Books: Hassan: The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to

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HASSAN:

THE STORY OF HASSAN OF BAGDAD

AND HOW HE CAME TO MAKE

THE GOLDEN JOURNEY TO SAMARKAND

A play in five acts

By James Elroy Flecker

CHARACTERS

HASSAN, a Confectioner

The CALIPH HAROUN AR RASCHID

ISHAK, his Minstrel

JAFAR, his Vizier

MASRUR, his Executioner

RAFI, King of the Beggars

SELIM, a friend of Hassan's

THE CAPTAIN OF THE MILITARY

THE CHIEF OF THE POLICE

ALI, ABDU Nondescripts

ALDER WILLOW TAMARISK Slaves

THE PORTER of Yasmin's House

THE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER

A DERVISH

THE FOUNTAIN GHOST

A HERALD

THE PRISON GUARDS

PERVANEH

YASMIN

An AMBASSADOR, a WRESTLER, a CALLIGRAPHIST, a JESTER, GHOSTS,
MUTES, DANCING WOMEN, BEGGARS, SOLDIERS, POLICE, ATTENDANTS
and CASUAL LOITERERS

THE STORY OF HASSAN OF BAGDAD

ACT I

SCENE I

A room "behind the shop" in Old Bagdad. In the background a large
caldron steaming, for the shop is a sweet-stuff shop and the sugar
is boiling. The room has little furniture beyond the carpet,
old but unexpectedly choice, and some Persian hangings (geometrical
designs, with crude animals and some verses from the Koran
hand-printed on linen). A ramshackle wooden partition in one
corner shuts off from a living room what appears to be the shop.

Squatting on the carpet--facing each other:

HASSAN, the Confectioner, 45, rotund, moustache, turban,
greasy grey dress.

SELIM, his friend, young, vulgarly handsome, gaudily clothed.

HASSAN
(Rocking on his mat) Eywallah, Eywallah!

SELIM
Thirty-seven times have you made the same remark, O father
of repetition.

HASSAN
(More dolefully than ever) Eywallah, Eywallah!

SELIM
Have you caught fever? Is your chest narrow, or your belly
thunderous?

HASSAN
(With a ponderous sigh) Eywallah!

SELIM
Is that the merchant of sweetmeats, that sour face? O poisoner
of children, surely it would be better to cut the knot of reluctance
and uncord the casket of explanation. And the poet Antari
has justly remarked:

Divide your sorrow and impart your grief, O fool.
That good man comforteth beyond belief, O fool.

HASSAN
(Inclining towards the mat) None is good, save God.
And Abou Awas has excellently sung:

The importunate
Are seldom fortunate.

Nevertheless, know, Selim, that I am in love.

SELIM
In love! Then why sit moaning on the mat? Are there not beauties
at the barbers, and lights of love at the bazaar?

HASSAN
(Angrily) Hold your tongue, Selim, or leave me. I was in earnest
when I said I loved, and your coarseness is ill-fitting to my mood.
And well I know I am Hassan, the Confectioner, yet I can love
as sincerely as Mejnun; for assuredly she of whom my heart is bent
is not less fair than Leila.

SELIM
(Ironically) Alas! I mistook the particular for the general, and
did not recognise the purity of your intentions. But I would not
mention Mejnun. Mejnun was young, and you are old, and he was
a prince, and you are a Confectioner, and he was beautiful,
and you are not, and he was very thin because of his sorrow,
and you are fatter than those four-legged I mention not--
God curse their herdsmen!

HASSAN
And if it be as you say, Selim, if I am indeed a fat, old, ugly
tradesman, have I not good reason to be sorry and rock upon
my mat, for how shall maintain my heart's desire?

SELIM
Listen to me, Hassan, why is it that in this last year you have
become different from the Hassan that was Hassan? From time to time
you talk strangely in your cups, like a mad poet; and you have bought
a lute and a carpet too fine for your house. And now I feel you
are losing your senses when I hear this talk of love from one who
is past the age of folly.

HASSAN
It may be so, young man. Indeed, a think I am a fool.
It is the affliction of Allah.

SELIM
Tell me, at least, who she is. It may be she is not so unattainable
as you imagine, unless indeed you have set eyes on the Caliph's
daughter, or on the Queen of all the Jinn.

