Hassan: The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand | Page 4

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

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 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

THE STORY OF HASSAN OF BAGDAD
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