The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi by Sir Richard Francis Burton
page 75 of 91 (82%)
page 75 of 91 (82%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
the quality of darkness (Tama-guna), and incapable of standing."
The Pot and Potter began with the ancient Egyptians. "Sitting as a potter at the wheel, Cneph (at Philae) moulds clay, and gives the spirit of life to the nostrils of Osiris." Hence the Genesitic "breath." Then we meet him in the Vedas, the Being "by whom the fictile vase is formed; the clay out of which it is fabricated." We find him next in Jeremiah's "Arise and go down unto the Potter's house," etc. (xviii. 2), and lastly in Romans (ix. 20), "Hath not the potter power over the clay?" No wonder that the first Hand who moulded the man-mud is a _lieu commun_ in Eastern thought. The "waste of agony" is Buddhism, or Schopenhauerism pure and simple, I have moulded "Earth on Earth" upon "Seint Ysidre"'s well-known rhymes (A.D. 1440):-- Erthe out of Erthe is wondirli wrouzt, Erthe out of Erthe hath gete a dignity of nouzt, Erthe upon Erthe hath sett all his thouzt How that Erthe upon Erthe may be his brouzt, etc. The "Camel-rider," suggests Ossian, "yet a few years and the blast of the desert comes." The dromedary was chosen as Death's vehicle by the Arabs, probably because it bears the Bedouin's corpse to the distant burial-ground, where he will lie among his kith and kin. The end of this section reminds us of:-- How poor, how rich; how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is Man! The Haji now passes to the results of his long and anxious thoughts: I have purposely twisted his exordium into an echo of |
|