HASSAN
Listen, Selim, and I will tell you my affair. Three days ago
a woman came here to buy loukoum of me, dressed as a widow,
and bade me follow her to her door with a parcel. Alas, Selim!
I could see her eyes beneath her veil, and they were like
the twin fountains in the Caliph's garden; and her lips
beneath her veil were like roses hidden in moss,
and her waist was flexible as a palm-tree swaying in the wind,
and her hips were large and heavy and round, like water melons
in the season of water melons. I glanced at her but she would not smile,
and I sighed but she would not glance, and the door of her house
shut fast against me, like the gate of paradise against an infidel.
Eywallah!
(Recommences moaning.)

SELIM
And where was the house of this widow who bought sweetmeats
and had none to sell?

HASSAN
In the street of Felicity, by the fountain of the Two Pigeons.

SELIM
(Musing) It must be the widow of that Achmet they hung last year
by the Basra Gate.

HASSAN
Which Achmet?

SELIM
The hairy one.

HASSAN
Istagfurallah! He fluttered like a bird. May I never soar so high.

SELIM
Istagfurallah! May I see you! I should burst with laughter
and vultures with repletion. But tell me, you who have fallen
so deeply in love, do you rejoice in your misfortune like a dervish
in his dirt, or do you honestly desire satisfaction?

HASSAN
I desire satisfaction Selim. But I pray you talk no more of this.

SELIM
Well, take courage, faint heart, since all things can be cured
save perversity in asses. Perhaps I can cure you of love.

HASSAN
By the Prophet, Selim, do not cure my love, cure her indifference.

SELIM
(With sudden alertness) There is only one way of doing that.

HASSAN
Which way?

SELIM
Do you believe in magic, Hassan?

HASSAN
Men who think themselves wise believe nothing till the proof.
Men who are wise believe anything till the disproof.

SELIM
What do we know if magic be a lie or not? But since it is certain
that only magic can avail you, you may as well put it to the test.
You can buy a philtre that can draw her love, and send her a jar
of magic sweets.

HASSAN
I am ready to all things, ingenious Selim; but do you know
a good magician?

SELIM
Zachariah, the Jew, has but lately arrived from Aleppo:
he is the talk of all the market place, and a wonderful man if
tales be true.

HASSAN
Have you the tales?

SELIM
I have this among many. They say that in Bokhara a man called him
an offensive Jew and flung a stone at his head: and he caused the
stone to be suspended in the air and the man too, so that the man walked
all round Bokhara over the heads of the passers-by, who were
astonished, and was constrained to enter his house by the upper window.

HASSAN
(Incredulous) Mashallah!

SELIM
And stranger than that. At Ispahan men say he took off the dome
of the Great Mosque and turned it round and had a bath in it,
and put it back again.

HASSAN
Mashallah!

SELIM
And strangest of all, at Cairo, for the amusement of the Sultan,
he turned the whole population into apes for half an hour.

HASSAN
A very trifling change if you knew the Egyptians. I don't believe
a word of all these tales. Yet, doubtless he is as good enough
physician to make a love philtre. But are philtres any good?

SELIM
There can be no doubt that there are philtres which drive women to
love, though their hearts be as strong and their heads as cold as
the mountains of Qaf. But as for this Zachariah, I know he sells
philtres at ten dinars the bottle: his shop is crowded with rich
old women.

HASSAN
Eywallah, Salim, I am sick of love; but no damsel is worth ten
dinars. And sages have remarked, "the ideal is expensive!" And
philosophers have observed, "There are a thousand figs on the fig-tree
and all as like as like."

SELIM
What! All the smooth, shining hills and well-wooded valleys in that
country of love...All going for ten dinars!... And this is the man
whose love is like Mejnun's! What is ten dinars to a man in love?
You gave thrice that sum for this carpet.

HASSAN
A carpet is a carpet, and a woman is is a woman. It is not only
the ten dinars. But you know that in this market I have a
character. "Hassan", men say, "is a safe man. Hassan will not
leave his jacket on the wall, or buy peas without prodding the sack."
But if they hear: "A stranger came to Bagdad and no Mussulman
and said he would do this, and Hassan has paid him ten dinars
and got no gain", they will nudge each other when I walk abroad
at evening, and say: "A sad end"; and another "Look at him, Saadet,
my son, and drink no wine"; and another, "God preserve me from the
friends of such a one!" and they will call out to me as they pass,
"Ya Hassan, give me ten dinars that I may build a mosque!" and I
will be shamed where I was honoured, and abased where I was exalted....

