Turkish Nonsense Tales
By
Stephen van Rensselaer Trowbridge
From
Everyland magazine, August, 1916.
Digitized by Doug Frizzle, Dec 2011.
These tales have been told to the
children in Turkey
for many generations. Mr. Trowbridge, who grew up in a missionary home in
Turkey, heard them from his nurse when a little boy.
In
these tales the
central character, Nasr-ed-Din, is said by some to have been the court jester of Tamerlane. According to other traditions, he was a local schoolteacher (Hoja)
in Eskishehir during the early part
of the fifteenth century, when the Ottoman Empire
was in its making. His grave is shown to this day, and in front of it a large
gate standing alone, with neither
fence nor wall anywhere in sight, as though there
ought to be something humorous even in his burial. The title Hoja, or more
correctly Khoja, is almost invariably prefixed to his name.
The Tar on the
Donkey’s Back
While
on his way from the mountain where he
had worked hard cutting firewood, Nasr-ed-Din, trudging along behind his loaded
donkey, came to a level place by the
riverside. Some men had a boat out of the
water and were smearing its sides with tar.
"What
are you doing that for?" he asked.
"To
make the boat go faster through the water." they replied.
"Oh,"
said he, "if I had only known, I could have put tar on my donkey's sides
and we would have been home long before this." And then,
after a moment's reflection, he asked, "Would you be willing to put some
on now?"
"Certainly,"
they said.
So
one of them dipped up a ladleful of the hot, black stuff and began pouring it on the donkey's back. Up went his heels and away he
rushed at a gallop, braying as he ran. Pieces of wood from his load flew here
and there as he went tearing up the opposite hillside. Meanwhile, his master stood
still like one stunned. If I do not do something quickly, he thought, I shall
never see my wood and my ass again.
"Pour
some of that wonderful liquid: down my back," he begged,
"and maybe I can catch up."
The
moment he felt the touch of the boiling tar, he shouted with the pain and started off. On and on he raced, but the donkey seemed just as far ahead as ever. His
house came in sight, just off the
main road, but he could not stop.
His
wife came out, calling to him as he raced by.
"If
you ever expect to catch up with me," he shouted, as he went over the top of the
next hill, "go down to the
river and get the boatmen to put
some tar down your back."
IT
happened one night that Nasr-ed-Din Hoja was wakened up by his wife who felt
sure there were burglars in the courtyard. Very cautiously he peered out into the darkness and listened. He heard some slight
sounds and as he looked closely he felt sure he could see a robber moving about
at the other
side of the court.
So
he raised his gun and fired. His wife, who had been watching at the window behind him, burst out laughing,
"Why, that is nothing but your shirt! I myself hung it on the line at sundown."
At
once he dropped to his knees and exclaimed with deep emotion, "Thank God I
wasn't in my shirt when I shot it!"
D. V.
THE
Hoja's wife being of a very religious disposition the
conversation one day turned on the
question of saying, "In Sha Allah" (God willing), whenever speaking
of any future event.
"You
don't say this in making your plans, and I wish you would.” she complained.
"I
fail to see any use in always saying 'If God wills,' " he replied.
"For instance, if tomorrow is fair I shall go out to my farm and enjoy the
open air, and if the weather is foul I shall go down to the coffeehouse to sit
with my friends. It is bound to be one or the
other. Why should I say 'God
willing'?"
"Do
as you like, but some day you may regret your bravado."
The
words were scarcely off her lips when the
front door was thrust open by soldiers from the
pasha. They laid hold of the Hoja
and began dragging him off, saying that he was under the
sultan's displeasure. Just as the
soldiers were disappearing with their
prisoner into the street, his wife
called after him: "Don't you wish now you had said it?"
He
had no chance to make any retort, but thought over his doleful plight all that
night while he lay sleepless on the
damp floor of the prison cell.
Toward morning he remembered that he had a mejidiye (about equal to a
dollar) in his pocket. With this he succeeded in bribing the
jailer, and away he went, homeward, just at dawn. He knocked loudly at his
front gate, and at last a voice that he knew very well called from behind a
latticed window on the upper floor,
"Who's there?"
"God willing, it's myself," said
Nasr-ed-Din.
There
was certainly the sound of gentle
laughter from behind the lattice,
and in a few moments the gate was unbarred
and he was home again.
One
cloudy night, Nasr-ed-Din Hoja climbed over a neighbor's wall by means of a
ladder. He left it leaning against the
inside of the orchard wall and went
in among the trees to gather as many pomegranates and pears as he could
carry away. Just then the neighbor appeared and ran down through the orchard, calling out, "What are you doing
here? How did you get in? What do you want?
"I
came to sell you a ladder," calmly said the
Hoja. "And here it is by the
wall.
"You
impertinent poacher!" growled his neighbor, "Have you the audacity to tell me that you came here to sell me a ladder?"
"If
you had studied philosophy," replied Nasr-ed-Din, "you would know
that a ladder may be sold by its owner wherever it is. But since you
don't know philosophy, I'll have to take it back again."
On
another occasion the Hoja had taken an empty sack over his shoulder
and had stealthily entered a neighbor's vegetable patch. Finding some very nice
artichokes and cucumbers, he began filling the
bag as fast as he could. Suddenly he was discovered.
"What
have you come in here for?" angrily demanded the
neighbor.
"That
is the very question I was
thinking over before you spoke," said Nasr-ed-Din. "Is it not strange
how sometimes two people think of the
same thing at once?"
His
answer so pleased and amused the
neighbor that a quarrel was averted and the
trespass was overlooked.
The Friday Sermon
The
imam who conducted the Mohammedan
Friday prayers and preached to the
people was once taken very ill, and Nasr-ed-Din being the
schoolteacher, was invited to take his place. He accepted, but try as he might,
he could not think of a sermon. Friday noon he entered the
mosque with great dignity and mounted the
stairs to the pulpit. He had not yet
thought of a subject. After gravely surveying the
congregation, he rose and asked them,
"O ye people, do you know what it is that I am going to say unto
you?"
Naturally
they responded, "No."
"Well,"
he said, "if I should tell you, you would know, and what would be the use of my preaching to you about a thing you
would already know? The best thing is for you to say the
Fatiha (the opening chapter of the Koran) and go to your homes."
The
people went away very much annoyed. And during the
week they agreed that they would not be caught in this way again. So next
Friday, the imam still being ill,
Nasr-ed-Din was once more commissioned to deliver the
sermon. He cast about in vain for a subject, but he was resolved not to let the people know his predicament. So when he stood in
the pulpit he solemnly asked the same question. "Yes," said the people, "we know." For they did not think he could discover anything new to
preach about.
"Very
good," he replied. "Since you know, all you need to do is to go home
and think it over."
You
can imagine how indignant they were.
After the service they met in the
courtyard and decided that if he should try this silly question again, they would catch him in a trap: some would answer,
"Yes, we know," and some would say, "We don't know."
The
days passed and when the third
Friday came, he had not yet a subject. So he propounded the
old question: "Do you know, O followers of the
Prophet, what I intend to declare in my sermon?"
Some
said "Yes," and some said "No," and they
felt sure that he would have to preach this time.
"Very
well," he replied, "let those that know tell those that don't know,
and then you can go home and think
it over."
"Did
you really have no subject in your mind?" said some one to him afterwards.
"If
I should be called upon again," he answered, "I would speak on the gratitude we should feel toward God because when
he created storks he did not make them
as large as camels, for if he had, our chimneys would come tumbling down upon
our heads."
More of these Turkish
Tales will be published in an early issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment