# Lalla Rookh/The Fire-Worshippers

​"And this," said the Great Chamberlain, "is poetry! this flimsy manufacture of the brain, which in comparison with the lofty and durable monuments of genius is as the gold filigree-work of Zamara beside the eternal architecture of Egypt!" After this gorgeous sentence, which, with a few more of the same kind, Fadladeen kept by him for rare and important occasions, he proceeded to the anatomy of the short poem just recited. The lax and easy kind of metre in which it was written ought to be denounced, he said, as one of the leading causes of the alarming growth of poetry in our times. If some check were not given to this lawless facility we should soon be overrun by a race of bards as numerous and as shallow as the hundred and twenty thousand Streams of Basra. They who succeeded in this style deserved chastisement for their ​very success;—as warriors have been punished, even after gaining a victory, because they had taken the liberty of gaining it in an irregular or unestablished manner. What then was to be said to those who failed? to those who presumed, as in the present lamentable instance, to imitate the license and ease of the bolder sons of song, without any of that grace or vigour which gave a dignity even to negligence;—who, like them, flung the jereed carelessly, but not, like them, to the mark;—"and who," said he, raising his voice to excite a proper degree of wakefulness in his hearers, "contrive to appear heavy and constrained in the midst of all the latitude they have allowed themselves, like one of those young pagans that dance before the Princess, who has the ingenuity to move as if her limbs were fettered, in a pair of the lightest and loosest drawers of Masulipatam!"
It was but little suitable, he continued, to the grave march of criticism to follow this fantastical Peri, of ​whom they had just heard, through all her flights and adventures between earth and heaven, but he could not help adverting to the puerile conceitedness of the Three Gifts which she is supposed to carry to the skies,—a drop of blood, forsooth, a sigh, and a tear! How the first of these articles was delivered into the Angel's "radiant hand" he professed himself at a loss to discover; and as to the safe carriage of the sigh and the tear, such Peris and such Poets were beings by far too incomprehensible for him even to guess how they managed such matters. "But, in short," said he, "it is a waste of time and patience to dwell longer upon a thing so incurably frivolous,—puny even among its own puny race, and such as only the Banyan Hospital for Sick Insects should undertake."
In vain did Lalla Rookh try to soften this inexorable critic; in vain did she resort to her most eloquent common-places,—reminding him that poets were a timid ​and sensitive race, whose sweetness was not to be drawn forth, like that of the fragrant grass near the Ganges, by crushing and trampling upon them;—that severity often destroyed every chance of the perfection which it demanded; and that, after all, perfection was like the Mountain of the Talisman,—no one had ever yet reached its summit. Neither these gentle axioms, nor the still gentler looks with which they were inculcated, could lower for one instant the elevation of Fadladeen's eyebrows, or charm him into any thing like encouragement or even toleration of her poet. Toleration, indeed, was not among the weaknesses of Fadladeen;—he carried the same spirit into matters of poetry and of religion, and, though little versed in the beauties or sublimities of either, was a perfect master of the art of persecution in both. His zeal too was the same in either pursuit; whether the game before him was pagans or poetasters,—worshippers of cows, or writers of epics.
​They had now arrived at the splendid city of Lahore, whose mausoleums and shrines, magnificent and numberless, where Death seemed to share equal honours with Heaven, would have powerfully affected the heart and imagination of Lalla Rookh, if feelings more of this earth had not taken entire possession of them already. She was here met by messengers, dispatched from Cashmere, who informed her that the King had arrived in the Valley, and was himself superintending the sumptuous preparations that were making in the Saloons of the Shalimar for her reception. The chill she felt on receiving this intelligence,—which to a bride whose heart was free and light would have brought only images of affection and pleasure,—convinced her that her peace was gone for ever, and that she was in love, irretrievably in love, with young Feramorz. The veil, which this passion wears at first, had fallen off, and to know that she loved was now as painful as to love without knowing it had been delicious. Feramorz too,—what misery would be his, if the sweet hours of intercourse so imprudently allowed them should have stolen into his heart the same fatal fascination as into hers;—if, notwithstanding her rank, and the modest ​homage he always paid to it, even he should have yielded to the influence of those long and happy interviews, where music, poetry, the delightful scenes of nature,―all tended to bring their hearts close together, and to waken by every means that too ready passion, which often, like the young of the desert-bird, is warmed into life by the eyes alone! She saw but one way to preserve herself from being culpable as well as unhappy, and this, however painful, she was resolved to adopt. Feramorz must no more be admitted to her presence. To have strayed so far into the dangerous labyrinth was wrong, but to linger in it, while the clew was yet in her hand, would be criminal. Though the heart she had to offer to the King of Bucharia might be cold and broken, it should at least be pure; and she must only try to forget the short vision of happiness she had enjoyed,—like that Arabian shepherd, who, in wandering into the wilderness, caught a glimpse of the Gardens of Irim, and then lost them again for ever!