(A loud knocking on the floor of the adjacent shop causes HASSAN
to retire thither hurriedly. As he disappears YASMIN peeps
inquisitively, unveiled, through the little window in the partition.)

SELIM
What an impudent little beauty.... Why, she had a widow's scarf on.
She must be the princess! (Rocks with laughter) The unattainable
ideal! And I have her address. It requires a frenzied lover
to pay cash for a flask of coloured water. But I doubt if Hassan's
sweets mingled with coloured water will do aught but can make her sick.
Whereas a cake stuffed with those very dinars.... Allah, the dinars
would not choke her! O thou fool Hassan!

Tell not thy shirt who smiled and answered "Yes":
Dream not her name, nor fancy her address.

(Enter Hassan, pale and staggering.)

HASSAN
Selim, in the name of friendship, take these ten dinars and buy me
that philtre, and return with speed.

SELIM
(Feigning irritation) Allah! Am I your messenger?
Go yourself to the Jew.

HASSAN
I must prepare the sweetmeats this very hour, to send them to her
before sunset. In the name of friendship, Selim, take the dinars
and purchase me that philtre.

SELIM
(Rising and taking dinars) Do not make me chargeable, O Hassan,
if the philtre is without effect. I only repeat what I have heard.

HASSAN
No, I will not blame you. But go quickly for the magic that nothing
may be left unsampled that may prove beneficial.

(Exit SELIM; HASSAN makes up the fire and prepares his caldron,
saying meanwhile)

That young man weareth out my carpet apace. I begin to think also
he doth fray the braid of my affection. But if he buys me a
good philtre I will forgive him. Oh, cruel destiny, thou hast made
me a common man with a common trade. My friends are fellows from
the market, and all my worthless family is dead. Had I been rich,
ah me! how deep had been my delight in matters of the soul,
in poetry and music and pictures, and companions who do not jeer
and grin, and above all, and in the colours of rich carpets
and expensive silks. But be content, O artist: thou hast one
carpet; be content, O confectioner: thou hast one love--one love,
but unattained...yet hadst thou been rich, O confectioner, never hadst
thou found her.

Now I will make her sweets, such sweets, ah me! as never I made
in my life before. I will make her sweets like globes of crystal,
like cubes of jade, like polygons of ruby. I will make her sweets
like flowers. Great red roses, passionate carnations, raying
daisies, violets, and curly hyacinths. I will perfume my roses
(may they melt sweetly in her lips) with the perfume of roses,
so that she shall say "a rose"! and smell before she tastes.
And in the heart of each flower I will distil one drop
of the magic of love. Did I not say "they shall be flowers"?

SCENE II

Moonlight. The Street of Felicity by the Fountain of the Two Pigeons.
A house with a balcony on either side of the street.
In front of one of the houses, HASSAN, cloaked: a PORTER.

HASSAN
Has she received the box, O guardian of the door of separation?

PORTER
From my hands, O dispenser of bounty.

HASSAN
What did thy mistress say?

PORTER
Sir, the hands of mediation are empty.

HASSAN
(Giving a dinar) I have filled them.
What honey dropped from that golden mouth?

PORTER
She said--may thy servant find grace--"Curses on that fat sugar
cook and his love-sick eyes. Allah be praised, his confectionery
is better than his countenance!"

HASSAN
(Aside) If she likes the confectionery, all may be well.
And what didst thou reply?

PORTER:
I said: "His sweets sparkle like diamonds and rubies in the crown
of OUR Caliph, and his sugar is as pure as his intentions."
And she answered--the protection on thy slave--"his intentions may
be pure, but his coat is greasy."

HASSAN
And did she eat the confectionery?

PORTER
I do not know. But within the hour I removed the box,
and it was empty.

HASSAN
Ah! Salaam and thanks.

PORTER
And to thee the Salaam.

HASSAN
But tell me what is the name of thy mistress?

PORTER
Yasmin is her name, Sir.

HASSAN
A sweet name for a moonlight night. Salaam aleikum.

PORTER
Ya Hawaja, v'aleikum assalam!

(The PORTER returns and shuts the gate.)

