THE PRAISE of PORRIDGE 1. a Very Particular Kind of Porridge One Of

THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE

1. A very particular kind of porridge

One of the delights of Armenian church celebrations, and of the winter menu of the Armenian people generally, is a dish (whose name is known to Persians and Arabs, too) called herisa. Turcophone Armenians call it also keskek: it is a porridge made of meat (generally the flesh of a young animal, especially a lamb, offered in sacrifice — Arm. mata¥ — but in America herisa made with chicken is common, perhaps because it is somewhat less fattening) and wheat boiled very slowly in a large metal cauldron: where the church has a courtyard, this is generally done overnight, over an open fire. Parishioners and clergy eat the porridge the next day, seasoning it with melted butter and sumaq (not the poison sumac, a weed of the New World, but a crimson powder of crushed ber- ries, with a sharp sweet-and-sour taste: Persians and Turks keep it in peppershakers on the table). This is how I ate it one Sunday in the late Spring of 1994 at the Armenian church of Kayseri (Caesarea). The par- ents of my first teacher of Armenian, Mrs. Maritza Tsaggos (née Boyajian), were survivors of the Armenian Genocide from that town; and she used to cook the dish for me in the wintertime. Only one Arme- nian lived in Kayseri in 1994 — and she was a nonagenarian — so to keep the church open the faithful come once a year or so by bus from Sivas (Sebastia), where there are about four score Armenian souls, or even from faraway Istanbul, to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, baptize their children, and hold a Parish Council meeting. So the meal at Kayseri was as nostalgic as Marcel Proust's madeleine, though sadder1.

1 Here is the recipe of Mrs. Varteni Barsamian, wife of the Rev. Arsen Barsamian of Belmont, MA, Pastor of the Armenian Church of St. James in Watertown, MA, tran- scribed by their daughter, Ms. Lucine Barsamian on 4 Feb. 2001: The night before, take one cup gorgod (cracked wheat) covered with water two inches higher. Bring it to a boil and then let it stand overnight, covered. The next day, shred chicken, lamb, or turkey — as much as you want or have. Boil broth, or use the broth of the cooked meat. Use three cups of broth for every one of cracked wheat. Cook for three hours until mushy, adding water if necessary. Then beat the mixture till creamy. Serve with melted butter, sprinkled with cumin and/or paprika. Another recipe is similar, from Treasured Armenian Recipes, collected by the Detroit Women's Chapter of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, New York, 1949, p. 22: “Keshkeg or Herisah. 1 cup whole grain skinless wheat. 2 cups shredded chicken, turkey, lamb, or beef. 1/8 lb. butter. Paprika, salt, pepper. Cumin op- tional. 1 qt. boiling water. 1 pt. chicken broth. Wash, cook wheat in hot water overnight, keep in warm place. Next day add meat, broth and cook slowly till wheat soft and water 138 J.R. RUSSELL

Herisa is famed in Armenian oral epic, also. In Sasna crer, the epic of the Wild (or Crazy — cur means, literally, “crooked”) Men of Sasun, the hero of the third of the four branches (ciw¥) of the text, David, is put to work as a shepherd by his relatives, timid folk anxious to forestall the return of the heroic age by preventing the youth, orphaned at birth, from coming to self-realization and acquiring the magic weapons, strength, and mission of his dead father, Lion Mher. It is high summer, the feast of the Assumption. This holiday falls in mid-August, and is also the name-day for Armenian women named Mariam, “Mary”, and a large number of other names derived from aretalogical epithets of the Blessed Virgin, such as Vardarp‘i (lit. “Rose-Sun[light]”, a complex homology of flower and orb in its own right, but most relevantly, as it happens, the name of my other teacher of Armenian language, Ms. Vardarp‘i Darbi- nean, a survivor of the Genocide from Erzurum — so it was her name day, too). The Holy Mother of God of Marut‘a2, called in dialect Marat‘uk, is the only significant Christian divine personage in the Epic of Sasun. People go on pilgrimage to Her shrine then, offer requiem masses and sacrifices, and cook herisa. David sees the pilgrims below White Rock, leaves his herd, and asks for a cauldron of herisa for his fellow shepherds3. The old women tending the pot tell David to wait till Mass is over, but he and his mates are hungry and his flock is unat- tended, so he slips his staff through the handles of the huge cauldron, takes the herisa, and goes away. The episode illustrates the hero's great physical strength4, his outdoorsy wildness, his care for the needs of the absorbed. Add more water if necessary. Then add salt, pepper, beat with wooden spoon till smooth and mushy. Serving: melt butter and paprika together and pour over keshkeg in the platter. Sprinkle with cumin at will.” On page 2, the editors express the desire that “thus, herisah, shishkebab and the pungent zest of the grapeleaf sarma will not perish from the earth.” Echoes of the Gettysburg Address. 2 The name is that of Marutha, the fifth-century Syrian bishop who transferred the bones of so many martyrs, mainly from Iran, to his home town of Maypherqath (Arabic Mayyafariqin, now Silvan) that it acquired the name Martyropolis. His morbid preoccu- pations cannot have impressed greatly the manly warriors of Sasun, whose response to Islamic oppression was armed resistance. But Martyropolis is not far to the south from Sasun, on the well-travelled road to Amida/Diyarbekir/Tigranakert; so its great aura of holiness might have impressed the Christian Armenians of Sasun. See R. MARCUS, The Armenian Life of Marutha of Maipherkat, in Harvard Theological Review, 25 (1932), pp. 47-71. 3 See A. SHALIAN, trans., David of Sassoun, Athens, OH, 1964, pp. 204-207: the translation is from the composite text ed. by H. ORBELI, Sasunc‘i Davit‘, Erevan, 1961, pp. 174-177. 4 The herisa-cauldrons are massive, very heavy even when empty. I saw one in the garden of the Van Museum, obviously looted (as were Cross-stones and other objects) from destroyed churches and from the homes of murdered Armenians. These precious relics of a vanished life and culture are treated with criminal negligence: the cauldron, ex- posed to the elements, had been fouled by a dog. THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 139 poor whom he champions, and his scornful disregard for hypocritical convention, especially when the clergy are involved. The moral of the story is: if you are in need and those who have and can spare will not give, then use your strength and take. It is the ethos, in fine, of Robin Hood. A certain disdain for propriety will be seen to accompany all the servings of herisa we are to consider, a spiritual spice, as it were, to the symbolic dish. There is another, lesser-known folk epic from Armenia, The Heroes of Kast. Its subject is the struggle of the Armenians and Kurds of the Satax (Tk. Catak) region in the mountains south of Lake Van, against the tyr- anny of Tamerlane. The rebellion is led by a family from the small village of Kast (Kacet is another form of the name of the village), heredi- tary heroes: the whole village are famed for a kind of zany, reckless courage like that of the braves of Sasun — the Kastec‘is acquire it by drinking from a special spring. As the uprising gathers momentum, there is described in the text a feast at the end of autumn at the caravansarai and shrine of the Inn of St. George (Put‘ki surb Georg) on the high pass from the Van basin into Moks, where everyone, heroes and plain folk alike, take turns stirring the herisa in the courtyard: there is flute-playing and the performance of lewd kak‘aw “partridge” dances5. Boister- ous, satirical, and semi-obscene entertainments and games are typical of Armenian Carnival, too — as will be seen in the analysis of the poem offered in translation here. In the Epic of Sasun, as we have seen, David's seizure of the herisa is a metaphor for a sort of revolutionary fairness, of everybody getting his rightful share of the earth's bounty — the American expression would be, one's slice of the pie. This image persists, momentously, in Arme- nian history: when the Congress of Berlin in 1878 failed to take mean- ingful steps to ensure security for the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire from the depredations of the Turkish authorities and Kurdish tribesmen

5 See J.R. RUSSELL, tr. & comm., K. SITAL, An Armenian Epic: The Heroes of Kasht (Kasti k‘ajer) (Anatolian and Caucasian Series), Ann Arbor, MI, 2000, pp. 123-137 (hereafter: RUSSELL, An Armenian Epic). Sital, an American-Armenian Communist and native of Kast, strung together the epic from various recitations he had heard in his youth, and presented his narrative in standard literary Eastern Armenian spiced with dialect terms and some Kurdish. More problematic than this to the researcher is Sital's deliberate communization of the story: the Kastec‘is are the proletariat, Tamerlane is a personifica- tion of capitalism and fascism rolled into one, there are bourgeois enemies of the people, etc. It is not possible to tell whether the feast at which herisa is eaten formed an integral part of the narrative or was introduced as a diversion, though one may be certain that the description itself is faithful to such observances as they actually were. Sital's is the only retelling of the epic, though there is a collection of humorous anecdotes about the mad Kastec‘is. 140 J.R. RUSSELL of the Anatolian interior, the leader of the Armenian delegation, Abp. Mkrtic‘ Xrimean (known by Armenians affectionately as Khrimian hayrik, “Little Father”) delivered a sermon at the Patriarchal Cathedral in Kum Kapu, Constantinople, in which he employed a potent, evocative metaphor. He said the Western powers had placed a pot of herisa on the table: the Serbs and others came up with their fighters, who used their bayonets to spoon the porridge into their bowls. Khrimian Hayrik looked around then for his own Armenian strong men — the heroes of Sasun and Satax — but all his people had given him was a paper petition. His European hosts pointed out that it would melt in the hot broth, so he did not get anything to eat — that is, no political power. Next time, they ad- monished him, bring a ladle!6 Ladles themselves have great symbolic importance in Armenian folk life, and the sermon of the Iron Ladle (erkat‘eay serep‘)7 has itself become proverbial as a call to self-defense, invoking by mention of Sasun the strength and audacity of David, who took what he needed by force when he could not get it for the sweetly reasonable asking. Since the sermon, with its metaphor of herisa, was delivered a mere four years after the first transcription and publication of the Sasun epic by Garegin Sruanjteanc‘, yet was calculated to appeal to the imagination of the audience, most of whom, it may be safely assumed, were neither ethnogra- phers nor Sasunc‘i mountain men, much of the Epic will have already been known in some detail to Armenians through the oral tradition. The message, though couched in culturally specific terms, expresses a uni- versal verity. Freedom, they say, is not something that can be given to you: you have to take it. And these overtones of politics, it will be seen, are relevant, not only to herisa, but to a holiday when a hungry priest was hoping for some — to the peculiar rituals of Shrovetide.

2. The hungry Minas of Tokat

The ode8 to herisa to be considered here was penned in the mid-six- teenth century by Minas of Tokat (or, as the Anatolian city is also called,

6 See RUSSELL, An Armenian Epic, p. 7 and n. 8. 7 The ladle, or serep‘, is surrounded by special reverence in the traditional Armenian home: in the semi-dugout houses called glxatun, in which four pillars around the hearth support a conical ceiling built up of squinches with a smoke-hole (Arm. ert‘ik) at the top, the ladle always hangs from the “mother-pillar” of the home, the one adorned with cos- mological symbols, the Tree of Life, and so on. 8 This is not the only Armenian poem that mentions herisa, only the most interesting from the point of view of popular religious observances. In H. SAHAKYAN ed., Us mijnadari hay banaste¥cut‘yun¢ (XVI-XVII dd.), vol. 2, Erevan, 1987, pp. 532-540, is pub- THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 141

