, a beard that had a trick of twitching its long white bristles, a menacing pointed chin, a toothless mouth, eyes bright as the eyes of his dogs in the yard, and a nose like an obelisk—there he stood in his gallery smiling at the beauty called into being by genius. ”

“ Magus the sonne of Samothes, after the death of his father, was the second king of Celtica, by whome (as Berosus writeth) there were manie townes builded among the Celts, which by the witnesse of Annius did beare the addition of their founder Magus: of which townes diuers are to be found in Ptolomie. And Antoninus a painfull surueior of the world and searcher of cities, maketh mention of foure of them here in Britaine, Sitomagus, Neomagus, Niomagus, and Nouiomagus. ”