Drama, essentially the comedy of manners, and not of European, but of Turkish manners. The plays of Mirza Feth-Ali Akhoud-Zaidé, of one of which we publish a translation in this volume, reflect domestic, forensic, and official life at Constantinople during the last century as truly as those of Molière reflect the speech and manners of Parisian society as they existed in the reign of le grand monarque. The last development of literary activity at Constantinople is shown not only by the developments of the drama, but by the vigor displayed in the domain of journalism.
The Ottoman poems, of which we give the only English translation extant, that by E. J. W. Gibb, reveal the high rank taken by Turkish verse in the poesy of the East. The Turkish metres were many and varied, and the flexibility of the language lent itself to intricate forms of composition. In imagination and passion these Ottoman poems will hold their own in any company.
“The Rose and the Nightingale” of Fasli, which has been for the first time translated into English in the present volume, is the elaboration of an ancient Persian myth with regard to the loves of Gul and Bulbul. There are numberless allusions to this beautiful fable in such works as “The Divan” of Hafiz, as for instance where he says:
In blossom is the crimson rose, and the rapt Bulbul trills his song,
A summons that to revel calls you, Sufis, wine-adoring throng.
The author of this Turkish poem, Mohammed Fasli, “Black Fasli,” as he was called from his swarthy complexion, was the son of a saddler of Constantinople, and early became a pupil of the poet Sati. He soon attracted the attention of the Court, and was made secretary to the Divan by Prince Mustapha, who, as we have seen, was himself a poet. Fasli wrote several poems of the same character as the present one, which is, however, his best and ripest production. He died in 1563.
“The Rose and the Nightingale” is a brilliant and gorgeous example of oriental poetry, whose charm is rather increased than diminished by the repetition and prolixity which characterize it. The poet gives it in his closing passages a profoundly mystical meaning, which has been so far developed by other writers that an Armenian Christian author says that the Springtime of Fasli means the Creation, the Rose is Christ, the Rose-garden the Church, the Brook is Baptism, the South Wind is the Inspiration of the Gospel, the Nightingale, the Soul full of ardent faith, and so on. This reminds one of Pico Mirandola reconciling Moses and Homer.
The drama, “The Magistrates,” which is here for the first time translated into English, is the work of Mirza Feth-Ali Akhoud-Zaidé. He is the most original native dramatist whose works have appeared in Constantinople. Up to a comparatively recent period the theatres of Turkey were dependent for their comedies on translations from French, sometimes even from German or English comedies and farces. The Turk is fond of witnessing the exertions, the excitements and perturbations of others, while he himself remains indolent and imperturbable; hence his passion for story-telling and for the representations of the stage. In the dramas of Feth-Ali he sees the life of Turkey vividly reproduced. Love rules the scene, Eastern cruelty comes in with the bastinado, Eastern duplicity and fraud are vividly portrayed in the law-court scene. The arrangement and development of the play are good, and the dénouement is natural and satisfactory.
This will appear from the following analysis of “The Magistrates.” In the first place, the modern playwright will be astonished by the long list of personages in the play. There are twenty-seven in a short drama, consisting of a series of scenes, brief, even to jerkiness.
At the opening of the play we learn that Hadji-Ghafour, a rich merchant, has lately died and left no will; his property is therefore claimed by Sekine-Khanoum, his only daughter, a girl of eighteen, who is engaged to marry Aziz-Bey. The sum of money in which the legacy consists has been placed in the hands of the President of the Council, but before he can pay it over to the legatee, claims have been set up in favor of an alleged child of the late Hadji-Ghafour, borne him by his mistress Zeneib. A conspiracy is formed, with the aid of certain soldiers who are suborned to say that they saw the child in Hadji-Ghafour’s arms, and that he acknowledged the paternity. The complications are increased by the fact that Zobeide, paternal aunt of Sekine-Khanoun, has promised the hand of her niece to a richer man than Aziz-Bey, namely, Aga-Hassan, a merchant. The young lady so enrages Hassan by the terms in which she repudiates him, that he joins the ranks of the conspirators, among whom the chief is Aga-Selman, who nevertheless has undertaken to be the advocate of Sekine-Khanoun in the coming lawsuit. The suit at last is opened, the witnesses come ready primed to the bar, but, instead of telling their perjured tale, relate how they were induced to promise their support to a fabrication. The tortuous diplomacy of Aga-Selman, the corruption of the judges, the despair of Sekine and Aziz are depicted in the liveliest manner, and the revelations of the soldiers, who are called by the false advocate as witnesses for Sekine-Khanoun, but bribed to testify against her, form a double climax which is a skilful stroke of dramatic art. The play will be interesting to the Teutonic reader, and seems even capable of adaptation to the American or English stage.
“The History of the Forty Vezirs” is evidently a collection of very old stories. Its compilation is attributed to Sheik-Zada, who lived in the reign of Murad II, 1421–1451. To this Sultan the tales are dedicated. They are like all oriental tales, barely tinged with any ethical significance; they aim principally at amusing and distracting the mind by a series of quickly changing incidents; there is no attempt at character-drawing, and an amazing element of the improbable spices the whole series. They form, however, the most notable work in prose produced in that period which saw the dawn of a Turkish literature, and are only inferior to the tales of Pilpay and the Hitopadesa in their frivolity, exaggeration and evident lack of all those features which would indicate an earnest and conscientious study of real life. They are none the less entertaining, and their genuine Turkish characteristics render them valuable to the student of Ottoman literature as well as to the general reader who may take them up merely pour passer le temps.
The fables by unknown authors, which we include in this volume, and which have never before been translated into English, are much later productions of Turkish genius. In Europe the fable has always been, in its original form, one of the most effective and pungent vehicles of appeal to public opinion. Witness “The Belly and the Members” of Menenius Agrippa, so nobly rendered in Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus.” It well illustrates La Fontaine’s excuse for his own fables, namely, that under some circumstances a man must be silent or “strike from afar.” From the vantage ground of the fable Menenius could rebuke a raging mob, and Le Fontaine score the ingratitude of kings, as in more recent times Krilof has satirized the despotic abuses of the Russian government.
The Turkish fables also “hit from afar.” The tyranny of Turkish rulers is pointed out in “The Farmer and His Hounds.” The corruption that surrounds access to the great is vividly suggested in “The Sailors in Distress.” But the weaknesses of the Turkish character are also reflected in fables which contain but little wisdom; the apathy which puts up with everything is expressed in the moral of “The Candle”; the want of enterprise and energy which is characteristic of the Turk, in “The Shark” and “The Clown Turned First Soldier, then Merchant.”
In the teachings of all these apologues there may be seen the same features of languid and unresisting acquiescence in things as they are, with a skit here and there on the oppression and ingratitude of those in power. Yet they bear a reality about them which is lacking in the artificial productions of Gay and Lessing. They come from the heart and go to the heart of the people, and some of them are neat and pointed, if not beautiful, in structure and expression. A collection of examples from Turkish literature would be quite incomplete without these specimens of the Turkish apologues, which reflect so plainly the ethical standard and general opinions of those to whom they were addressed.
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