Eudokeia; he was born around 1510), an Armenian cleric who settled in Lvov (Polish Lwow, German Lemberg, Ukrainian Lviv)9. Till the forci- ble conversion to Catholicism of most of them early in the 18th century, the Armenians formed a large and distinct community in Galician Po- land and the Ukraine, speaking their own language as well as Kipchak Turkish (which many spoke at home) and various Slavic languages: Polish, Ukrainian, and their dialects. They also employed Latin for some official purposes; and, as frequent caravanbashis and commercial travellers through the Near East to Iran, many knew Lingua Franca and Per- sian as well — the Slavic locals referred to them often as “Persians”. John Alembeg, writing in the 16th century, has left us a vivid word-por- trait of the Armenians of Lvov: “The youth are virile, smart, and fear- less; the men, active, and kind in behavior; the old men, intelligent and lished an alphabetic poem of the 17th-century Andreas of Arcke. It begins with what seems a satirical play on the Armenian hymns of the dawn office: Arewelk‘ arajin/ Ew arewmutk‘, or e verjin/ Nsteal hayin dem p‘arc‘in “The East, which is the first,/ And the West, which is the last,/ Are seated, staring at the tablecloth,” and the refrain is the mildly blasphemous couplet, again satirizing the sarakans of the church: Barexosea mec karasin/ Or zanazan e iwr ginin “Intercede to the great barrel,/ Multifarious is its wine.” The guests sit down to eat. Lines 19-20: Darjeal hayir, t‘e inc‘ kay,/ Halvay, borak ew p‘axlaway “Look again at what we've got:/ Halvah, boureks, and baklava!” In lines 25- 26, the menu is extended to include Eraneal herisay/ Ew patuakan k‘allap‘ac‘ay “Blessed herisa/ And honored pacha,” eraneal (< Av. ranya- “happy”; Arm. erani translates Gk. makarios in the Sermon on the Mount) is a strongly-marked religious term, meaning “blessed”, “happy”, even “holy”. In line 49 “king rooster” (t‘agawor e xorozn, Tk.-from-Pers.) comes to dine — the cock has an important Shrovetide symbolism. The chief of the dessert course is the apple (line 141), which in Armenian poetry has sexual overtones (though not of the Fall, where the fruit of temptation was a fig). Later on the terternern ew tirac‘uk‘ — the married clergy — come in and play bells and cymbals and sing hymns (lines 181-184). But the ramk‘ t‘at‘arac‘ “Turkish rabble” come, too, and play music. But the poem concludes, as to so many mediaeval Armenian bacchanals in verse, on a plaintive note of infirmity and penitence: C‘aws er pater zis c‘ors dihac‘/ Ew es tkar ei mtac‘… K‘ak‘az Andreas Arckec‘i xelagar,/ K‘ani xoses vayrapar,/ Ayloc‘ e¥ar ew ca¥r-katak,/ Du a¥ac‘ea zTiramayr,/ Or i nmane lini k¨ez car. “My ailments hem me in on all four sides/ And my mind has grown weak… Crazy, mad Andreas of Arcke,/ Why do you ramble on?/ You've become to others a ridiculous clown./ Implore the Mother of God/ That from her you find a way.” Katak is an Iranian loan, cfr Sog- dian k’t’k “jester”; and a ca¥rkatak was in mediaeval Armenia a costumed clown — perhaps a Shrovetide actor here, which would place this poem in the same context as that of Minas. 9 This writer has something of a personal connection to Lvov, its humor, and even its hunger. My father's grandfather came from Brody, a town near there, and was well off. Grandpa told me the man once came home with a beggar in rags, walked wordlessly past his wife, and soon after escorted the beggar, who was now attired in an expensive, brand- new suit, back out. “Why couldn't you have given him one of your old suits?” she nagged. “He had an old suit,” came the reply. This was characteristic of the rather wry humor of the Jews of Galicia. Jewish competition with the Armenians in business in Galicia began only in the 18th century. Thereafter, Galicia, especially Krakow and its en- virons, became a center of Eastern European Jewish life. 142 J.R. RUSSELL good; the girls are proud and swarthy; and the women are a bit plain and in their advanced age wicked.”10 Minas' poem is humorous, at times sharply satirical, but the poet's old age (he is past fifty, which was then old11) and homesickness give it a bitter edge. (For all his complaints, Minas may have hung on, astonish- ingly, for almost another half century! Perhaps he ate herisa regularly and enjoyed the curative powers he jocularly ascribes to it.) The poem was most likely dedicated to Abp. Grigor Vanec‘i of Lvov, whom Minas served as a secretary12: the setting has the poet lying famished on

10 See H. ZAVRIAN, The Polish Armenian Colony, in Armenian Review, 1951 (in three parts; the citation of John Alembeg is on p. 293), who offers a convenient summary of the history of this lost community (hereafter: ZAVRIAN, Polish-Armenian Colony). 11 Fr. V. TER-MINASEAN, Angir dprut‘iwn ew arakk‘, Constantinople, 1893, p. 27, cites this epitaph of a fifty-year-old man: Yisun am o¥junec‘i zarewn mardoy,/Isk ard o¥junem zarewn Astucoy “Fifty years I greeted the Sun of man/ But now I welcome the Sun of God.” In every age of Armenian literature, from Eznik to the present, arew is a common metaphor meaning a person's life. In his Refutation of Sects, Eznik of Ko¥b de- rides the idea of fate: O hraman tkar, ew anzawr sahman, zor ew go¥k‘n ew awazakk‘n karen xaxtel, yorzam i veray haseal zomn y¢nc‘ic‘ ew yarewe arkanic‘en “What a weak command and powerless limitation that even thieves and brigands can violate when they come upon the scene and cast away a man from his possessions and his sun [i.e., deprive him of his money and his life]” (L. MARIES and Ch. MERCIER, eds., Eznik de Ko¥b, De Deo [Patrologia Orientalis, t. 28, fasc. 3, no. 136], Paris, 1960, p. 480 para. 229). Though Armenian cannot play on the homonym of Son/Sun that is so helpful to Christian (and other: Shakespeare uses it of Romeo) homology in English, there may be another level of commentary. In the Gathas of Zarathustra, Y. 32, the hubristic Yima, who is equivalent to the Vedic king of the dead, Yama, declares somewhat mysteriously that the Sun is the worst thing to see with one's eyes. Only in the underworld can one not see the Sun; so he is deprived of it, being sent or exiled to the subterranean var. The Armenian epitaph has the deceased leave this Sun — but for another, the Sun of Righteousness (aregakn ardarut‘ean). 12 Prof. Kevork Bardakjian discusses the poet and his work, including this ode, in his compendious volume, A Reference Guide to Modern Armenian Literature, 1500-1920, Detroit, 2000, discussion on pp. 39-40 and bibliography on p. 424. He writes, “We are told by Minas that this most popular national dish was the staple food of the epic hero Sasunts‘i Dawit‘ (David of Sasun).” There is a very famous episode of the Epic in which David takes the herisa, as I have noted; but nowhere in the text or variants of Minas' poem in the critical edition of Akinean, nor in the more recent Soviet edition based on his, nor in another published edition in Sion (which Akinean did not use, see below), nor in the 1892 Tiflis ed. of Kostaneanc‘, nor in the Soviet anthology Us mijnadari hay banaste¥cut‘yun, I, does Minas mention or allude to David of Sasun at all. And nowhere in Armenian literature is the porridge that David hefts, which he does only once, called his staple food. Such an explicit allusion to a specific incident in the Epic would have been an extremely valuable addition to the very meager dossier of references extant before the late nineteenth century to its existence. I therefore contacted Professor Bardakjian in Ann Arbor at once: though he is fairly certain he did see such a reference, he has been unable to produce the evidence. I am, regretfully, convinced that none exists, and that Prof. Bardakjian's statement was an unconscious conflation of unrelated materials linked by the common, pleasant aroma of herisa. He also finds Akinean's edition somewhat un- trustworthy, but bases the statement about St. Gregory the Illuminator's having invented (Arm. yorineac‘) herisa on its reading. The poem is carnivalesque, so this absurd claim THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 143

Shrovetide when the Archbishop's invitation to a Sunday feast at last ar- rives. It is Friday, 5 February 156313. The translation that follows is based upon two texts: Govut‘iwn i veray herisayi, in Sion, Jerusalem, 1874, 1, pp. 132-135, which Akinean did not use in his edition, probably because he considered it late and corrupt: Ta¥ ew govasank‘ herisi, pp. 102-111 in Fr. N. AKINEAN, ed., Hing panduxt ta¥asac‘ner (“Five Emigrant Poets”), Vienna, 1921. Lines in Sion but not Akinean are in parentheses: ( ). Lines in Akinean but not Sion are in brackets: [ ]. Di- vergent readings of the same line are footnoted, only where the meaning is materially affected. The two texts are not sharply divergent in any case.

Text

GOVOU˘IUN I VERAY HERISAYI [i ˘oxa¯wi Minas dprè asaweal or i Lovaw tounn vax©anewau:]

I ho¬oy hausar anøè, ç yanarjan øer ∑a®ayè, yEdokiawi14 Minas dprè, ˙at karàtov barç haswè: could have been made by Minas in a facetious spirit. But the Sion text has “blessed” (orhneac‘), a reading which seems more plausible — if seriousness on the poet's part should be taken as a criterion — and ought perhaps to have been considered by Bardakjian. Moreover, the original semantic range of yawrinem, formed from awren(k‘), “custom, law” (itself a pluralis tantum from Middle Iranian ewen, which gives us New Persian ayin, “custom”; another formation, from ewen-ag, produces Arm. awrinak “exemplum” and from thence the Turkish loan örnek) would have included “make cur- rent, establish in law”, maybe even as a primary meaning, as well as “fashion, create”. Prof. Bardakjian objects to this suggestion, and argues that the meaning “establishing a custom” would have been reasonable, had one been dealing with a much more ancient and learned text. I think his point is well taken. Bardakjian's work is obviously the fruit of a lifetime of erudition and is a labor of love, quite indispensable to students of late mediaeval and modern Armenian literature. It is pleasantly well-written, very well organized, and a priceless mine of useful information. There are slight omissions: this writer could not help noticing with distress, for instance, that not one of his rather numerous translations of poems by Charents published in Ararat Quarterly over the last quarter century (not to mention his other translations of Siamant‘o, Varuzan, Zahrad and others in the same journal) is mentioned in the bibliography. Such lapses occur in the best of books, of which this is one, and I am still most grateful to Prof. Bardakjian for his patient and con- genial replies to my persistent and niggling questions: our correspondence has been an unexpected pleasure in the course of my research. 13 The men of Tokat got around: three years after this, in 1566, Abgar T‘oxat‘ec‘i the clerk (dpir) printed an Armenian Psalter at Venice. See V. NERSESSIAN, The Bible in the Armenian Tradition, Los Angeles, 2001, pp. 32-33 and pl. 11. As for Venice, we shall see towards the end of this study an Armenian in a Carnival mask there who had a shadowy but significant impact upon modern literature. 14 Better Akinean's T‘oxat‘c‘i. 144 J.R. RUSSELL

5 Zorpèsn øer harwanelov ç zkenwa¬∂n ≤nnelov15, A®o¬∆ mnáy≤ erkar amà≤, ¯è´ i wama≤ ç ¯è´ i ∑ov.

Mtamolors me¬aw geri, 10 ¯ou¬¯ grewi herisayi. fou¯ov a® øez a®a≤ewi, mi¯è bari lour16 ga$y inøi:

Minc nayèi es degera∑, anøamb g∑ou∑ mtà≤ kora∑, 15 ç acou∂ners mrafa∑, kisahiuand èi pa®ka∑.

Yankar∑aki zdou®n bawin, kn≤a∑17 namak inø matouwin. asen kardá dou a®anøin, 20 z≤ou ¯¬¯in patasxanin:

Øe®≤ ç ot≤ im yoyj do¬awau, Herisayi minc lourn a®au, hiuandou¯iuns a®o¬∆awau, hogis marmnovs ouraxawau.

25 hogçor Tër, es ≤o ∑a®ay, ≤ez ana®ak ordi e¬ay, es ¬alteway ibrç zEuay, ¯è arjan cem ¬apoul ará:

Sourb vardapet, sourb18 ç ari, 30 Ar¯oun anounn Vanewi, ˙at herisa kerwouw mezi, mèkin hazar iurean tawi:

15 Akinean: oronelov “searching”. 16 Akinean: Arabic in Pers. & Tk. xabar “news”. 17 Akinean prefers the form with Pers. l-w mohre, “seal”, (z)mohr-ac, acc. meaning the same thing. 18 Akinean's reading, k‘aj, “brave”, seems the better one; but the repetition of “holy” may echo the Trisagion, though; cfr the other slightly blasphemous paraphrases of the liturgy below. THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 145

¯èpèt es em xist me¬auor, hiuand hoguov ∑er alçor, 35 Xapóul arè≤ srtiu bolor19, zi øer a®a∆n em glxikor:

Barekendann merøewau, ouraxou¯ean jamn hasau, Abe¬a¯o¬n màtewau, 40 Mor¯ë ¯o¯ovn? asawau20:

Lèhou erkirn or me≤ anka≤, amèn banè zrkouewa≤, eka≤ marmnoy ∑a®ay e¬a≤, ç herisayn bnau mo®wa≤:

45 Yoys ounim es Tèrn amèni, or na mezi ˙at o¬ormi, ¯è foy¯ c∂ tay mahn mezi, darøeal gnam i mer te¬i:

Barekendan è, mí me¬adrè≤, 50 zinc or asem, xapoul arè≤21, herisayin ¯atpir t∂vè≤, ç kan∂xkek outewouwè≤:

O´v ˘oxa¯wi Minas dpir, herisayin fè˙n kpír, 55 ¯oul toúr zgàtid ç k˙tawir,

19 Better, Akinean's yordor- kept in the tr. 20 Akinean has Bun barekendan¢n mawtec‘aw,/ uraxut‘ean zam¢n hasaw/ abe¥at‘o¥¢n barj¢waw/ mort‘et‘ot‘ovn anhet e¥aw “Shrovetide is near,/ the hour of joy has arrived,/ the abe¥at‘o¥ has been removed,/ and the mort‘et‘ot‘ov is gone without a trace.” But these rites of role reversal are in fact just on their way in, as the better text of Sion shows. Henrik Hovhannisyan, a Soviet Armenian scholar who has discussed the poem, relies on Akinean's reading alone, and in consequence finds barj¢waw a crux: he dismisses as shoddy scholarship Arsaluys Arsaruni's reversal (in Hay zo¥ovrdakan t¨ateraxa¥er, Erevan, 1961, p. 46) of its meaning; mort‘et‘ot‘ovn, thus as one word, he leaves as an undecipherable hapax legomenon: H. HOVHANNISYAN, Hay hin draman ev nra payma- najever¢, Erevan, 1990, p. 162 and n. 140. 21 The edition of the poem by K. KOSTANEANC‘, Nor zo¥ovacu: mijnadarean Hayoc‘ ta¥er u otanaworner, I, Tiflis, 1892, pp. 50-56, begins with this stanza and does not otherwise differ materially from Akinean's edition, except that in Kostaneanc‘ this line (50) reads, Zor inc‘ asem, mi tnazek‘, “What I say, do not ridicule!” (a loan, cfr Arabic tanz, tannaz “ridicule, mocker”). 146 J.R. RUSSELL

fafa≤anawd ≤o hasir:

ë herisay im sireli, amenewoun es wankali, yErousa¬èm, amen te¬i, 60 ¯arw ≤ez mata¬n óc lini:

A´y herisay im govakan, iski c'kay o≤ ≤ez nman, amen mardik ≤o dèm do¬an, çs a®auel es anarjan:

65 A´y herisay dou ¯agauor, ≤e˙kekn ≤ez spasauor, ç xorovoun ≤ez me∑ zinouor, filaƒn ≤ez nmanauor:

[A´y herisay ∂ntir gova∑ 70 apourneroun mè∆n es aurhna∑ me®eal≤n i ≤ez apsp∂ra∑ ≤enov frkin yamèn me¬aw:]

Ov ziur me®eln k'ousirè, pataragà≤ zna kou yi˙è, 75 gi˙ern i boun z≤ez kefè? ç a®t∂vanw a®at k∂ ba˙xè:

Amen mardow he˙t outeli, çs a®auel ∑erow dasi, ¯arw ∑ameloy minc koul t∂voui, 80 yaynjam hogin fa®auori:

A´y herisay im sireli, ˙at govou¯eanw es arjani, ˙a≤arn ç me¬rn ≤o a®a∆i, amençin counin te¬i:

85 A´y herisay, apour gova∑, yamenewounw es dou patoua∑, ¯è kendaneaw ç ¯è me®a∑, de¬¯af es dou foroyn ≤a¬wa∑: THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 147

A´y herisay im goveli, 90 arjan linis dou im berni, kakou¬ lo˙ov z≤ez koul tayi ç anou˙ ginovn ¯a¬èi:

Es ∑er alçors me¬auor, z≤ez kou sirem srtiu bolor. 95 zínc kerakour ayl kay a¬uor, óc en ≤ezi nmanauor22:

O´r≤an anmit tgèt mard è, or z≤o hargi≤n c'gitè. kam z≤ez sirov c'me∑arè, 100 kam a®anw ≤ez mata¬ anè:

≥ahanayiw das≤ eramov, yorjam ∂n¯ris lsen ≤ezmov, Mo®nan z≤ounn yoyj xndalov, ¯è herisay koutem≤ yolov:

105 Yorjam a®auàtn lisnay, yeke¬ewin fou¯an no≤a, ayl óc a¬à¯≤ mtvin kougay, ¯è herisayn Érb mez kou gay:

Erb or zherisayn berin, 110 ardar iu¬n vran lwin, yaynjam ≤ahanay≤ àrhnewin ç bourva®ov xnkarkewin23:

≥ahanayiw das≤ wn∑awin, sarkauagoun≤n kay¯ewin, 115 jo¬ovourd≤n xndawin, minc zpata®n patrastewin:

(O´v spasauor≤, ourë≤, ekë≤, i drgaliw me∑sn berè≤, ≤ahanayiw spas tarè≤, ç eriwouheaw fay hanewè≤:)

22 Akinean: amenec‘un du t‘agawor, “you are king of all”. 23 Akinean has for lines 110-111: ¢spasawork‘n yaraj ekin/ ¢ziw¥n anoys ¢¥ordec‘in “the servants come forth /and serve it with sweet oil.” 148 J.R. RUSSELL

(O´v mat®ouak ç dou o$r es, ˙at líw ginin, Astoua∑ sires, e¯è ginuoyn ∆our xa®niwes, datastanin gas sçeres.)

(Anpak ginin liw me∑ ¯asov, tour or xmen≤ ˙outov ˙outov, zi herisayn eresn iu¬ov, vaxen≤ pa¬i wrtèn fou¯ov:)

Erb herisayn bazmewouwin, a®∆ç ≤ahanayiwn edin, tik mi gini ayl het berin, 120 ç mat®ouak i het norin:

A´y herisay zis xe¬© arir, or yays erkirs øgewir, tarin angam ces handipir, or z≤ez inøik i ker tayir:

125 O´v, Õr≤an anou˙ es herisay, erb ardar iu¬ ˙at linay, yaynjam sirts ouraxanay, yorjam drgald bernis dèm gay:

Ayl Ûnc govan≤ tam es ≤ezi, 130 èrnèk aynm or handipi, ç e¯è erbemn inø handipis, i mè∆ srtis tam ≤ez te¬i:

Zínc azg or kan yaysm a˙xarhi, c'zàren tal ≤ez gov≤ arjani, 135 ≤anzi do¬an i dèm ≤ezi, orpès me¬ou≤n i dèm ≤oyin:

Vardapetaw das≤ amenayn, ç krànauor≤n miaban, yor∆am tesnoun zherisayn, 140 amene≤ean ouraxan:

Eriwakan≤n amene≤ean THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 149

zerewkno∆n ¯arkn tan, amen ousmoun≤n mo®anan, vazen er¯an i herisayn:

145 A¬≤at≤ ç koyr≤ or≤ k∂ mouran, ∑er≤ ç t¬ay≤ kin patouakan, amene≤ean hamangamayn, vazen er¯an i herisayn:

Mahmetakan≤n amene≤ean, 150 ¯o¬oun zfilaƒn ç zzardayn, zpèàyrèkn ou zfa≤lavayn ç gan outen zherisayn:

(Imam≤ sowin ¯o¬an zse¬an, noynpès ˘èvatn ç z„ouran, mincç aptèstn mo®anan, yorjam lsen zherisayn:)

Kerakrow mè∆n es dou gova∑ Lousauoricn z≤ez yaurineaw24 155 arar z≤ez ç hastateaw ç kerakour mez patrasteaw:

Azniu ∑a¬kanw dou n∂man es hamasfiu®i vardi ¯er¯ es yor te¬ or è efen ∂z≤ez 160 anmahou¯ean hot∂n boures:

Orpès zoski anapakan ç angin ≤ar pat∂uakan me®a∑ hogi≤n ouraxanan ç kendani≤∂n ≤ç w∂n∑an:

165 Har≤ ç e¬bar≤ im patouakan marer ≤ourer amene≤ean [x∂ndrem øezèn lalotakan] or ci mo®na≤ ∂zherisan:

24 Sion has here orhneac‘, “blessed”; see the discussion above of Bardakjian's note on the poem. 150 J.R. RUSSELL

Erb or efè≤ zherisan 170 inø ¬aripis ker ta≤ arjan i yAstou∑oy darøwi foxan ar≤ayou¯iunn ananwakan:

Me®a∑≤n amen i ho¬ tapan yorjam l∂sen ∂zherisan 175 w∂n∑an hogi≤n ç zouar©anan ç ararcin meroy fa®≤ tan:

I ¯ouakanis hazar ami ç tasn ú erkou ¯iu aueli ç i yamseann fet∂rouari 180 aurn èr ourba¯ hing hamari:

Bayw ays ¬arip∂s ˘oxa¯wi Minas anoun me¬aw geri eki ankay Lovaw erkri karaut mnawi es herisi:

185 ∏er aleau≤ em ç ∂spitak ak®ay ci kay berans dartak or herisan linay ta≤ ta≤ kakou¬ pitay ser ou karag:

Erg∂s g∂ra∑ è Minasi 190 anmit yimar ç fana≤i øez arma¬an ∂n∑ayewi ∂zmez yi˙è≤ sirov s∂rti:

Eu or asè mez o¬ormi biurapatik iurenn tawi 195 arjan lini in≤ herisi ç matouwman pataragi:

Hayr mer yerkins ov or asè ou¬i¬ s∂rtov ∂zzis yi˙è in≤∂n zEkay≤ øayn∂n l∂sè 200 ya∆ako¬mean dasn anwanè: THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 151

Translation

Praise upon Herisa [recited by the clerk Minas of T‘oxat‘ who passed away in the house of Lvov.]

From a soul level with the earth And your unworthy servant The clerk Minas of Evdokia May this greeting of great longing arrive.

5 Asking of your state And inquiring of your life: May you live hale and many years, Whether on land or on the sea.

Prisoner of sins, I, of troubled mind 10 Wrote an epistle on herisa And swiftly despatched it to you; That perchance good tidings come.

I stand and stare and linger, All undone, lost in my thoughts, 15 Slumber on my eyes Half-sick I lay.

Suddenly they opened the door, Gave a sealed letter to me, Saying, Read in solitude 20 Your missive's reply.

My sick body shook, Sudden and swift healed, Body and soul, and rejoiced When the news of herisa arrived:

25 Spiritual master, I your slave And prodigal son have been, And erred as Eve did, But receive me, though unworthy. 152 J.R. RUSSELL

The holy doctor, holy and intrepid, 30 Alert in name25, of Van, Gave us plenty of herisa to eat; For each may a thousand come back to him.

Although I am most sinful, Sick in soul, and gray with age, 35 I stand before you with bowed head. Receive me with eager heart.

Shrovetide is near, The hour of joy has come, The Abe¥at‘o¥ rite is near, 40 And “Skin the stammerer!”26 is said.

We have wound up in Poland's land, And are bereft of every thing. We have become enslaved to the body And have forgotten herisa27.

45 I hope in the Lord of all To have pity on us bounteously: If He doesn't send us death too quickly,

25 Arm. art‘un, “alert, awake” translates Gk. gregoros: St. Gregory of Narek in the tenth century mentions his name's meaning and berates himself for not living up to it. 26 See the discussion below. As observed in the notes to the text, Akinean's reading, abe¥at‘o¥n barj¢waw/ mort‘et‘ot‘ovn anhet e¥aw “The Abe¥at‘o¥n has been removed/ ‘Skin- the-stammerer!' [as one word] is gone without a trace” makes no sense, for the holiday is coming to a climax, and the rite and ritual cry are just starting. The terms refer to a procession performed on Shrovetide by priests in mocking reversal of sacred roles, and, as it seems, the pretend slaying of a goat-man. Such masquerading and satirical fun was as typical of the Armenian village Mardi Gras as in the rest of Christendom: see S. HOOGASIAN VILLA and M. KILBOURNE MATOSSIAN, Armenian Village Life Before 1914, Detroit, MI, 1982, p. 138, and the discussion following the translation. Prof. Bardakjian, who was born in Aleppo of a priestly family, informed me (in an E-mail of February 7th, 2001), “I have not witnessed abeghat‘ogh but have heard wild stories from people who have seen it.” 27 Akinean: Ays dar¢n te¥¢n or mek‘ ankak‘/ amen bane mahrum elak‘/ hogeworen z¢rk¢wec‘ak‘/ ekak‘ marmnoy caray e¥ak‘ “In this bitter place where we've wound up,/ We've been deprived of every thing:/ Bereft of the spiritual,/ We've become the body's slaves.” Though the contest between soul and body is a perennial theme in mediaeval poetry — Nerses Mokac‘i typifies the trend in Armenian — the elevation of herisa to the status of the spiritual seems more in keeping with the development of the theme. Lvov may well have seemed to the homesick panduxt (“emigrant”) Minas a bitter place, but Lehu “of Poland” might have been read subsequently as Arm le¥i, “bitter”, and para- phrased in the text as darn “idem”. THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 153

I'll return to my country.

It is carnival time, don't blame me, 50 Accept what I have to say: Make provision for herisa To be served up early.

O clerk Minas T‘oxat‘c‘i, Hang on to herisa's hem. 55 Loosen your belt and eat your fill, Attain your desires.

Hey, my dear herisa, Everyone desires you. In Jerusalem28, and everywhere, 60 There is no sacrifice without you.

Hey, my praiseworthy herisa, There is no one like you. All men quiver before you, And I am unworthy still more.