​The arrival of the young Bride at Lahore was celebrated in the most enthusiastic manner. The Rajas and Omras in her train, who had kept at a certain distance during the journey, and never encamped nearer to the Princess than was strictly necessary for her safeguard, here rode in splendid cavalcade through the city, and distributed the most costly presents to the crowd. Engines were erected in all the squares, which cast forth showers of confectionary among the people; while the artisans, in chariots adorned with tinsel and flying streamers, exhibited the badges of their respective trades through the streets. Such brilliant displays of life and pageantry among the palaces, and domes, and gilded minarets of Lahore, made the city altogether like a place of enchantment;—particularly on the day when Lalla Rookh set out again upon her journey, when she was accompanied to the gate by all the fairest and richest of the nobility, and rode along between ranks of beautiful boys and girls, who waved plates of gold and silver flowers over their heads as they went, and then threw them to be gathered by the populace.
​For many days after their departure from Lahore, a considerable degree of gloom hung over the whole party. Lalla Rookh, who had intended to make illness her excuse for not admitting the young minstrel, as usual, to the pavilion, soon found, that to feign indisposition was unnecessary;—Fadladeen felt the loss of the good road they had hitherto travelled, and was very near cursing Jehan-guire (of blessed memory!) for not having continued his delectable alley of trees, at least as far as the mountains of Cashmere;—while the Ladies, who had nothing now to do all day but to be fanned by peacocks' feathers and listen to Fadladeen, seemed heartily weary of the life they led, and, in spite of all the Great Chamberlain's criticisms, were tasteless enough to wish for the Poet again. One evening, as they were proceeding to their place of rest for the night, the Princess, who, for the freer enjoyment of the air, had mounted her favourite Arabian palfrey, in passing by a small grove, heard the notes of a lute from within its leaves, and a voice, which she but too well knew, singing the following words:
The tone of melancholy defiance in which these words were uttered, went to Lalla Rookh's heart;—and, as she reluctantly rode on, she could not help feeling ​it as a sad but sweet certainty, that Feramorz was to the full as enamoured and miserable as herself.
The place where they encamped that evening was the first delightful spot they had come to since they left Lahore. On one side of them was a grove full of small Hindoo temples, and planted with the most graceful trees of the East; where the tamarind, the cassia, and the silken plantains of Ceylon were mingled in rich contrast with the high fan-like foliage of the Palmyra,—that favourite tree of the luxurious bird that lights up the chambers of its nest with fire-flies. In the middle of the lawn where the pavilion stood there was a tank surrounded by small mangoe-trees, on the clear cold waters of which floated multitudes of the beautiful red lotus, while at a distance stood the ruins of a strange and awful-looking tower, which seemed old enough to have been the temple of some religion no longer known, and which spoke the voice of desolation in the midst of all that bloom and loveliness. This singular ruin excited the wonder and conjectures of all. Lalla Rookh guessed in vain, and the all-pre​tending Fadladeen, who had never till this journey been beyond the precincts of Delhi, was proceeding most learnedly to show that he knew nothing whatever about the matter, when one of the Ladies suggested, that perhaps Feramorz could satisfy their curiosity. They were now approaching his native mountains, and this tower might be a relic of some of those dark superstitions, which had prevailed in that country before the light of Islam dawned upon it. The Chamberlain, who usually preferred his own ignorance to the best knowledge that any one else could give him, was by no means pleased with this officious reference; and the Princess too was about to interpose a faint word of objection, but, before either of them could speak, a slave was dispatched for Feramorz, who, in a very few minutes, appeared before them,—looking so pale and unhappy in Lalla Rookh's eyes, that she already repented of her cruelty in having so long excluded him.
That venerable tower, he told them, was the remains of an ancient Fire-Temple, built by those Ghebers or Persians of the old religion, who, many hundred years since, had fled hither from their Arab conquerors, ​preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostacy or persecution in their own. It was impossible, he added, not to feel interested in the many glorious but unsuccessful struggles, which had been made by these original natives of Persia to cast off the yoke of their bigoted conquerors. Like their own Fire in the Burning Field at Bakou, when suppressed in one place, they had but broken out with fresh flame in another; and, as a native of Cashmere, of that fair and Holy Valley, which had in the same manner become the prey of strangers, and seen her ancient shrines and native princes swept away before the march of her intolerant invaders, he felt a sympathy, he owned, with the sufferings of the persecuted Ghebers, which every monument like this before them but tended more powerfully to awaken.