HASSAN
(To himself) What if the Jews are an older race than we and know
old forgotten secrets? Alas, I believe no more in these
Israelitish sweets. Could those drops of purple liquid command
the spirit of love? And yet, who can say? the young men
of the market-place laugh at all enchantments--but do they know
how to spin the sun? On a night like this, does not the very
fountain sing in tune and enchant the dropping stones? Ah, Yasmin?
(Taking a lute from beneath his cloak and a tuning it.)
Yasmin...Yasmin...Yasmin...Yasmin.

(Intones to the accompaniment of the lute.)

How splendid in the morning glows the lily; with what grace he throws
His supplication to the rose: do roses nod the head, Yasmin?
But when the silver dove descends I find the little flower of friends,
Whose very name that sweetly ends, I say when I have said, Yasmin.
The morning light is clear and cold; I dare not in that light behold
A whiter light, a deeper gold, a glory too far shed, Yasmin.
But when the deep red eye of day is level with for the lone highway,
And some to Mecca turn to pray, and I toward thy bed, Yasmin,
Or when the wind beneath the moon is drifting like a soul aswoon,
And harping planets talk love's tune with milky wings outspread, Yasmin,
Shower down thy love, O burning bright! for one night or the other night
Will come the Gardener in white, and gathered flower are dead, Yasmin!

(As HASSAN intones the last "Yasmin" with passion the shutters open,
and YASMIN, veiled, looks out.)

YASMIN
Alas, Minstrel, Yasmin is my name also, but it was for a fairer
Yasmin than me, I fear, you have strung these pearls.

HASSAN
There is no Yasmin but Yasmin, and you are Yasmin.

YASMIN
Can this be Hassan, the Confectioner?

HASSAN
I am Hassan, and I am a confectioner.

YASMIN
Mashallah, Hassan, your words are sweeter than your sweets.

HASSAN
Gracious lady, your eyes look down through your veil like angels
through a cloud. Dare I ask to see your face, O bright perfection?

YASMIN
(Roguishly) Do you take me for a Christian, father of impertinence?
And since when do the daughters of Islam unveil before strangers?

HASSAN
It is said: he who speaks to the heart is no stranger.

YASMIN
(Unveiling her eyes) Are you satisfied, O importunate!

HASSAN
Never, till I have seen perfection to perfection.

YASMIN
You would shrivel, my poet. What about "the glory too far shed, Yasmin"?

HASSAN
Let me see you unveiled, Yasmin.

YASMIN
Anything to close the portal of your face.
(Unveiling.) There. Do I please thee, my Sultan?

HASSAN
(Rapturously) Oh, you are beautiful!

YASMIN
Prince of poets, is that all you have to say! Not a stanza,
not a trope, not a turn, not a twist, not even a hint that the
heavens are opened, or that there are two moons in the sky together?

HASSAN
There is but one.

YASMIN
Well confectioned, my confectioner! And now, Good-night.

HASSAN
O stay, Yasmin, you are too beautiful, and I too bold.
I am nothing, and you are the Queen of the Stars of Night.
But the thought of you is twisted in the strings of my heart;
I burn with love of you, Yasmin. Put me to the proof, my lady;
there was nothing I could not do for your bright eyes.
I would cross the salt desert and wrest a cup of the water of life
from the Jinn that guards it; I would walk to the barriers of the world
and steal the roc's egg from its diamond nest. I would swim
the seven oceans, and cross the five islands to rob Solomon ben Dawud
of his ring in the palace where he lies sleeping in the silence
and majesty of uncorrupting death. And I would slip the ring
on your finger and make you mistress of the spirits of the air--
but would you love me? Could you love me, do you love me, Yasmin?

YASMIN
There is love and love and love.

HASSAN
(Passionately) Oh, answer me!

YASMIN
I think I have been enchanted, Hassan; how, I cannot tell.
Till this afternoon the thought of your appearance made my heart
narrow with disgust. But since I ate your present of comfits--
and they were admirable comfits, and I ate them with speed--
my heart is changed and inclined toward you, I know not why or how,
except it be through magic.

HASSAN
(Aside) She is mine, and magic rules the world!
(Aloud) Yasmin, shall I possess you, O Yasmin?

YASMIN
Am I not the desert waiting for the rain? Was I not born for passion,
Hassan? Is not my bosom burning for kisses? Were not these arms
made smooth and hard to fight the battle of love?

HASSAN
Are not your lips love's roses, your cheeks love's lilies,
your eyes love's hyacinths?