65 Hey, thou king herisa, Keshkek29 is but a servant to you, Shashlik30 is your great warrior And pilaf is your kinsman.

[Hey, choice in praises, herisa, 70 Thou art blessed among soups31. The dead place an order for you And by thee from all sins find salvation.]

Whoever loves his dear departed Remembers him with a Mass,

28 The goal of all Armenian pilgrims, who thereby acquired a tattoo of the Cross and the honorific title haji or mahtesi (from Arabic muqaddasi, “one of the Holy [City]”). 29 Keshkek is merely the Turkish word for herisa; but perhaps a more modest version of the dish is meant here. 30 Arm. xorvu, i.e., modern Arm. xorovac. A warrior because of the sword-like skewer. 31 The line does echo the Ave Maria, and fits in with the nearly blasphemous excess of the praises of porridge in this section of the poem. 154 J.R. RUSSELL

75 Cooks you the night through And distributes you bountifully on the morn.

Easy for every man to eat, Especially for elderly men, It's swallowed without chewing 80 And then its soul is given glory.

Hey, my dear herisa, You are worthy of many praises: Sugar and honey before you Have no place at all.

85 Hey, lauded soup herisa, You are honored amongst all: For the quick and for the dead You're the cure for a gut needing to be fed.

Hey, my praised herisa, 90 You are worthy of my lips: I'd swallow you with flat-bread32 soft, Then with red wine bury you.

I am old and gray in sin, And love you with all my heart. 95 Of all the dainty foods there are, Of all of them you are king.

Is there a man so ignorant As not to know your due, Or fail lovingly to honor you, 100 Or offer sacrifice without you?

32 Arm. laws or los, pronounced losh in modern Western Armenian (as in the popular dish of Watertown, “losh kebab”: Mr. David Elizian, of Erevan, once mentioned to me with delight an Armenian calque on English usage he heard from a local teenager here: Yes losh kebab m¢ unets‘a, “I had a losh kebab” meaning he had eaten one, though in correct Armenian the verb would denote property, even sexual possession). This is Pers. lavas: thanks to the bakeries opened by Armenians and Iranians, Americans have discov- ered these giant sheets of almost paper-thin bread that sometimes serve as tables — or picnic blankets — in the Near East (cfr Aeneas' men eating their tables, perhaps: the curse turned into a gustatory joke). One of the most delicious meals I have ever eaten was a rolled sandwich of tomato and feta cheese in lavash on the banks of the Shapur river in Bishapur, Iran. THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 155

A flock of the ranks of clergymen When they hear of a dinner with you Trade in their sleep, laughing mightily: We will eat herisa aplenty!

105 When morning comes They hasten to the church, But no prayers come to their minds, Only, When will the herisa come?

As they bear the herisa in, 110 They pour pure oil over it, Then the priests give it blessing, Censing it with burner swinging.

The priests' ranks are rejoicing, And all the deacons are glad, 115 And the laity are happy, And a portion they take.

(Hey, servants! Where are you? Come here! Bring big ladlefuls, Serve the priests, And take the parish priests' wives their share!)

(Hey, wine-steward, you too! Where are you? Fill it up with wine for God's sake — And if you mix the wine with water, At the Last Judgement may you be black of face!)33

33 Of course watered-down wine makes for less merriment. It is also perhaps an ecclesiastical jab: the Armenians, unlike the Greeks and “Latins” (in Lvov, the Orthodox and the Poles and Ukrainian Uniates), use only unmixed wine and unleavened bread in the Eucharist — one recalls their prelate's disdainful refusal in the seventh century to cross the Araxes to eat fourni and drink therme (tepid water!) with the Byzantines. This remained a point of contention: the Syrian bishop Dionysius Bar Salibi, d. 1171, who had lived at Melitene (Tk. Malatya) and therefore had the opportunity to observe Armenian customs at first hand, condemned them for using unmixed wine — as the Jews, pagans (Syriac Ìnpy) and Sun-worshippers (sgdy l-smsˆ) do in their sacrifices (see A. Mingana's ed. and tr., Woodbrooke Studies, IV, Cambridge, 1931, p. 58 tr. and p. 102 text). It is striking that Dionysius mentions the Heliolators: his contemporary and not-too-distant neighbor Catholicos Nerses Snorhali (d. 1173) at Hromklay near Aintab was busy con- verting to Christianity the Armenian Sun-worshippers at Samosata called Arewordi-k‘, “Children of the Sun” (see J.R. RUSSELL, Zoroastrianism in Armenia [Harvard Iranian Series, 5], Cambridge, MA, 1987, ch. 15 [hereafter: RUSSELL, Zoroastrianism in Arme- 156 J.R. RUSSELL

(Fill a big bowl with new wine, And let us quaff it swiftly, swiftly, For there's oil upon the herisa, And we fear it may get cold.)

When they sit down to the herisa, They place before the priests A big jug of wine to accompany it 120 And a steward right on hand.

Hey, herisa, you made me poor When you cast me into this land. You do not meet me once a year To give yourself to me.

125 But herisa, you are so sweet! When there's plenty of pure34 oil Then my heart rejoices, When a spoonful of you comes to my lips35.

What other praise shall we sing of herisa? 130 Happy is he who meets it. And if you sometimes meet me, I'd give pride of place to you in my heart36.

Every nation in the world Could not sing praise worthy of thee! nia). They must have been particularly numerous just then. Armenian religious differ- ences were taken very seriously by the Catholics in Lvov contemporary to Minas, so his remark might well have been a dig directed against them: in 1518 the Armenian widower Ivashko (whose name, from Ivan, I would suppose to be a Slavic rendering of the Arm. diminutive of Yovhannes, Yovik) was burnt at the stake with his Catholic woman-friend Sofia as an infidel who had defiled a Christian woman. King Sigismund did reverse the judgement and Ivashko's heirs received damages a year later. The Armenians enjoyed some communal privileges, yet the Lvov city council affirmed in 1578, Armenos propter dispartitatem linguae et religionis pares nobis non esse (see ZAVRIAN, Polish-Armenian Colony, p. 66). 34 Arm. ardar iw¥, lit. “true oil”: see above and RUSSELL, An Armenian Epic, p. 90 n. 19. 35 Akinean has the weaker lines kaku¥ hac‘ikn ¢nkeranay/ ov or ute uraxanay “a little soft bread for company:/ whoever eats it is glad”. Note we've just seen the priests doled out their portion with ladles; so Sion's loving spoonful fits the continuity of the theme better. But the softness of the meal, still, will later please the toothless bard. 36 Akinean: kam es ew dun men pitei/ i s¢rtis mej te¥¢n tayi “It's all you and I need;/ I'd give it a place in my heart”. THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 157

135 For they tremble before you As bees before you do37.

All the ecclesiastical ranks of doctors And the brother monks ascetic When they see herisa 140 All commit apostasy38.

All the parish-priests Bid their parish-wives goodbye And forget all the learning they ever had And come running for herisa.

145 Poor men and blind men who go begging, Old men and boys and women fine All of them without exception Come running for herisa.

All the Mohammedans 150 Drop their pilaf and zardan, Their boureks and their baklava39, And come and eat herisa. 37 Akinean's version is better of lines 134-136, since me¥u-k‘in the Sion text seems to have no relevance and must therefore be a corruption: k‘ez govank‘ tan i het inji:/ ew p‘ap‘agin i dem k‘ezi/ orpes me¥u i dem ca¥ki “they sing your praises with me/ And long for your face/ As for the rose, the bee.” 38 Uraxan in Sion is plainly a corruption of uranan, which Akinean has with zvank‘n, “they abandon their monastery”. He has them hear of the porridge; Sion lets them see it. Hearsay seems better, too, here. 39 Zarda(n) and Akinean's z¢rva(n), var. ¢zzernnan, both seem to contain the Pers. zard “yellow” or zarr “gold”. One of these dishes, then, might perhaps be the saffron pudding called in modern Persian sholeh zard, a divine concoction I ate in Iran, which is prepared especially in remembrance of the dead and is given to the poor or made as an ex voto — it fulfills the same social and religious role as herisa does in Armenia, except it is a sweet. Mr. Sukru Ilicak reminds me also that there is a Turkish dish, zerde pilav¢. A variant of line 149 in Akinean is: Tacikn parsikn mahmetakan “The Turk and Persian Mohammedan”. So although Minas was from Tokat and lived in the Ukraine, he may still conceivably have an Iranian dish in mind. Poles of Lvov sometimes called the Armenians of the place “Persians”, and Iran was a frequent destination of Galician Armenian traders. Baklava (and sorry is the reader who needs the following explanation, for little of life's joy is his) is a cake of many layers of filo dough with a nut center, soaked in syrup, baked on a big round tray called by Armenians a tepsi (from Tk.), and cut into diamond-shaped pieces. Iranians often make it with pistachios, and the pieces are small, dense, and exqui- site: Armenians and Greeks tend to prefer walnuts and a robuster layering of the filo. I once ate in London at a Greek Cypriot dive an abomination called baklava but made, God help us, with peanuts: British cuisine meets the Mediterranean. Boureks are flaky little pies like Russian piroshki, stuffed with cheese or spinach or other lovely things. 158 J.R. RUSSELL

(Their imams leave their table, Likewise their T‘evat and Qur’an, Forgetting even the abdast, When they hear of herisa40.)

Amongst foods you are praised: The Illuminator invented you, 155 Made you and established you And prepared you as a food for us.

You are like the noble flowers, You are a rose-petal of the hamasp‘iwr. Wherever they cook you, 160 You exude an immortal scent to savor41.

As at the sight of incorruptible gold And precious stone past price Dead souls are glad of you And the living rejoice.

165 My honorable fathers and brothers, Mothers, sisters all, I beg of you in tears That you not forget herisa.

When you cook herisa 170 Make me the wanderer worthy to eat And God will repay you With the Kingdom that passes not away.

All the dead mouldering in their tombs When they hear herisa

40 The word T¨ewatn may be Arabic-in-Tk. da‘vat, “summons to prayer”. Another explanation, suggested by Mr. Sukru Ilicak, is Tk. Tevrat, i.e., the Jewish Torah — though Armenians in Lvov, Turkey, or the Middle East knew both Muslims and Jews and would not be likely to confuse them or lump them together, so this cannot be right. The Persian abdast, given in Sion in the Tk. form aptest (pron. abdest), is the canonical ablu- tion of a Muslim. 41 The mythical flower called hamasp‘iwr (lit. “all-spreading”) has curative powers and is associated with immortality. In Armenian legend about the mission of the Apostle Thaddeus, it is linked to the blood of the Oskean and Suk‘iasean martyrs on Mt. Sukawet: see J.R. RUSSELL, Scythians and Avesta in an Armenian Vernacular Paternoster and a Zok Paternoster, in Le Muséon, 110 (1997), pp. 93-94, with refs. THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 159

175 Rejoice in their souls and play And give glory to our Creator.

In this year of one thousand With the number ten and two added, Of the month of February 180 The day was Friday the fifth42.

But this exile T‘oxat‘c‘i, Prisoner of his sins, by name Minas, I've come, ended up in this land of Lvov, And have remained longing for herisa.

185 I'm old and gray and white And no tooth remains in my gaping mouth. If the herisa were very hot, I'd soften it with butter and cream.

Minas wrote this song, 190 The mindless, wretched fool. I gave it to you as a gift: With your heart's love, remember me.

And who prays Lord, have mercy! for us A myriad of recompense will receive. 195 Of herisa he will be worthy And of the offering of a Divine Liturgy.

Whoever says “Our Father who art in Heaven” With straight heart, recalling me, He will hear the voice say “Come ye!” 200 And pass to those who on the right side stand.