It was the first time that Feramorz had ever ventured upon so much prose before Fadladeen, and it may easily be conceived what effect such prose as this must have produced upon that most orthodox and most pagan-hating personage. He sat for some minutes ​aghast, ejaculating only at intervals, "Bigoted conquerors!—sympathy with Fire-worshippers!"—while Feramorz, happy to take advantage of this almost speechless horror of the Chamberlain, proceeded to say that he knew a melancholy story, connected with the events of one of those brave struggles of the Fireworshippers of Persia against their Arab masters, which, if the evening was not too far advanced, he should have much pleasure in being allowed to relate to the Princess. It was impossible for Lalla Rookh to refuse;—he had never before looked half so animated, and when he spoke of the Holy Valley his eyes had sparkled, she thought, like the talismanic characters on the scimitar of Solomon. Her consent was therefore most readily granted, and while Fadladeen sat in unspeakable dismay, expecting treason and abomination in every line, the poet thus began his story of the Fire-worshippers:—
Their road all the morning had lain through a very dreary country;—through valleys, covered with a low bushy jungle, where, in more than one place, the awful signal of the bamboo staff, with the white flag at its top, reminded the traveller that in that very spot the tiger had made some human creature his victim. It was therefore with much pleasure that they arrived at sunset in a safe and lovely glen, and encamped under one of those holy trees, whose smooth columns and spreading roofs seem to destine them for natural temples of religion. Beneath the shade, some pious hands had erected pillars ornamented with the most beautiful ​porcelain, which now supplied the use of mirrors to the young maidens, as they adjusted their hair in descending from the palankeens. Here while, as usual, the Princess sat listening anxiously, with Fadladeen in one of his loftiest moods of criticism by her side, the young Poet, leaning against a branch of the tree, thus continued his story:—
She had proceeded thus far in relating the dream to her Ladies, when Feramorz appeared at the door of the pavilion. In his presence, of course, every thing else was forgotten, and the continuance of the story ​was instantly requested by all. Fresh wood of aloes was set to burn in the cassolets;—the violet sherbets were hastily handed round, and, after a short prelude on his lute, in the pathetic measure of Nava, which is always used to express the lamentations of absent lovers, the Poet thus continued:—
Fadladeen, whose wrath had more than once broken out during the recital of some parts of this most heterodox poem, seemed at length to have made up his mind to the infliction; and took his seat this evening with all the patience of a martyr, while the Poet continued his profane and seditious story thus:—
* ↑ It is said that the rivers or streams of Basra were reckoned in the time of Belal ben Abi Bordeh, and amounted to the number of 120 thousand streams."—Ebn Haukal.
* ↑ The name of the javelin with which the Easterns exercise. v. Chatillon, Moeurs des Ottomans, tom. iii. p. 161.
* ↑ For a description of this Hospital of the Banyans, v. Parsons's Travels, p. 262.
* ↑ "Near this is a curious hill, called Koh Talism, the Mountain of the Talisman, because, according to the traditions of the country, no person ever succeeded in gaining its summit."—Kinneir.
* ↑ "The Arabians believe that the ostriches hatch their young by only looking at them."—P. Vanslebe, Relat. d'Egypte.
* ↑ V. Sale's Koran, note, vol. 2. p. 484.
* ↑ Ferishta.
* ↑ The fine road made by the Emperor Jehan-Guire from Agra to Lahore, planted with trees on each side.
* ↑ The Baya, or Indian Gross-beak.—Sir W. Jones.
* ↑ The "Ager ardens" described by Kempfer, Amænitat. Exot.
* ↑ The Persian Gulf, sometimes so called, which separates the shores of Persia and Arabia.
* ↑ The present Gombaroon, a town on the Persian side of the Gulf.
* ↑ A Moorish instrument of music.
* ↑ "At Gombaroon and other places in Persia, they have towers for the purpose of catching the wind, and cooling the houses.—Le Bruyn.
* ↑ "Iran is the true general name for the empire of Persia.—Asiat. Res. Disc. 5.
* ↑ "On the blades of their scimitars some verse from the Koran is usually inscribed.—Russel.
* ↑ There is a kind of Rhododendros about Trebizond, whose flowers the bee feeds upon, and the honey thence drives people mad;"—Tournefort.
* ↑ Their kings wear plumes of black herons' feathers, upon the right side, as a badge of sovereignty."—Hanway.
* ↑ "The Fountain of Youth, by a Mahometan tradition, is situated in some dark region of the East."—Richardson.
