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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

Pages
about 99
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
1.8 h at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 60 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

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.

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

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

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:

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!

A short sample. Read the whole book

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