3. Leave your vows behind

Carnival is “a boisterous communal celebration” dating back to the times of early Christendom43, with its origins in archaic late-winter rites 42 That is, A.D. 1563. 43 G. PROKOSCH KURATH, art. Carnival, in Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythol- ogy, and Legend, vol. I, New York, 1949, pp. 192-193. The Eastern European Jewish Purimspiel probably derives from Carnival celebrations that were happening in the same 160 J.R. RUSSELL of fertility and pleasure that appear to have generated strong common features which are retained in diverse ways across the Indo-European- speaking Christian cultures from Europe to the Near East. Its tomfoolery often reaches the point of real licentiousness. The season starts with the winter solstice or Twelfth Night and climaxes in the last three days before Ash Wednesday. The name may derive from Latin Carne, vale!, “Goodbye to meat”, since the great fast of Lent begins thereafter. An- other possibility is that the word fuses carrus navalis, a boat-shaped chariot of the Dionysian processions from which satirical songs were chanted (and see the ref. to the boat of Isis also, infra)44. In Christendom such winter festivities go back to a time when catechumens bade a fond farewell to paganism in preparation for the rigors of Lent and Paschal baptism. These excesses were brought to a climax and conclusion with the trial and execution of a Mardi Gras effigy. But the holiday, for all its Christian calendrical suitability, had pre-Christian origins, and, when season; so when Minas' fellow Armenians were feasting on Barekendan, and the Slavs were carousing on Maslennitsa, their Jewish neighbors were not far behind (on modern Purimspiele, which extend the theme of antinomian sexual practices to performances with drag queens, see the Forward weekly, New York, 2 March 2001, p. 17). In various parts of Armenia, the celebrations of Shrovetide incorporated special, local features. One of the more interesting cases is that of Datem (pronounced Tadem by its Western Armenian native inhabitants: Dadima is the name attested in Greek), one of the three-score-odd Arme- nian villages in the plain around the fortress-city of Xarberd (many are now inundated by the Keban dam). Many Armenians used to believe in a house-spirit called a svod — the word goes back, most likely, to the MIr. loan sahapet. “ruler of a realm” (see RUSSELL, Zoroastrianism in Armenia, p. 329 f.) — who lived in the walls and was driven outdoors with the coming of spring. That is all there is about svods in most places; but to the south of Datem there was a little hill (blrak) called Svot (pron. svod), about which many tales (hek‘iat‘) were told. There was a small spring at the hill: children who bathed in it were carried off and never returned. On Easter, the villagers went to the spring of St. John to drink water, and young people were warned not to turn back — if they did, it was believed the Svod had possessed them. Barekendan was a week of feasting (heralds sum- moned people to an old millstone where food was laid out, courtesy of the village elders), music, and contests (on the last day, there was a fight between two buffaloes [gomes]). But it was believed that the demons harrassed people during Lent — perhaps because the deprivations of the season induced irritability — and on the fire-festival of the Presenta- tion of Our Lord to the Temple (Arm. Tearn¢ndaraj, a feast linked to Barekendan by tradition: see infra), called Melemet‘ by the Datemc‘is (the word is a variation of meled, from mereloc‘, “of the dead”), every woman and girl would take the Svoti gtak, “Svod's bonnet”, she had knitted and throw it in the bonfire kindled in the church courtyard. So in Datem the rites of winter were involved with the village's rather sinister, dominant Svod- spirit. (See G. MXIT‘AREAN, Mer giw¥¢ Datem, Boston, 1958, esp. pp. 23, 31-34). 44 This could also have been the barque of Isis: the Isidis navigium, on which her picture was carried, remained a standard fixture of the Roman Carnevale down to the sixth century (see M.R. SALZMAN, On Roman Time: the Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Antiquity, Berkeley, 1990, pp. 239-240, citing A. ALFÖLDI, A Festival of Isis in Rome Under the Christian Emperors of the Fourth Century, Budapest, 1937, p. 46 ff.). THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 161 one considers the use to which Christians put it, it is a Christianized festival where the pagan element remained strongest: in the Roman world, the Bacchanalia, Saturnalia, and Lupercalia are all likely candidates — but especially, as I will argue below in connection with the flaying of a scapegoat, the latter. Of central importance to the Lupercalia was a rite of sexual whipping; and the Fool's Whip of Carnival is a descendant, in Germanic countries, of the fertility-bestowing Lebensrute, the phallic Rod of Life. One reason for the excessive noise-making (German Lärmumzüge) of the holiday in those regions is to expel demons from crops they might otherwise blast with blight; so fertility is again a mo- tive. In European celebrations there are mock battles staged in which Moors and Christians clash, symbolic of Winter and Summer. In Arme- nia, too, there are such mock battles, such as “Wolf and Shepherd”, and others between Moslems and Christians that reflect Armenian resistance to oppression. The great Soviet Russian literary scholar M. Bakhtin famously deci- phered the lewdness and satire of the “Carnivalesque” as “a half-forgotten and already obscure language”, that of the “fruit-bearing, dying, and reborn body” which is “open to the world”45. It is a laughing embrace of life that also comprehends ubiquitous death and expresses the contradictions of our human condition and perception of reality. Bakhtin associated the carnivalesque closely with “clerical culture”46: in its parodies we find a drunken whore as the Virgin, a fool as bishop, an ass in church, and a drunken liturgy underway. In sixth-century Byzantium, one finds the Joca manacorum, a frivolous catechism with comical questions on Biblical themes. The Cena Cypriani47 was a compendium,

45 Cited by A. GUREVICH, Medieval Popular Culture, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 178-179 (hereafter: GUREVICH, Medieval Popular Culture). 46 The monks probably had as much pent-up energy to release as anybody else, and far fewer outlets for it. “Horsys, haukys, & houndres” might burn up energy and deflect English knights in the 14th century from “ydulnesse” (M. CAMILLE, Mirror in Parch- ment: The Luttrell Psalter and the Making of Mediaeval England, Chicago, 1998, p. 58). But what was there for a monk? 47 It is interesting that this is Cyprian's feast. One of the most important aspects of Armenian folk religion is the employment of a small prayer book called the Kiprianos, which exists in numerous MSS. and talismanic scrolls (see, e.g., J. WINGATE, The Scroll of Cyprian: an Armenian Family Amulet, in Folk-Lore, 41 [1930], 2, pp. 169-187). Its core is the story of the repentance and conversion to Christianity of the necromancer Cyprian of Antioch, ca. 300, whose attempts to force the pious Christian virgin Justina to fall in love with the magician's young client Acladius by means of a defixion were in vain. When Satan himself explains to Cyprian that the power of the holy Cross is greater than that of the tenebrous legends, the sorcerer becomes a Christian, then a bishop. His motives seem to be a matter of expedience; so it is understandable that Jacobus de Voragine chose to incorporate his story into that of the unobjectionable St. Justina in the Legenda Aurea. She became a nun; the bishop Cyprian fell in love with her — but 162 J.R. RUSSELL similar to other parodies, of degrading and earthy details from Scripture, with Biblical characters. It ends with the slaying and burial of Hagar for theft48. The Cena was probably written at or shortly before the begin- nings of Islam, and survived mainly in the northern parts of Christendom thereafter: Hagar is of course the rejected wife of Abraham and mother of Ishmael, the outcast progenitor of the Saracens. This detail is interesting, because, as we shall see, the Armenian abe¥at‘o¥ rite of Carnival also ends with a mock slaying and burial; and the slaying, in the testimony of Minas and other sources, seems to have been of a goatish figure. This goat, a Satan, babbles nonsense, and that is, pre-eminently, what the anti-god of the Moslems does. Socially dangerous truths that might not find public expression in a serious mode could in the Carnivalesque be expressed in humor — ridendo dicere verum. Notker the Stammerer in the ninth century de- chastely — and they were martyred on the selfsame 26th Sept., being united in holy (and bloodless) matrimony on high. The first Armenian printed book, the volume of protective prayers known as Urbat‘agirk‘ (lit. “Friday Book”: Arm. urbat‘ < Aram. ¨arvitha, i.e., Sabbath eve: Jews believed demons got the day off on Shabbat and would hang around the earth; Christ was crucified on Friday and that made the day even unluckier and more needful of prayerful protections), printed by Yakob me¥apart (James the Sinner) at Venice, 1512, contains the text of Cyprian's conversion, followed immediately by the Patmut‘iwn Yustiane kusin, “Story of the virgin Justina”. Catholic influence is percepti- ble here, since the Armenian Apostolic booklets do not generally have the latter text. In these booklets a Cross is printed where Satan confesses its power and the reader makes the holy Sign: this is the apex-dromenon of the magical ritual. The story of Cyprian and the Byzantine tale of Theophilus (the disappointed bishop who made a pact with Satan: he repented and Mary went down to hell and tore up the contract, echoing the theme of the Cheirograph of Adam) fused with popular stories told by Trithemius (1507) and others of a student-astrologer named Faustus. From thence to Marlowe and thence to Goethe and Thomas Mann is the true golden legend of the West thinking magnificently about its troubled evolution. Cyprian's prestige as a pious Christian enjoyed some parasitical addition, thanks to confusion with his namesake, St. Cyprian of Carthage, as Delehaye dem- onstrated long ago; but few swallowed it. An early Christian Coptic charm contains a per- functory and dejected introductory account in the first person of Cyprian's repentance, followed by a lively, utterly necromantic love spell that will force its female target to lust after the magician's male client “as a donkey hangs upon her jackass”, to purr like a lion- ess and hiss like a crocodile — all rather more Nilotic than Antiochene, but still pagan (see M. MEYER and R. SMITH, eds., Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power, San Francisco, 1994, text 73, pp. 153-158, tr. H. Jackson). Centuries later and hundreds of miles to the northwest, Cyprian was still regarded more as a magician than as a Christian: in the De nigromancia attributed to Roger Bacon, part of the preparation of a magic circle requires having a priest say a mass in honor of St. Cyprian (see R. KIECK- HEFER, Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century, University Park, PA, 1998, p. 171). So it would not be surprising to have Cyprian host a riotous dinner for the conjured ghosts of the Bible, to whose number he might have added — as Faustus later — the lady whose love incited more havoc than any spell: she whose face launched a thousand ships to lay waste the topless towers of Ilion. 48 See H. ISWOLSKY, tr., M. BAKHTIN, Rabelais and His World, Bloomington, IN, 1984, pp. 286-289 (herefater: BAKHTIN, Rabelais). THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 163 fined man himself as rational, mortal, and risus capax — capable of laughing, since only humor enables one to comprehend, if not to recon- cile, the impossible opposites of reason and mortality. He was only following Aristotle himself, who declared that man, the only animal who laughs, becomes fully human only when he does. Carnivalesque speech and behavior, in confronting the actual contradictions and conditions of life, and in dealing with questions of life's meaning and purpose in the “inclusive inversion” of Christian rituals, express both a “grotesque re- alism” (Bakhtin) and a “vulgar, grotesque mysticism” (Gurevich)49. We will see the Devil personified in an Armenian monkish play of Shrovetide. This is not as anomalous as it might seem at first glance, for in the ideology of Carnival the Prince of Darkness appears as a “merry ambivalent bearer of the unofficial point of view, of holiness inside out, the representation of the material bodily stratum” (Bakhtin)50: his appearance releases the tension of a society profoundly terrified of a demonic evil thought to be everywhere and quite as powerful as fate, and also validates the necessary realm of sexuality that is otherwise so re- pressed. The rites of carnival are thus central to Christian culture, not peripheral, additional, or anomalous; and this is perhaps one reason they persist, with remarkable similarity, in a vast swath across the Indo-Euro- pean cultures of Christendom. Though Carnival is at the core of Christendom, it is undeniably a po- tentially anarchic and profoundly subversive element. Bakhtin, pointing out that the celebrations are utopian, notes that the French Noël devel- oped into a major genre of revolutionary street song, and cites the great 19th-century Russian liberal intellectual Alexander Herzen: “Laughter contains something revolutionary.” During the French Revolution, Bakhtin declared, people understood the spirit of Rabelais, though they could not explain it51. Scarcely a generation after Minas' poem, and well within his long lifetime, the celebrations of Carnival at Romans, a town south of Lyon, exploded in massacre and riot connected to Catholic- Protestant tension, lower-class tax revolt, the resentment of the crafts- men against the nobility, and the reactionary sentiments of the clergy. In France, preparations for Carnival began at the end of Christmas — on the feast of Epiphany, 6th January, with the reynage, the election of a “king of youth” from amongst the young male athletes of the locality. On 2nd Feb., Candlemas, people watched for the emergence of the bear

49 GUREVICH, Medieval Popular Culture, pp. 180, 181-182, 193. 50 GUREVICH, Medieval Popular Culture, p. 185. 51 BAKHTIN, Rabelais, pp. 79, 119, and 92 n. 37 (citing A. GERTSEN, Trudy, Moscow, 1956, vol. 3, p. 92). 164 J.R. RUSSELL from his den: this presaged, as the analogous American Groundhog Day does, the duration of winter. People dressed up as bears. The next day was that of the immensely popular St. Blaise: at Romans, men in the drapers' parade would run a sheep or ram and kill it. This animal was symbolic of fertility (cfr the Armenian and Roman goat, infra); a rooster or partridge, or a hare, would serve the purpose as well52. In its essen- tials, Mardi Gras at Romans is the same as Barekendan at Lvov. To the extent that its features of social protest expressed the grievances of the lower orders of French society, Romans was a dress rehearsal of 1789. But the prevalence of the mythological view of human society in the 16th century meant that Carnival was a candle lit in the winter dark merely. It would require a much greater sophistication of man's under- standing of the mechanisms of class and economics for that light to become the glimmer of 1789 and the burst of dawn of 1917. But it was a beginning. Carnival is a precious relic in the archaeology of Revolution. This ode to herisa by Minas of Tokat is the first written reference in Armenian to the carnival ritual that was enacted by monks, called abe¥at‘o¥53, a word formed from abe¥ay, “monk”, and the verbal base t‘o¥-, “leave, abandon, permit”; but the first description of its performance, by monks of the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem, was published only four and a half centuries later (a translation is offered below)54. It is but one of the riotous, lewd customs of Carnival, which must go very far back, since the Canons of Isaac the Parthian — Sahak Part‘ew, one of the early Fathers of the Armenian Church — warn priests of the fifth century against them: ew tawn barekendanin ew o¥ogomeann mec, or