* ↑ Arabia Felix.
* ↑ "They say that if a snake or serpent fix his eyes on the lustre of those stones (emeralds), he immediately becomes blind."—Ahmed ben Abdalaziz, Treatise on Jewels.
* ↑ At Gombaroon and the Isle of Ormus, it is sometimes so hot, that the people are obliged to lie all day in the water.—Marco Polo.
* ↑ This mountain is generally supposed to be inaccessible.
* ↑ In one of the books of the Shâh Nâmeh, when Zal (a celebrated hero of Persia, remarkable for his white hair), comes to the terrace of his mistress Rodahver at night, she lets down her long tresses to assist him in his ascent;—he, however, manages it in a less romantic way by fixing his crook in a projecting beam.—v. Champion's Ferdosi.
* ↑ "On the lofty hills of Arabia Petræa are rock-goats."—Niebuhr.
* ↑ "Canun, espèce de psalterion, avec des cordes de boyaux; les dames en touchent dans le serrail, avec des décailles armées de pointes de coco."—Toderini, translated by De Cournand.
* ↑ "They (the Ghebers) lay so much stress on their cushee or girdle, as not to dare to be an instant without it."—Grose's Voyage.—Le jeune homme nia d'abord la chose; mais, ayant été dépouillé de sa robe, et la large ceinture qu'il portoit comme Ghebr, &c. &c.-—D'Herbelot, art. Agduani.
* ↑ "They suppose the Throne of the Almighty is seated in the sun, and hence their worship of that luminary."—Hanway.
* ↑ "The Mameluks that were in the other boat, when it was dark used to shoot up a sort of fiery arrows into the air, which in some measure resembled lightning or falling stars."—Baumgarten.
* ↑ The Persian Gulf.—"To dive for pearls in the Green Sea, or Persian Gulf."—Sir W. Jones.
* ↑ Islands in the Gulf.
* ↑ Or Selemeh, the genuine name of the headland at the entrance of the Gulf, commonly called Cape Musseldom. "The Indians, when they pass the promontory, throw cocoa-nuts, fruits, or flowers, into the sea, to secure a propitious voyage."—Morier.
* ↑ In speaking of the climate of Shiraz, Francklin says, "the dew is of such a pure nature, that, if the brightest scimitar should be exposed to it all night, it would not receive the least rust."
* ↑ The place where the Persians were finally defeated by the Arabs, and their ancient monarchy destroyed.
* ↑ Derbend.—"Les Tures appellent cette ville Demir Capi, Forte de Fer; ce sont les Caspiæ Portæ des anciens."—D'Herbelot.
* ↑ The Talpot or Talipot tree. "This beautiful palm-tree, which grows in the heart of the forests, may be classed among the loftiest trees, and becomes still higher when on the point of bursting forth from its leafy summit. The sheath which then envelopes the flower is very large, and, when it bursts, makes an explosion like the report of a cannon."—Thunberg.
* ↑ Tahmuras, and other ancient Kings of Persia; whose adventures in Fairy-Land among the Peris and Dives may be found in Richardson's curious Dissertation. The griffin Simoorgh, they say, took some feathers from her breast for Tahmuras, with which he adorned his helmet, and transmitted them afterwards to his descendants.
* ↑ This rivulet, says Dandini, is called the Holy River from the "cedar-saints" among which it rises.
* ↑ These birds sleep in the air. They are most common about the Cape of Good Hope.
* ↑ The Ghebers generally built their temples over subterraneous fires.
* ↑ Ancient heroes of Persia. "Among the Guebres there are some, who boast their descent from Rustani."—Stephen's Persia.
* ↑ V. Russel's account of the panthers attacking travellers in the night on the sea-shore about the roots of Lebanon.
* ↑ "Among other ceremonies the Magi used to place upon the tops of high towers various kinds of rich viands, upon which it was supposed the Peris and the spirits of their departed heroes regaled themselves.—"Richardson.
* ↑ In the ceremonies of the Ghebers round their Fire, as described by Lord, "the Daroo," he says, "giveth them water to drink, and a pomegranate leaf to chew in the mouth, to cleanse them from inward uncleanness."
* ↑ "Early in the morning, they (the Parsees or Ghebers at Oulam) go in crowds to pay their devotions to the Sun, to whom upon all the altars there are spheres consecrated, made by magic, resembling the circles of the sun, and when the sun rises, these orbs seem to be inflamed, and to turn round with a great noise. They have every one a censer in their hands, and offer incense to the sun."—Rabbi Benjamin.
