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    Hassan: “Thy impudence has a monstrous beauty, like the hindquarters of an elephant.”
    Hassan: “Thy impudence has a monstrous beauty, like the hindquarters of an elephant.”
    Hassan: “Thy impudence has a monstrous beauty, like the hindquarters of an elephant.”
    Ebook161 pages1 hour

    Hassan: “Thy impudence has a monstrous beauty, like the hindquarters of an elephant.”

    By James Elroy Flecker

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    About this ebook

    James Elroy Flecker was born on November 5th 1884 in London. He was educated at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, where his father was headmaster, and Uppingham School then on to Trinity College, Oxford, and Caius College, Cambridge. At Oxford he was much influenced by the vestiges of the Aesthetic movement there. In 1910 he was in the consular service, in the Eastern Mediterranean. On a ship to Athens he met Helle Skiadaressi and married her in 1911. Perhaps his best known work is "To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence". Here we publish his five act play Hassan The Story Of Hassan Of Bagdad And How He Came To Make The Golden Journey To Samarkand. Tragically James was to die at age 30 on January 3rd 1915, in Davos, Switzerland of tuberculosis. An immense loss to English Poetry – he had already been measured against the work of Keats.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateJan 3, 2014
    ISBN9781783949090
    Hassan: “Thy impudence has a monstrous beauty, like the hindquarters of an elephant.”

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      Book preview

      Hassan - James Elroy Flecker

      Hassan: The Story Of Hassan Of Bagdad

      And How He Came To Make The Golden Journey To Samarkand

      by James Elroy Flecker

      A play in five acts

      James Elroy Flecker was born on November 5th 1884 in London. 

      He was educated at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, where his father was headmaster, and Uppingham School then on to Trinity College, Oxford, and Caius College, Cambridge.  At Oxford he was much influenced by the vestiges of the Aesthetic movement there.

      In 1910 he was in the consular service, in the Eastern Mediterranean. On a ship to Athens he met Helle Skiadaressi and married her in 1911.

      Perhaps his best known work is To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence.   Here we bring you another side to his talents. His play, Hassan. 

      Tragically James was to die at age 30 on January 3rd 1915, in Davos, Switzerland of tuberculosis.  An immense loss to English Poetry – he had already been measured against the work of Keats. 

      Index Of Contents

      Characters

      ACT I - SCENE I

      ACT I - SCENE II

      ACT II - SCENE I

      ACT II - SCENE II

      ACT III - SCENE I

      ACT III - SCENE II

      ACT III - SCENE III

      ACT IV - SCENE I

      ACT IV - SCENE II

      ACT V - SCENE I

      ACT V - SCENE II

      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  - JUNIPER - 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

      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

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