The Shaving of Shagpat · And This Is the Story of Bhanavar the Beautiful (1/9)

And This Is the Story of Bhanavar the Beautiful

Know that at the foot of a lofty mountain of the Caucasus there lieth a deep blue lake; near to this lake a nest of serpents, wise and ancient. Now, it was the habit of a damsel to pass by the lake early at morn, on her way from the tents of her tribe to the pastures of the flocks. As she pressed the white arch of her feet on the soft green-mossed grasses by the shore of the lake she would let loose her hair, looking over into the water, and bind the braid again round her temples and behind her ears, as it had been in a lucent mirror: so doing she would laugh. Her laughter was like the falls of water at moonrise; her loveliness like the very moonrise; and she was stately as a palm-tree standing before the moon.

This was Bhanavar the Beautiful.

Now, the damsel was betrothed to the son of a neighbouring Emir, a youth comely, well-fashioned, skilled with the bow, apt in all exercises; one that sat his mare firm as the trained falcon that fixeth on the plunging bull of the plains; fair and terrible in combat as the lightning that strideth the rolling storm; and it is sung by the poet:

“When on his desert mare I see

My prince of men,

I think him then

As high above humanity

As he shines radiant over me.

Lo! like a torrent he doth bound,

Breasting the shock

From rock to rock:

A pillar of storm, he shakes the ground,

His turban on his temples wound.

Match me for worth to be adored

A youth like him

In heart and limb!

Swift as his anger is his sword;

Softer than woman his true word.”

Now, the love of this youth for the damsel Bhanavar was a consuming passion, and the father of the damsel and the father of the youth looked fairly on the prospect of their union, which was near, and was plighted as the union of the two tribes. So they met, and there was no voice against their meeting, and all the love that was in them they were free to pour forth far from the hearing of men, even where they would. Before the rising of the sun, and ere his setting, the youth rode swiftly from the green tents of the Emir his father, to waylay her by the waters of the lake; and Bhanavar was there, bending over the lake, her image in the lake glowing like the fair fullness of the moon; and the youth leaned to her from his steed, and sang to her verses of her great loveliness ere she was wistful of him. Then she turned to him, and laughed lightly a welcome of sweetness, and shook the falls of her hair across the blushes of her face and her bosom; and he folded her to him, and those two would fondle together in the fashion of the betrothed ones (the blessing of Allah be on them all!), gazing on each other till their eyes swam with tears, and they were nigh swooning with the fullness of their bliss. Surely ’twas an innocent and tender dalliance, and their prattle was that of lovers till the time of parting, he showing her how she looked best⁠—she him; and they were forgetful of all else that is, in their sweet interchange of flatteries; and the world was a wilderness to them both when the youth parted with Bhanavar by the brook which bounded the tents of her tribe.

It was on a night when they were so together, the damsel leaning on his arm, her eyes toward the lake, and lo! what seemed the reflection of a large star in the water; and there was darkness in the sky above it, thick clouds, and no sight of the heavens; so she held her face to him sideways and said, “What meaneth this, O my betrothed? for there is reflected in yonder lake a light as of a star, and there is no star visible this night.”

The youth trembled as one in trouble of spirit, and exclaimed, “Look not on it, O my soul! It is of evil omen.”

But Bhanavar kept her gaze constantly on the light, and the light increased in lustre; and the light became, from a pale sad splendour, dazzling in its brilliancy. Listening, they heard presently a gurgling noise as of one deeply drinking. Then the youth sighed a heavy sigh and said, “This is the Serpent of the Lake drinking of its waters, as is her wont once every moon, and whoso heareth her drink by the sheening of that light is under a destiny dark and imminent; so know I my days are numbered, and it was foretold of me, this!” Now the youth sought to dissuade Bhanavar from gazing on the light, and he flung his whole body before her eyes, and clasped her head upon his breast, and clung about her, caressing her; yet she slipped from him, and she cried, “Tell me of this serpent, and of this light.”

So he said, “Seek not to hear of it, O my betrothed!”