52 See the classic study of E. LE ROY LADURIE, Carnival in Romans, New York, 1979: pp. xv, 96. 175-189. I shall attempt to draw a connection between the “babbling” of the goat “sacrificed” by Armenians and the nonsense spoken by the Moslem idol Tervagant; so it is worthwhile here to note that the hare, one of the sacrifices of Mardi Gras, was not an emblem merely of sexuality, but of its “unnatural” expression in buggery (a word itself derived from a heresy, Bulgarian Bogomilism, since wrong belief and sexual mis- deeds went hand in hand, in the mediaeval imagination). So the hare was for Christians a symbol of boy-molestation, as was the hyena, and the Jews were symbolized, as perfidi- ous unbelievers, with the latter (see J. BOSWELL, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Ho- mosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century, Chicago, 1980, p. 137 f.). As for the partridge, it is the lewd bird imitated by the sensuous Armenian kak‘aw “partridge” dances of antiquity and later that mediaeval clerics uniformly deplore. The French Mardi Gras “Partridge King” had an entourage of forty youths. Though the number forty has been marked since the Israelites' sojourn in Sinai if not earlier, the Armenians had a special affection for it, and the youths of mediaeval confraternities in Galicia and elsewhere where divided into groups of forty. 53 Noted by A. ARSARUNI, Hay zo¥ovrdakan t‘ateraxa¥er, Erevan, 1961, p. 46. 54 Fr. V. TER-MINASEAN, Angir dprut¨iwn ew hin sovorut¨iwnner, vol. II, Constantino- ple, 1893, pp. 67-70, repr. in V. BDOYAN, Hay zo¥ovrdakan xa¥er, vol. I, Erevan, 1963, pp. 134-138 (hereafter: BDOYAN, Hay zo¥ovrdakan xa¥er). THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 165 t‘argmani barebaneal awr ew t‘e ayl tawn ok‘ kataresc‘e yanun arak‘eloc‘ ew margareic‘, hasarak e¥ic‘i, zi aynpes anerkewan ew aranc‘ hakarakut‘ean pastawneic‘n kac‘c‘en dask‘, gitelov orum snorhi arzanawork‘ e¥en: zi parkestut‘eamb ew usumnasirut‘eamb varesc‘in: ew mi e¥ic‘in banakriwk‘, ayl sirunk‘, art‘unk‘ ew zuart‘unk‘ yamenayni, zi bawakan lic‘in xratel zstahaks ew zyulac‘eals acel i karg hawatoy, k‘anzi ayd gorc e vardapeti ew hogewor hovui.55 “And let the holiday of Shrovetide and great Palm Sunday, which is translated the exalted day, and any other holiday one is to celebrate in the name of the apostles and prophets, be public, so that the ranks of clergy will be without doubt or contention, realizing of whose grace they have been made worthy. For they are to conduct themselves modestly and studiously. Let there be no disputations. But in all matters they must be amiable, awake, and alert, so as to be capable of admonishing rascals and of conducting idle per- sons into the order of faith; for this is the task of a teacher and spiritual pastor.” (It is just possible that, in playing upon the meaning of the name of his own spiritual superior, Grigor Vanec‘i, as art‘un, “wake- ful”, Minas was referring to this Canon.) The Canon seems to provide a subdued tableau in negative of what actually went on in Armenia at Carnival time. Admonition is rarely delivered unless correction of a real fault is indicated, though it also happens that the dogmatic temperament discovers or invents vices where none exist, for the sheer delight of penning prohibitions. But carnivalesque behavior is so ancient and ubiquitous in Christendom, though, that one is probably justified in inferring from the Canon cited that the early Armenian Christian laity did not lack at all for lewd rascals and idle gluttons raising hell on Mardi Gras — and that many brothers barri- caded themselves in the monastery, prudently to avoid a beating that on that day alone might be delivered with impunity, or else (and also) to play their own not very pious games and get pie-eyed into the bargain. And the sanctimonious strictures of Isaac the Parthian killjoy were duly honored down the centuries — in the breach. The laity ran riot, the priests performed blasphemous parodies of sacred processions, and everybody ate too much.

55 Canon 43, text in V. HAKOBYAN, ed., Kanonagirk‘ Hayoc‘, I, Erevan, 1964, pp. 401-2. H. HOVHANNISYAN, Hay hin draman…, op. cit., p. 161, citing the edition by A. ™ltcean of the Kanonagirk‘ Hayoc‘, Tiflis, 1914, p. 38, has margarein (“of the prophet”, sg., instead of “prophets”) and culac‘eals, “idle ones”, acc. pl., possibly the lectio facilior: without mentioning the latter variant, Hakobyan has yulac‘eals — which means the same thing. The latter has art‘unk‘ ew zuart‘unk‘; the older ed. has art‘unk‘ alone. Either way, the priests are enjoined to look sharp. 166 J.R. RUSSELL

Poor middle-aged Minas does not mention any erotic play, but at least he has his hypercaloric porridge. Though gluttony was the one of the seven deadly sins to which monks were especially susceptible, Minas' food, though rich, is not strange — it's Fat Tuesday, after all. Y.M. Sokolov, in his survey of the holiday in Russia56, suggests sensibly, and not very originally either, that Shrovetide gluttony is homeopathic magic: one hopes for a big harvest and tucks in as though one's wish had come true. (One could observe additionally that pre-modern man lived on the edge of starvation, and the rare opportunity to stuff oneself was not to be passed by.)57 The sexual freedom of the holiday and the ribald gests (which, he protests primly, cannot be reproduced in print) all are motivated by the same desire for fertility. He further notes motifs that have to do with the dead that are interwoven with the celebrations: eggs are taken to the cemetery, and these symbolize resurrection. People also circle their villages on horseback as part of the festivities; and on the farewell Sunday, young people “steal” a sledge (it must be ritually stolen, not borrowed or bought), put a straw dummy on it, sing to it, shout “enough of winter”, then tease a quick-tempered person and get him to snap back rudely, and finally set fire to the “Shrovetide”. Most of this: circumambulation, cart, insult — and then burial and resurrection will be seen to be essential parts of the Armenian abe¥at‘o¥.

4. There's more than one way to skin a goat

What is meant by the hapax, mort‘et‘ot‘ovn, that has baffled Akinean? Nothing, since from the Sion edition he does not use, it is not a hapax at all, but the running together of two perfectly common words: mort‘e, 2 pers. sg. imp. “flay!” and (z)t‘ot‘ovn, acc. sg. “the stammerer/ babbler”. Armenians till recently constituted the major part of the popu- lation of Tiflis (now Tbilisi, the Georgian capital), and Georg Ter- A¥ek‘sandreanc‘ wrote in a letter to a friend published in Me¥u Hayastani (The Armenian Bee), 1863, No. 6, p. 65: Hamematabar mec t¥aner¢ barekendanin irenc‘ mekin ayci mort‘i ein hagc‘num, glxin el ayci jewi glxark dnum, apa salamur-dholov k‘ef anelov man ein galis p‘o¥oc‘nerum “The relatively older boys on Shrovetide would dress one of their number in a goat's skin and also put a goat's-[head]-shaped hat

56 Y.M. SOKOLOV, Russian Folklore, New York, 1950, pp. 187-190. 57 My friend Prof. Karen Yuzbasyan of St. Petersburg survived the hungry days of the Second World War. He is a very thin man. As we were enjoying a midnight snack in his kitchen, he remarked that he possessed the zapasnoy appetit (Russian: “reserve/storage appetite”) of people who know what starvation is. THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 167 on his head. Then, enjoying themselves with reed flute and drum, they would parade around in the streets.” The one attired as a goat was called the aycemard, “goat-man”, (see Plate 1)58. This description comes from the 19th century, but there is no reason to suppose the Shrovetide custom there was a modern invention. In fact, the satyr — from whom satire comes! — is essentially a goat-man in its origins, and the goat-man is a central figure in Carnival rites throughout Greece and the Balkans, with every indication that these rites are survivals of Indo-European antiq- uity59. If the Armenian custom was correspondingly very old, and there is no reason whatever to suppose otherwise, then the custom to which Minas refers would have been a recollection from Tokat or something the Armenians of Lvov did — either way, a native Armenian ritual and not a borrowing from the practices of the local Slavs. So the words of Minas' poem are the Shrovetide reveller's summons to the archaic mock-flaying of the holiday scapegoat — the Shrovetide devil in his goat-mask. Why babbling? Because the devil, and his worshippers, babble nonsense. Gibberish instead of rational and intelligible speech is the language — one might even say, punishment, for Qui Verbum Dei contempserunt, eis auferetur etiam verbum hominis60 — of pagan or infidel unbelief and of impiety generally: in Dante's Inferno, canto 31.67, Nimrod, who built the tower of Babel, whose blasphemous pride led to the confusion of tongues, exclaims Raphel may amech zabi almi. Virgil bis the “stupid soul” shut up. The words sound like fake Arabic because that is probably what was intended: Islam was regarded as the most sa- tanic, the most ruinous of heresies. The Armenians, who certainly should have known better, call the Moslems krapast, “idolaters” — the one thing they assuredly are not and never were — in the Epic of Sasun; and mediaeval Europeans, with perhaps a better excuse for their still-appall-

58 Cited by BDOYAN, Hay zo¥ovrdakan xa¥er, I, 1963, p. 147 with fig. 11. 59 See A.D. NAPIER, Masks, Transformation, and Paradox, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986, p. 63 f., with an illuminating discussion of the figure's marginality and contradic- tory values and functions. 60 For a good example of the reduction of modern English to gibberish as a divine punishment in the mouths of academics, bureaucrats, and other demonolaters, see ch. 16, “Banquet at Belbury”, of C.S. Lewis' novel, That Hideous Strength, where the Latin dictum is also cited. Some years later, after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the suppression of democracy there, W.H. Auden wrote his poem “August 1968”, which employs the same idea against Communist propagandists, with the Dantesque addition of a Titan. “The Ogre does what ogres can,/ Deeds quite impossible for Man,/ But one prize is beyond his reach,/ The Ogre cannot master Speech./ About a subjugated plain,/ Among its desperate and slain,/ The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,/ While drivel gushes from his lips.” (E. MENDELSON, ed., W.H. Auden, Collected Poems, Franklin Center, PA, 1976, p. 604.) 168 J.R. RUSSELL ing ignorance, believed Moslems worshipped a demon named Ter- vagant. He is sometimes described as horned (Latin cornu), like Pan, the goatish god whose image had become for Christians that of the devil. The idol of Tervagant is itself called a mawmet (i.e., Mohammed). Sometimes portrayed as a seductive little statue of the Roman Mars, it is shown in manuscript illuminations strutting atop their mosques. In a mediaeval play, the golden lips of Tervagant spew, of course, gibberish: Palas aron ozinomas/ Baske bano tudan donas/ Geheamel cla orlay/ Bereche pantras tay. At least it rhymes61. Dante's Hell abounds in meschite, “mosques” (canto 8.70), and Ali and Mohammed are there, the latter condemned eternally to tear himself open as a punishment for having rent in twain the body of the Church by the propagation of his mendacious doctrines. Pape Satan, Pape Satan, aleppe! clucks Plutus (canto 7.1), begging the devil to keep hence the travelling poets, ad- dressing Satan, blasphemously, as a kind of Pope, it would seem. Macler published in facsimile, with translation, Venice Mechitharist MS. 210, A.D. 1616, a magical text with crude drawings of each of the 72 demons Solomon was believed to have bound. Solomon addresses each, asking him his name and the sort of malice he performs and the remedy against it. The latter is a magical operation, followed by a formula in gibberish — presumably, demonic language — and magical signs of the sort we find also in contemporary Moslem magical texts. The language, though, is a mixture of Arabic, sometimes even Qurˆanic phrases, pseudo-Persian, and pure nonsense62.