* ↑ "It is observed, with respect to the Sea of Herkend, that when it is tossed by tempestuous winds it sparkles like fire."—Travels of two Mohammedans.
* ↑ A kind of trumpet;—it "was that used by Tamerlane, the sound of which is described as uncommonly dreadful, and so loud as to be heard at a distance of several miles."—Richardson.
* ↑ "Mohammed had two helmets, an interior and exterior one; the latter of which, called Al Mawashah, the fillet, wreath, or wreathed garland, he wore at the battle of Ohod."—Universal History.
* ↑ "The Easterns used to set out on their longer voyages with music."—Harmer.
* ↑ "The Gate of Tears, the straits or passage into the Red Sea, commonly called Babelmandel. It received this name from the old Arabians, on account of the danger of the navigation, and the number of shipwrecks by which it was distinguished; which induced them to consider as dead, and to wear mourning for all who had the boldness to hazard the passage though it into the Ethiopic ocean."—Richardson.
* ↑ "I have been told that whensoever an animal falls down dead, one or more vultures, unseen before, instantly appear."—Pennant.
* ↑ "They fasten some writing to the wings of a Bagdat, or Babylonian pigeon."—Travels of certain Englishmen.
* ↑ "The Empress of Jehan-Guire used to divert herself with feeding tame fish in her canals, some of which were many years afterwards known by fillets of gold, which she caused to be put round them."—Harris.
* ↑ The meteors that Pliny calls "faces."
* ↑ "The brilliant Canopus, unseen in European climates."—Brown.
* ↑ V. Wilford's learned Essays on the Sacred Isles in the West.
* ↑ A precious stone of the Indies, called by the ancients Ceraunium, because it was supposed to be found in places where thunder had fallen. Tertullian says it has a glittering appearance, as if there had been fire in it; and the author of the Dissertation in Harris's Voyages supposes it to be the opal.
* ↑ D'Herbelot, Art. Agduani.
* ↑ "The Guebres are known by a dark yellow colour, which the men affect in their clothes."—Thevenot.
* ↑ "The Kolah, or cap, worn by the Persians, is made of the skin of the sheep of Tartary."—Waring.
* ↑ A frequent image among the oriental poets. "The nightingales warbled their enchanting notes, and rent the thin veils of the rose-bud and the rose."—Jami.
* ↑ " In parts of Kerman, whatever dates are shaken from the trees by the wind they do not touch, but leave them for those who have not any, or for travellers."—Ebn Haukel.
* ↑ The two terrible angels, Monkir and Nakir; who are called "the Searchers of the Grave" in the "Creed of the orthodox Mahometans" given by Ockley, vol. 2.
* ↑ "The Arabians call the mandrake 'the Devil's candle,' on account of its shining appearance in the night."—Richardson.
* ↑ For an account of Ishmonie, the petrified city in Upper Egypt, where it is said there are many statues of men, women, &c. to be seen to this day, v. Perry's View of the Levant.
* ↑ Jesus.
* ↑ The Ghebers say that when Abraham, their great Prophet, was thrown into the fire by order of Nimrod, the flame turned instantly into a bed of roses, where the child sweetly reposed."—Tavernier.
* ↑ "The shell called Siiankos, common to India, Africa, and the Mediterranean, and still used in many parts as a trumpet for blowing alarms or giving signals: it sends forth a deep and hollow sound."—Pennant.
* ↑ "The finest ornament for the horses is made of six large flying tassels of long white hair, taken out of the tails of wild oxen, that are to be found in some places of the Indies."—Thevenot.
* ↑ "The Angel Israfil, who has the most melodious voice of all God's creatures."—Sale.
* ↑ V. Hoole upon the Story of Sinbad.
* ↑ "In this thicket upon the banks of the Jordan several sorts of wild beasts are wont to harbour themselves, whose being washed out of the covert by the overflowings of the river gave occasion to that allusion of Jeremiah, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan."—Maundrell's Aleppo.
* ↑ "This wind (the Samoor) so softens the strings of lutes, that they can never be tuned while it lasts."—Stephen's Persia.
* ↑ "One of the greatest curiosities found in the Persian Gulf is a fish which the English call Star-fish. It is circular, and at night very luminous, resembling the full moon surrounded by rays."—Mirza Abu Taleb.
* ↑ "For a description of the merriment of the date-time, of their work, their dances, and their return home from the palm-groves at the end of autumn with the fruits, v. Kempfer, Amænitat. Exot.
* ↑ Some naturalists have imagined that amber is a concretion of the tears of birds.—v. Trevoux, Chambers.
* ↑ "The bay Kieselarke, which is otherwise called the Golden Bay, the sand whereof shines as fire."—Struy.