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73a |
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72b |
Dancers and musicians, a daredevil performance by a tightrope walker, and an Ottoman-style "auto-da-fe"
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73a |
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72b |
Early in the morning on the sixth day, Grand Vizier İbrahim Pasha seated himself in his tent accompanied by Governor Ali Pasha of Raqqa, Armorer İbrahim Pasha (Warden of
Eğriboz), and his son-in-law Tevkii Mustafa Pasha. They were joined first by Ahmed Efendi, a former chief justice of Rumelia, Surgeon General Ömer Efendi, and Osmanzade Ahmed Efendi, a former kadi of Aleppo and later by still others including Vehbi, the author of Surname, and at length by Sheikulislam Abdullah Efendi, who was seated at the grand vizier’s right. Just then, as the draperies of the imperial pavilion were rolled up, sackers poured onto the field wielding their sacks to drive spectators back, and the performances began. These performances are depicted in these two frames.In the first (72b) İbrahim Pa
sha and four members of his party are shown sitting in the grand vizier’s tent in the middle ground left of center watching a performance of dancing-girls and musicians in the lower right corner. The sultan, is seated on his throne in the upper right corner surrounded by servants and officers. One of his sons stands to the left behind the throne. In the second (73a), three lines of boys accompanied by surgeons and guards enter the frame from the left on their way to the circumcision tents as cannon-shots fired from the revolving fortress in the upper left corner announce that the sultan has emerged from his tent and is watching the proceedings. The tightrope-walker having realized that the sultan is now watching him, undertakes a dangerous trick. Lying face up on the tightrope, he binds himself to it by his hair and then wielding his balancing-pole like a pair of wings, slides down the rope, gliding to the ground like a hawk coming in for a landing. The somewhat grisly goings-on in the lower right corner of the frame depict a scene that will actually take place during this evening’s fireworks displays. As Vehbi tells it:Meanwhile a revolving tent resembling a
corn lily, the likes of which had never been seen and which had been fashioned by the Engineers corps from fireworks, graced the field of the festival and as it revolved, it showered a multitude of flames and lights. After this there appeared a man wearing a wooden cap over his head that bore down upon his shoulders and from every part of which rust-colored cartridges were suspended. He was dressed in a black kaftan that enveloped him like a magnificent ornament and that was lined not with cotton but with gunpowder. He was presented as a bread-seller who had been caught using false weights and was to be punished. Thereupon a horde of sackers and sergeants set about whipping him. Then they set the hem of his garment on fire and he began running with all his might, the motion of his flaring skirts causing the all-consuming flames to touch everything such that the wooden cap over his head was turned into an orange headdress while sticks and brambles covering his body became a robe of fire. He himself was transformed into a dove enveloped in rising rings of smoke and a fire-dwelling salamander.He spun about like a revolving flame
The tongue of his mouth became a tongue of flame.
Behold the accomplishments of the world-protecting sovereign
For his naked flesh suffered no damage from the fire.
While the man blazed away and begged for mercy, speaking in the language of fire, the sackers, having dispensed with their whips, showered water upon him to douse the flames while the sergeants kept shooting small fireworks at him to relight his garment so that the poor wretch flailed wildly about like the
seeds of wild rue when cast into the fire.Notes
1. Eğriboz: Euripos. Strait separating the island of Euboea from the Greek mainland where the city of Chalcis is situated.
2. Corn lily: Çadır çiçeği "tent-flower". Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis).
3. Seeds of wild rue: Wild rue (Peganum harmala) seeds were burned as a fumigant.
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