YASMIN
Ya, Hassan, and my hair the net of love, and my girdle
the chain of love that breaks at a lovers touch?

HASSAN
I am drowning in a wave of madness. Let me in, Yasmin; let me in!

YASMIN
Ah, if I could!

HASSAN
Why not?

YASMIN
Ah, if I dared!

HASSAN
What do you fear? It is night, and the street is silent.

YASMIN:
Ah, dear Hassan, but I am not alone.

HASSAN
(Whispering) Not alone? Who is there? Your mother?

YASMIN
No! One who you sent here.

HASSAN
I sent no one.

YASMIN
One of your friends.

HASSAN
A man?

SELIM
(Poking his head out of the window) Ya, Hassan, Salaam aleikum.
I thank you for directing my steps to this rose-strewn bower.

HASSAN
(Astonished) Selim!

SELIM
Thy servant always.

HASSAN
(Wildly) Selim!

SELIM
Be advised, O Hassan, go and seek the enchanted egg.

HASSAN
Selim, what do you here?

SELIM
Plunge not the finger of enquiry into the pie of impertinence, O my uncle.

HASSAN
Since when have I become your uncle, Selim, and how did I cease
to be your friend?

SELIM
Since when did you aspire to poetry, O Hassan?
But I have heard these lines:

As from the eagle flies the dove
So friendship from the claw of love.

HASSAN
Love. What love do you mean, scum of the market?

SELIM
This. (Puts a hand on YASMIN's shoulder.)

HASSAN
May God strike thee blind, Selim, and shut the door
of his compassion against thee!

SELIM
What is my crime, Uncle? How have I sinned against thee,
or merited the solemn imprecation?

HASSAN
Do not touch her, you dog, do not touch her!

SELIM
Is it a crime to touch Yasmin, my Uncle? Am I not to be excused?
Is not her neck a pillar of the marble of Yoonistan?
(Puts his arm around her neck.)

HASSAN
Torment of death!

YASMIN
Are not my arms like swords of steel, hard and cold,
and thirsty for blood? (Putting her arms around the neck of SELIM)

HASSAN
Fire of hell!

SELIM
Are not her eyes two sapphires in two pools?

HASSAN
Woe is me! Woe is me!

YASMIN
Are not my lips two rubies drenched in blood? (Kisses him)

HASSAN
God, I shall fall!

SELIM
(His face in YASMIN's bosom) Couldst thou but see, O my Uncle,
the silver hills with their pomegranate groves; or the deep fountain
in the swelling plain, or the Ethiopian who waters the roses
in the garden, or the great lamp between the columns where the incense
of love is burned. How can I thank thee, O my Uncle, for the name
and address, and half the old Jew's dinars!

YASMIN
How can I thank thee, O my Uncle, for sending me this strong
and straight young friend of thine to console my loneliness
and desolation? Ah, it is bitter to be a widow and so young!

HASSAN
(Putting up his hands to his head) The fountain, the fountain!
O my head, my head!

YASMIN
Be not too rash, my Uncle, or thy hair will come away in thy hands.

HASSAN
If I could but reach your necks with a knife, children of Sheitan!

YASMIN
I was the sun of his existence, and now I am a child of Sheitan--
and why? Never again will I trust the love of a man.
I was a glory too far shed, and now he wants to open my neck.
And already he has tried to poison me. Ya, Hassan, if you desire my death,
send me some more enchanted sweets!

SELIM
Beware, O Hassan, of jesting with the Jinn.

YASMIN
Buy, O Hassan, no more juice from Jews.

SELIM
Much, I fear, O my friend, for thy character in the market.
No more will men say: "Hassan is a safe man"; but they will nudge
each other and say, "Beware of Hassan, Hassan is a great magician;
he has talked with the spirit's of the air! Deal not with Hassan,
O my son, Saadet, for he sells enchanted sweets that drive the consumer
to madness. And at night Hassan becomes a cat, and walketh on the roofs
after the female cats. Allah preserve me from the evil eye of such a one!"
And another will say, tapping his forehead, "Speak no harm of poor Hassan,
for his brain is very sick!" And the small, guileless boys will say,
"Behold Hassan, who gave ten dinars for a pint of indigo and water."

HASSAN
Ah, death!

YASMIN
Look at him! He is drifting like a soul aswoon!
Go home, old fellow!

SELIM
Go home and write poems!

YASMIN
Go home, and cook sweets!

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