Then she gazed at the light a moment more intently, and turned her fair shape toward him, and put up her long white fingers to his chin, and smoothed him with their softness, whispering, “Tell me of it, my life!”

And so it was that her winningness melted him, and he said, “Bhanavar! the serpent is the Serpent of the Lake; old, wise, powerful; of the brood of the sacred mountain, that lifteth by day a peak of gold, and by night a point of solitary silver. In her head, upon her forehead, between her eyes, there is a Jewel, and it is this light.”

Then she said, “How came the Jewel there, in such a place?”

He answered, “ ’Tis the growth of one thousand years in the head of the serpent.”

She cried, “Surely precious?”

He answered, “Beyond price!”

As he spake the tears streamed from him, and he was shaken with grief, but she noted nought of this, and watched the wonder of the light, and its increasing, and quivering, and lengthening; and the light was as an arrow of beams and as a globe of radiance. Desire for the Jewel waxed in her, and she had no sight but for it alone, crying, “ ’Tis a Jewel exceeding in preciousness all jewels that are, and for the possessing it would I forfeit all that is.”

So he said sorrowfully, “Our love, O Bhanavar? and our hopes of espousal?”

But she cried, “No question of that! Prove now thy passion for me, O warrior! and win for me that Jewel.”

Then he pleaded with her, and exclaimed, “Urge not this! The winning of the Jewel is worth my life; and my life, O Bhanavar⁠—surely its breath is but the love of thee.”

So she said, “Thou fearest a risk?”

And he replied, “Little fear I; my life is thine to cast away. This Jewel it is evil to have, and evil followeth the soul that hath it.”

Upon that she cried, “A trick to cheat me of the Jewel! thy love is wanting at the proof.”

And she taunted the youth her betrothed, and turned from him, and hardened at his tenderness, and made her sweet shape as a thorn to his caressing, and his heart was charged with anguish for her. So at the last, when he had wept a space in silence, he cried, “Thou hast willed it; the Jewel shall be thine, O my soul!”

Then said he, “Thou hast willed it, O Bhanavar! and my life is as a grain of sand weighed against thy wishes; Allah is my witness! Meet me therefore here, O my beloved, at the end of one quarter-moon, even beneath the shadow of this palm-tree, by the lake, and at this hour, and I will deliver into thy hands the Jewel. So farewell! Wind me once about with thine arms, that I may take comfort from thee.”

When their kiss was over the youth led her silently to the brook of their parting⁠—the clear, cold, bubbling brook⁠—and passed from her sight; and the damsel was exulting, and leapt and made circles in her glee, and she danced and rioted and sang, and clapped her hands, crying, “If I am now Bhanavar the Beautiful how shall I be when that Jewel is upon me, the bright light which beameth in the darkness, and needeth to light it no other light? Surely there will be envy among the maidens and the widows, and my name and the odour of my beauty will travel to the courts of far kings.”

So was she jubilant; and her sisters that met her marvelled at her and the deep glow that was upon her, even as the glow of the Great Desert when the sun has fallen; and they said among themselves, “She is covered all over with the blush of one that is a bride, and the bridegroom’s kiss yet burneth upon Bhanavar!”

So they undressed her and she lay among them, and was all night even as a bursting rose in a vase filled with drooping lilies; and one of the maidens that put her hand on the left breast of Bhanavar felt it full, and the heart beneath it panting and beating swifter than the ground is struck by hooves of the chosen steed sent by the chieftain to the city of his people with news of victory and the summons for rejoicing.

Now, the nights and the days of Bhanavar were even as this night, and she was as an unquiet soul till the appointed time for the meeting with her lover had come. Then when the sun was lighting with slant beam the green grass slope by the blue brook before her, Bhanavar arrayed herself and went forth gaily, as a martial queen to certain conquest; and of all the flowers that nodded to the setting⁠—yea, the crimson, purple, pure white, streaked-yellow, azure, and saffron, there was no flower fairer in its hues than Bhanavar, nor bird of the heavens freer in its glittering plumage, nor shape of loveliness such as hers. Truly, when she had taken her place under the palm by the waters of the lake, that was no exaggeration of the poet, where he says:

“Snows of the mountain-peaks were mirror’d there

Beneath her feet, not whiter than they were;

Not rosier in the white, that falling flush

Broad on the wave, than in her cheek the blush.”