61 See M. CAMILLE, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 132-137. Bereche looks like Arabic baraka. Could Tervagant be conveying a blessing? 62 See F. MACLER, L'Enluminure arménienne profane, Paris, 1928. One is reminded of the old music-hall line cited by the great, recently deceased Iranist Prof. Neil Macken- zie at the end of his brief study Pseudoprotokurtica, in BSOAS, 26 (1963), pp. 170-173, on a pseudo-Kurdish forgery: “I know three languages: English, Yiddish, and rubbish.” Gnostic texts, especially those on a more popular level, with their alphabetic and supernatural diagrams, share much in common with the sort of magical material we have considered. This is not a fortuitous kinship, since the world view of the Gnostic involved of necessity the acquisition of knowledge concerning the malign jailers of the cosmos and manipulation of it to gain liberation from the world of illusion and suffering in which the human spirit is confined. The Gnostic needs to be proactive in a way the orthodox Chris- tian is positively enjoined not to be. So in the context of Gnostic and other Late Antique material, nonsense words and sounds, particularly strings of vowels, have a positive con- notation: see P. COX MILLER, In Praise of Nonsense, in A.H. ARMSTRONG, ed., Classical Mediterranean Spirituality, New York, 1986, pp. 481-505. These nonsense sounds, when they are believed to possess an inherent power which can be both semantic and extra- or super-linguistic, can be considered in the context of the Indo-Iranian idea of mantra: see J.R. RUSSELL, Sound as Symbol: The Case in Pagan and Christian Armenian Poetics, in Le Muséon, 109 (1996), pp. 113-126. These manipulations of language all have in common application to supernatural realms and experiences which are essentially different THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 169

The figure called t‘ot‘ovn, then, would appear to be a satirical Satan, a Lord of Misrule, and, given the perennial association of the goat with sexual arousal and fecundity, a figure associated also with fertility — such ambiguities and contradictions are the precise features of the Carnivalesque goat-man and the papan Satyr before him. There is every reason to suppose that in this case, as in so many others, the Armenian Christian feast perpetuates, with altered form and explanation that are partly locally Armenian and partly pan-Christian, pre- Christian holidays that were celebrated at the same time of year. A tradition linking Barekendan to the early days of Christianity in Armenia re- lates that many Armenians had gathered in an open plain to enjoy the holiday when a horseman came galloping towards them with the terrible news of the death of Armenia's commander-in-chief, Vardan Mamiko- nean. Their laughter turned immediately to tears, and thereafter the holiday was called Mereloc‘, gen. pl. of Clas. Arm. p. part. mereal, “dead”63. The saints' day of Vardan and his companions, Vardananc‘ and ™ewon- deanc‘, is at the end of February, but Vardan died at the Battle of Avarayr against the Sasanians on 26 May 451, several months after Shrovetide. So it would seem that the tradition is an anachronism of little historical value. It may have religious significance, though, in that it links Shrovetide to a holiday “of the dead”. In fact there is one, close to Shrovetide-time, on which Armenians cry “Meled!” (a deformation of an original “From thy dying!”) or variants thereof, whilst circling and leaping over a fire kindled from church tapers, is the Feast of the Presen- tation of Our Lord to the Temple, Tearn¢ndaraj (called in dialects by the shortened form terntez or the like, sounding rather like Pers. Tirandaz, “Arrow-shooter”), which falls on February 14th and is in all respects, including the recital of the names of the dead, a Christianization of the Zoroastrian Jasn-e Sadeh, the “Feast of the Hundred Days”, on which an outdoor bonfire is kindled and the names of the dead are recited. My teacher Prof. Mary Boyce lived in the Zoroastrian village Sarifabad-e Yazd in the early 1960's and observed a fertility-dance at weddings than fully describable earthly phenomena. These experiences within religious systems are the types of mysticism, where any speech is an approximation about the ineffable (and, if one follows Wittgenstein, silence seems the best course at that point). Prof. Joseph Dan of the Hebrew University often employs the dictum, “Mysticism is nonsense, but the study of mysticism is a science,” to which one may assent with two caveats: first, that in this context one must keep in mind that nonsense need not be a pejorative designation (vide Miller); and, second, that religion itself and as a whole must logically belong to the cat- egory of nonsense as well. 63 A. ™ANALANYAN, Avandapatum, Erevan, 1969, no. 916, citing M. TCHÉRAS, Légen- des et traditions arméniennes, Paris, 1912, p. 33. 170 J.R. RUSSELL there in which “the dancer had a strip of white cotton cloth around his hips, tied with a big knot that hung in front of his genitals; and the char- acter of the dance varied a little with the dancer. One youth performed it gracefully, with only small jutting movements of the hips, others with more gusto and crudeness.” This was never done in front of the girls — only males and married women64. These would be a direct parallel, again — or even a survival of the ancient common source — to the lewd, fertility-oriented revels of Armenian Shrovetide65.

64 Personal communication of 21 January 2002; see also M. BOYCE, A Persian Strong- hold of Zoroastrianism (Ratanbai Katrak Lectures 1975), Oxford, 1977, p. 174. In ancient Iran the festival known as the Sakaia seems to have been the closest parallel in the Zoro- astrian world to the rites of lewdness or social reversal that preceded the Western Carni- val: see A. DE JONG, Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Litera- ture, Leiden, 1997, pp. 379-384 and n. 93. 65 The margins of Armenian MSS. abound in pictures of mimes with either bared genitals or costume-phalluses, often dancing to the accompaniment of a troupe of players of musical instruments. In this connection Georg Goyan cites a MS. of 1401 at Erevan, and mentions also the naked mimicry and performances depicted on the vine-scroll regis- ter above the main friezes on the walls of the 10th-cent. Church of the Holy Cross at A¥t‘amar, Van, Armenia, in his controversial Two Thousand Years of the Armenian Theater, 2 vols., Moscow, 1952. See the summary booklet in English with this title, ac- companied by supplementary essays by other authors and bibliography on the evolution of Armenian theatrical art in modern times, published by the Armenian Exposition Com- mittee, New York, 1954, esp. p. 19. In the introductory essay by the Rev. Charles A. Vertanes, p. 5, it is noted that Armenian students at Lvov in 1668 — a century after Minas' poem — prepared a stage and scenery and put on a tragedy about the virgin St. Hrip‘sime: their Lvov theater lasted a few years and staged other tragedies, on Julius Cae- sar and on various Biblical and Armenian themes. The Rev. Vertanes, as I am informed by my friend Helen Anahid Sahagian of Arlington, MA, who has given me the booklet, was Editor of Armenian Affairs; and the Committee was composed mostly of members of the Progressive (Yarajdimakan) league, which had strong ties to Soviet Armenia and the Communist Party of the USA. As for Goyan's work, it is controversial, at best, because it extrapolates from the mention by Classical authors of the performance of Greek dramatic monologues in first-cent. B.C. Artasat and the Armenian king Artawazd II's composition of Greek plays — and the foundation of a theater at Tigranakert by the latter's father, Tigran the Great — to the unproven thesis that Armenians in ancient times had a theatrical genre with buildings, props, playwrights, actors, and all similar to that of Greece or Rome. The modern Greek poet Constantine Cavafy wrote a poem, “Tigranocerta”, in which a young Greek hired to work at Tigran's new theater writes a cynical letter home about how he plans to make money in the raw new boom-town and then split. For a full text and translation, see J.R. RUSSELL, The Lost Epic of Tigran: A Reconstruction Based upon the Fragments, in R. HOVANNISIAN, ed., Proceedings of the UCLA Conference on Tigranakert (in publication). Though it was the official policy of Soviet Armenia to present the country as a Hellenistic state with a sophisticated urban culture, rather than as a largely agrarian country whose way of life was closer to that of Iran, the fact remains that there is no excavated building of a theater, nor any text of a play, from ancient Arme- nia. Goyan's book, if used carefully and shorn of ideological trappings, is a mine of useful information and references; and there is ample evidence that the Near East had and has an indigenous kind of theater. The Iranian taziyeh, and the Armenian Shrovetide and other mimetic rites, have props, a locus, and a standard text. The performers are aware they are actors. One might cite the story by Jorge Luis Borges in which Averroes ponders THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 171

The clearest ancient analogue to the Armenian goat-flaying of Shrovetide lies somewhat farther afield than the kindred culture of Zoro- astrian Iran, but still within the relevant Indo-European cultural realm. This is of course the Roman holiday mentioned above, from whose rites the month of February itself got its name: Lupercalia. Its features are well-known. Young men of the equestrian class stripped naked February 15th (this was the month when the purification rite of februatio was performed, with squills called februa), sacrificed a goat, and the bloodied knife was wiped on the foreheads of two young leaders of the troupe, who were required to laugh as this was done. Nude but for leather belts, the boys then ran through the streets flogging women with goatskin thongs to make them fertile66. It was popularly believed this stimulating treatment (though they did not then know of endorphins, Aristophanes' satires show that the pleasures of the milder sort of sado-masochism were perfectly well understood by the ancients) would help the victims to be fertile, though the more official explanation was that it was purifi- catory. Lupercalia in the Roman Empire was a very popular holiday: it survived by a century the banning in 395 of pagan festivals, and some Christians gamely offered in justification of the floggings the argument that they were penitential. God forbid that they should be fun. Lupercalia was banned, but Carnival at least retained one pagan feature: the barque and pictures of Isis did continue, as mentioned, to be paraded during it67.

5. The abe¥at‘o¥ rite

The 19th-century Armenian writer Perc Prosean in his Hac‘i xndir discussed the rite, whose name means “leaving the monastic rule”: the text of Aristotle's Poetics he is translating into Arabic, but does not understand what is meant by “comedy”. His thoughts are interrupted by the noise of boys playing outside below his windoow: one, acting as a minaret, holds up the other, who bawls a parody of the call to prayer, whilst a third flops about in exaggerated prostrations. Ibn Rusd, an- noyed by the interruption and none the wiser, turns back to his work and writes down a hypothetical — and totally mistaken — interpretation of the mysterious Hellenic word, unaware that he has just been the audience of a comedy. (Both the Armenian translators of Dionysius Thrax and the Moslem Arabs later on seemed to have had less trouble un- derstanding tragedy — for which the Armenians had a literal translation, noxazergut‘iwn, with the word for “goat” in it, and a semantically correct one, o¥bergut‘iwn — though, again, there is no known tragic play.) Borges' story suggests a ubiquitous human grasp of the forms of drama, if not their institutionalization in a uniform manner everywhere, and, more disturbingly, the problem of the bounds of perception of reality beyond the confines of the terms of one's language. 66 For a description and interpretation of the festival, see G. DUMÉZIL, Mitra-Varuna, New York, 1988, p. 27 f. 67 See M.R. SALZMAN, On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Antiquity, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990, pp. 239-241. 172 J.R. RUSSELL monks are released on Barekendan from their rule, to make merry. Priests assemble and recite a mixture of liturgical snatches and secular songs of joy. Minstrels (asu¥) sing t‘o¥er en avetran,/ Arer en t‘ampuran “They've left the Gospel/ And taken up the tambourine” at which the monks feign anger. Then the liturgical formula xa¥a¥ut‘iwn amenec‘un “peace to all” is heard. A litter on which a big barrel (tik) of wine has been placed (cfr the mock prayer of intercession to the wine-cask noted above) is rolled forward, with the leader wearing a coxcomb-crown (c¨at‘al-t‘ag, from Tk. for a “fork”) and wielding a reed scepter (ga- wazan). He has on a paper cope (surjar), in vulgar imitation of the clerical vestment, and wears a sheep's mask. The master of ceremonies then adds to his Peace, Xmec‘ek¨ tiken, Noy nahapeti aygiin ginin er, zor xmec‘ K‘ristos “Drink from the barrel: it was the wine of the garden of the patriarch Noah that Christ drank”. The minstrels declare the priests are cats and the pastors (eric‘ner, lit. presbyters) are partridges (kak‘v¢ner: cfr the lewd patridge-dances noted above). The deacons are sparrows (cnc¥ukner); and in no house may joy and feasting be prohib- ited (mahrum). The monks of the Armenian Quarter of St. James' in the Old City of Jerusalem call the last three days of Barekendan by the name Abe¥at‘o¥: Fr. Vardan Ter-Minasean has provided a detailed description. The monks feast and elect a t‘ap‘arapet, “master of the procession” (the word for procession being the one used of the rites of Holy Week), attired as above but with the names of the monks of the Brotherhood inscribed on his crown. They turn west and sing, then march to the monks' quarter and one participant asks why the ceremony is taking place. The master of the procession sings, Orhnesc‘i ew pahpanesc‘i karas vank‘is, vasn zi Astuac orhnec‘ Noy¢, arajin angam abe¥at‘o¥ an ¢nelun hamar, ew gayt‘ak¥ec‘aw K‘am, erb tesaw, or ir ginov hayr¢ merk k¢ nnje “May the wine-cask of this monastery be blessed and protected, for God blessed Noah for doing the abe¥at‘o¥ for the first time, and Ham was disgraced when he saw his drunken father was sleeping naked.” He then asks what Ham's punishment was. The leader looks at the man's name and declares, Aysinc‘in pes sewc‘aw “He was blackened, like this one [i.e., the man is named].” The men assembled laugh. They turn east, and the leader pronounces, Orhnesc‘i ew pahpanesc‘i a¥aman vank‘in ays nsanaw surb Xac‘is — xac‘aknk‘elov — ew snorhiw xa¥k‘-xaytarak abe¥at‘o¥ awurs “May the salt-cellar of this monastery be blessed and protected by this sign of the holy Cross — makes the sign of the Cross — and by the grace of this outrageous play of the abe¥at‘o¥ day.” Then another asks, Stoyg e zo¥ovacuen gruac¢, t‘e Ner¢, aysink‘n sut K‘ristos¢, THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 173

