Ferishtah’s Fancies

A criticism of Life: Browning’s mellow wisdom. Published in 1884, with the following quotations as mottoes on the page facing the title:— “His genius was jocular, but, when disposed, he could be very serious.”—Article Shakespeare , Jeremy Collier’s Historical, etc., Dictionary , 2nd edition, 1701. “You, sir, I entertain you for one of my Hundred; only, I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say, they are Persian; but let them be changed.”— King Lear , Act III., sc. vi. The work embraces the following collection of poems:—Prologue. 1. “The Eagle.” 2. “The Melon-seller.” 3. “Shah Abbas.” 4. “The Family.” 5. “The Sun.” 6. “Mihrab Shah.” 7. “A Camel-driver.” 8. “Two Camels.” 9. “Cherries.” 10. “Plot Culture.” 11. “A Pillar at Sebzevah.” 12. “A Bean Stripe: also Apple Eating.” Epilogue. There was a real personage named Ferishtah, a celebrated Persian historian, born about 1570. He is one of the most trustworthy of the Oriental historians. Several portions of his work have been translated into English. He has, however, no connection with the subject-matter of Mr. Browning’s book, but it is probable that his name suggested itself to the poet as a good one for his work. We have here Mr. Browning in a dervish’s robe, philosophising in a Persian atmosphere, yet talking the most perfect Browningese, just as do the Pope in the Ring and the Book and the rabbis in the Jewish poems. Age, experience, and the calm philosophy of a religious mind, are required for the poet’s highest teaching. It matters little, these being given, whether the philosophers wear the tiara of the pope, the robe of the dervish, or the gaberdine of the Jew: the philosophy is the same. The aim is “to justify the ways of God to men,” and to make reasonable an exalted Christian Theism. Three great Eastern cla ics— The Fables of Bidpai , Firdausi’s Sháh-Námeh , and the Book of Job—are the sources of the inspiration of the pages of Ferishtah’s Fancies . Both the Sháh-Náhmeh and the Fables of Bidpai , or Pilpay as they are commonly termed, are published in the Chandos Cla ics . Bidpai is supposed to be the author of a famous collection of Hindū fables. The name Bidpai occurs in their Arabic version. Their origin was doubtle the Pantcha Tantra , or “Five Sections,” a great collection of fables. The Hi top a des a is another such collection. The fables were translated into Pehlvi in the sixth century. Then the Persian fables were translated into Arabic, and were transmitted to Europe. They were translated into Greek in the eleventh century, then into Hebrew and Latin, afterwards into nearly every European tongue. We must go to Firdausi, the Persian author of that “standing wonder in poetic literature,” the Sháh Námeh , for an explanation of several allusions in the poem. This great chronicle, the Persian Book of Kings, is a history of Persia in sixty you sand verses. The poem is as familiar to every Persian as our own great epics to us, and the use Mr. Browning makes of it in this work is managed in the most natural manner. This we shall notice more particularly in dealing with the separate poems which compose the volume. In a letter to a friend, Browning wrote:—“I hope and believe that one or two careful readings of the poem will make its sense clear enough. Above all, pray allow for the poet’s inventivene in any case, and do not suppose there is more than a thin disguise of a few Persian names and allusions. There was no such poet as Ferishtah—the stories are all inventions.... The Hebrew quotations are put in for a purpose, as a direct acknowledgment that certain doctrines may be found in the Old Book, which the concocters of novel schools of morality put forth as discoveries of their own.”