And again:

“She draws the heavens down to her,

So rare she is, so fair she is;

They flutter with a crown to her,

And lighten only where she is.”

And he exclaims, in verse that applieth to her:

“Exquisite slenderness!

Sleek little antelope!

Serpent of sweetness!

Eagle that soaringly

Wins me adoringly!

Teach me thy fleetness,

Vision of loveliness;

Turn to my tenderness!”

Now, when the sun was lost to Earth, and all was darkness, Bhanavar fixed her eyes upon an opening arch of foliage in the glade through which the youth her lover should come to her, and clasped both hands across her bosom, so shaken was she with eager longing and expectation. In her hunger for his approach, she would at whiles pluck up the herbage about her by the roots, and toss handfuls this way and that, chiding the peaceful song of the nightbird in the leaves above her head; and she was sinking with fretfulness, when lo! from the opening arch of the glade a sudden light, and Bhanavar knew it for the Jewel in the fingers of her betrothed, by the strength of its effulgence. Then she called to him joyfully a cry of welcome, and quickened his coming with her calls, and the youth alighted from his mare and left it to pasture, and advanced to her, holding aloft the Jewel. And the Jewel was of great size and purity, round, and all-luminous, throwing rays and beams everywhere about it, a miracle to behold⁠—the light in it shining, and as the very life of the blood, a sweet crimson, a ruby, a softer rose, an amethyst of tender hues: it was a full globe of splendours, showing like a very kingdom of the Blest; and blessed was the eye beholding it! So when he was within reach of her arm, the damsel sprang to him and caught from his hand the Jewel, and held it before her eyes, and danced with it, and pressed it on her bosom, and was as a creature giddy with great joy in possessing it. And she put the Jewel in her bosom, and looked on the youth to thank him for the Jewel with all her beauty; for the passion of a mighty pride in him who had won for her the Jewel exalted Bhanavar, and she said sweetly, “Now hast thou proved to me thy love of me, and I am thine, O my betrothed⁠—wholly thine. Kiss me, then, and cease not kissing me, for bliss is in me.”

But the youth eyed her sorrowfully, even as one that hath great yearning, and no power to move or speak.

So she said again, in the low melody of deep love-tones, “Kiss me, O my lover! for I desire thy kiss.”

Still he spake not, and was as a pillar of stone.

And she started, and cried, “Thou art whole? without a hurt?” Then sought she to coax him to her with all the softness of her half-closed eyes and budded lips, saying, “ ’Twas an idle fear! and I have thee, and thou art mine, and I am thine; so speak to me, my lover! for there is no music like the music of thy voice, and the absence of it is the absence of all sweetness, and there is no pleasure in life without it.”

So the tenderness of her fondling melted the silence in him, and presently his tongue was loosed, and he breathed in pain of spirit, and his words were the words of the proverb:

“He that fighteth with poison is no match for the prick of a thorn.”

And he said, “Surely, O Bhanavar, my love for thee surpasseth what is told of others that have loved before us, and I count no loss a loss that is for thy sake.” And he sighed, and sang:

“Sadder than is the moon’s lost light,

Lost ere the kindling of dawn,

To travellers journeying on,

The shutting of thy fair face from my sight.

Might I look on thee in death,

With bliss I would yield my breath.

Oh! what warrior dies

With heaven in his eyes?

O Bhanavar! too rich a prize!

The life of my nostrils art thou,

The balm-dew on my brow;

Thou art the perfume I meet as I speed o’er the plains,

The strength of my arms, the blood of my veins.”

Then said he, “I make nothing matter of complaint, Allah witnesseth! not even the long parting from her I love. What will be, will be: so was it written! ’Tis but a scratch, O my soul! yet am I of the dead and them that are passed away. ’Tis hard; but I smile in the face of bitterness.”