™ovti a¥i arjan e¥ac kniken piti cni “Is what is written in the collected writings accurate, that Nero, who is the false [i.e., anti-] Christ, will be born of Lot's wife, she who became a pillar of salt?” No, replies the leader, and selects a name: from this one will the Antichrist be born! In the north, they bless the granary, and a question is posed about the manna that rotted. Another monk is named and disgraced. In the south, the master blesses the monastery's spring and stream, and the question is posed: Ov Yordananu jurn ibr de¥ bzskut‘ean ca¥relun hamar borotec‘aw “Who was stricken with leprosy for mocking the use of the water of the Jordan as a healing medicine?” The master names another monk. Then all sing the hymn Urax ler, surb Eke¥ec‘i “Rejoice O holy Church”. Then a deacon asks, Erb ays vank‘i himer¢ druec‘an ew parispner¢ sinuec‘an, ur eir dun “Where were you when the founda- tions of this monastery were laid and its walls were built?” Dzoxk‘in mej “In Hell!” comes the reply. Vay, uremn dun dzoxk‘en p‘axac u hos ekac‘, uremn arzni patzoy “Woe! Then you have escaped from Hell and come here, then you deserve punishment!” With great clamor, they de- molish the litter and pretend to bury the master of the procession. The abbot comes up and says, ™azare, ari, el artak‘s “O Lazarus, arise and come out!” The master re-emerges, bare except for a shroud. The revel- lers pretend horror and flee to the monastery buildings, and the revel is ended68.

6. Excursus: Who Is That Masked Armenian?

We have considered the poem Minas of Tokat wrote four-and-a-half centuries ago in praise of herisa, an important food in Armenian tradition, as well as the Armenian rites of Shrovetide and their ancient roots and far-flung cognates and analogues. These would appear to belong to the common store of Indo-European seasonal festivals, and to have had, particularly in more recent times, the special role of defusing social ten- sions and contradictions. In some respects, they are a stage in the devel-

68 V. vardapet TER-MINASEAN, Angir dprut‘iwn, vol. 2, Constantinople, 1893, pp. 67- 70, cited by BDOYAN, Hay zo¥ovrdakan xa¥er¢, I, 1963, pp. 134-138. In his book, Ter- Minasean cites a Barekendan song that calls upon people to sing, play the saz, dance, and eat chicken kebab and mutton stew (p. xxxix): Minas must have heard such songs himself. Literature has its strange by-ways. The well-known American novelist Michael Chabon published in The New Yorker of 9 April 2001 a story entitled “The God of Dark Laughter”, about a cult from Urartu called Khndzut Dzul, made-up nonsense words meaning “The Unfathomable Ruse” (cfr the real Arm. xnc¥el, “laugh”), in which a clown is flayed! A letter sent by this writer to Mr. Chabon elicited no response, so I do not know to what extent his odd abe¥at‘o¥ is coincidence. 174 J.R. RUSSELL opment of the revolutionary movements of the modern age. Pervading all these scenes is a man in a mask, the clown, fertility-god, blaspheming tempter, scapegoat, the brilliant and outrageous cynosure and outcast whom society cannot bear, yet cannot do without. This figure plays out the role, one might suggest, that Christendom has forced upon its essential and archetypal outsider, Israel. But an Armenian in a Carnival mask turns out to play the role of the mysterious outsider, the Wandering Jew, in Western literature, as well. Friedrich Schiller probably began late in the summer of 1786 his novel Der Geisterseher, which (though never finished) came out as a book in the great and fateful year 1789. William Render's English translation, The Armenian, or the Ghost-Seer, A History founded on Fact, was published in 1800; and it inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge's drama Osorio, or Remorse (1797). The narrator is stalked on St. Mark's Square in Venice during Carnival by a masked Armenian. The latter reappears in various guises to help the hero, and turns out to be the Wandering Jew himself69. The image haunted Herman Melville: the strange historical predicament of the Jews impressed itself upon him as upon other Bi- ble-bred, democratic Americans, and he had visited the land of Israel. During his travels in the East, he came to Constantinople and was followed around the covered market by “a suspicious-looking Greek”, and the writer recalled (in Journal up the Straits…, New York, 1935, p. 32) that “much of the fearful interest of Schiller's Ghost-Seer hangs upon being followed in Venice by an Armenian.”70 There were Armenians at the Mechitharist convent of San Lazzaro — Byron had studied there, not too long before, with the great Fr. Awgerean — and we may surmise that travellers to — and sojourners in — Europe from amongst these hoary Christians, an isle of the true Faith isolated like the Ark upon Ararat in the dark and raging ocean of Moslem Ottoman domination71, will have wakened some of the same

69 See H.G. BOHN, tr., J.L. SAMMONS, intro., Friedrich Schiller, The Ghost-Seer, Co- lumbia, SC, 1992, pp. v-vi. 70 See N. ARVIN, Melville and the Gothic Novel, in New England Quarterly, repr. in D. AARON and S. SCHENDLER, eds., N. ARVIN, American Pantheon, New York, 1966, p. 108 and n. 5. 71 It is worthwhile to observe here that the well-publicized plight of the Armenians and other Christians under Ottoman domination contributed to a great extent to the im- pression formed by many 19th-century Europeans of Islam as a violent, repressive, retro- grade phenomenon. The Arabs probably had very little to do with the formation of this view. Turkey was, for all its characterization as the “Sick Man of Europe”, the major non-Western power — and a European one. So it was also proper and sensible for Euro- peans to use their knowledge of the Near East as a political and military tool against a serious adversary whose severity was a matter of record. Such sympathy as existed towards Armenians till the end of World War I — when Moslem minority policy culmi- THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 175 uneasy emotions of fascination — and of guilt — in the Western ob- server as the Jews often did. The theme of the mysterious outcast looms large in Melville's work: he calls his misanthropic sailor, Jackson, “a Cain afloat; branded on his yellow brow with some inscrutable curse.” Note the constant association of Cain and Ham in Christian exegesis, and the invocation of Ham in the Armenian abe¥at‘o¥ rite we have exam- ined. This is of course an expected figure when the theme of the wanderer is explored, but there is more: Jackson's motiveless evil, and Claggart's mysterious hatred and persecution of the radiant young sailor Billy Budd72, expands to epic proportion, to a recasting of the Combat Myth of the Ancient Near East, with the haunted, obsessive hunt of the black-clad, tortured Captain Ahab for the white whale in Moby Dick. A sailor is driven by a curse and wishes, in motiveless malice, to kill a white creature. Surely the prototype is Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient nated in the genocide of the only minority not on the edge of the Islamic world that had asserted a political identity — comes out of these conditions. Edward Said's book, Orientalism, by largely neglecting these essential considerations and focussing — arbi- trarily and anachronistically — upon the Arabs, who were not the political players of the Moslem world of the 19th century, is able to present a picture of imperialist rapacity and apparently gratuitous enmity as the guiding motivations of Orientalists. The inevitable conclusion must then be that the study of the Islamic world stands in need of radical correction, to be effected by turning over the discipline to natives of the region less likely to be affected by prejudice, and to Western apologists for Islam deemed ideologically im- maculate by scholars in a position to pass such judgements — such as, of course, Mr. Said himself. It is not coincidental, one thinks, that Said is a Palestinian ideologue who has often presented himself as a suffering refugee, retreating from this position to admit an upper-class, privileged upbringing after being unmasked in the pages of the New Re- public. The cottage industry of anti-Orientalism spawned by Said and his ilk has destroyed the intellectual credibility of Middle East studies at many American universities (where Islam, especially Arabic Islam, dominates the scene, to the exclusion of Iranistics and the Christian East, for example) and contributed to the neo-Puritan excesses of identity politics. It is sufficient to regard the actual state of affairs in the Near East from the vantage point of Armenian realia, and of the engagement of American and British travellers and missionaries with the Ottoman minorities, both Armenians and Jews, to perceive the inaccuracy — one might even say, the mendacity — of some principal theses of Orientalism, and gradually to reintroduce sobriety into the discipline. 72 Arvin does not introduce what must seem an obvious point — that Claggart's persecution of Billy Budd may be a sublimation of love, which, being homoerotic, was inad- missible and had to be suppressed. Arvin himself, in one of those sad cases in which life recapitulates art, was a Communist fellow-traveller and closet homosexual who was per- secuted and hounded out of his position at Smith College in a vicious witch-hunt at the beginning of the 1960's by our own Commonwealth of Massachusetts (the same crew who gave America the phrase “banned in Boston”, and who had engineered the judicial murder of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927: Arvin had protested the latter case as a young man, and of course Hawthorne, about whom he wrote a monograph, had in his time penned The Scarlet Letter, on the Bay Colony culture of the Salem witch-hunt of 1692). Barry Wirth, in his biography of Arvin entitled The Scarlet Professor, makes explicit and closes this circle. So Arvin was well qualified to write of haunted lives and outcasts. 176 J.R. RUSSELL

Mariner, where a sailor kills a kindly albatross and is pursued by a spirit of vengeance through the seven seas on his ghost-ship. Coleridge, who wrote Mariner and a meditation on another “guilt-haunted wanderer”, The Wanderings of Cain, the same year73, was inspired to invent this spirit by the mention in the De daemonibus of Ps.-Psellos of the exor- cism from a Greek woman of an Armenian-speaking demon who had possessed her. In Byzantine Greece, too — and in Greek folk culture for centuries thereafter (where an armenis is still an evil spirit) — the Arme- nian occupied the position of the uncomfortably ubiquitous “other”, not unlike the Jew74. Coleridge was aware of the masked Armenian of Schiller; and this might have made him alert to the appearance of another Armenian in Ps.-Psellus, though that passage is striking all by itself. The legend of the Wandering Jew — who the masked Armenian of Venice turned out to be — is in its origins connected to Armenia in any case. The legend seems to have resulted from the fusion, in the mediaeval or Late Antique Near East, of two Gospel stories: that of Malchus, the servant of the High Priest Caiaphas, who for offending Christ had his ear cut off; and that of John, who is promised eternal life till Jesus' return. It is not attested in Eastern literature, but only in the West. The first testimony comes from an Italian chronicle for 1223: the Emperor Frederick II, Pope Honorius III, King John of Jerusalem, and some others met at Ferraria, in southern Italy, and “there came some pilgrims from adjacent regions on the other side of the mountains” who told the company and their Cistercian hosts that “a certain Jew of Armenia” had been sentenced to endless wandering for having blasphemed against the living Christ, driving Him forth with the words “Go on, you seducer, that you may receive what you merit!” Christ replied, “I will go, but you shall wait till I will come again.” This Jew was rejuvenated to the age of thirty every century, experiencing an immortality without youth. But this particular version of the legend was not known in Europe till 1888. Roger of Wendover, d. 1236, in his Flowers of History, reports that Pontius Pilate's doorkeeper Cartaphilus struck Jesus' neck when the Savior was departing from the palace to Golgotha, saying, “Go, Jesus, why do you tarry?” And Christ responded as above. Cartaphilus repented of his deed and became a Christian, being baptized by the same Ananias who had baptized Paul. Now he lived peacefully in Armenia

73 See J.L. LOWES, The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination, Bos- ton, 1927, pp. 216, 221, 229, 254. 74 See J.R. RUSSELL, A Scholium on Coleridge and an Armenian Demon, in Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, 10 (1998, 1999 [2000]), pp. 63-71. THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 177 with the name Joseph, dwelling “in both divisions of Armenia and other Eastern countries,” spending his time with bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, speaking only when questioned; and then, of ancient events and of the suffering and resurrection of Christ. Roger heard the story from an Armenian bishop who had come to St. Albans, near Lon- don, on a pilgrimage to see its holy relics, in 1228. The bishop spoke through an interpreter, an “Armenian knight” of his entourage named Antichenius who knew French. Roger's continuator, Matthew of Paris, incorporated the story into his own chronicle. Another Armenian delegation visited St. Albans in 1252: the Armenian Catholicos of the time, Constantine I (r. 1221-1267), had undertaken to strengthen relations with the Western powers and to send a delegate to Rome every five years75. So the presence of an Armenian bishop of the Cilician period in London was exotic enough to merit mention, but by no means unheard of, either. Since both of the earliest references to the Wandering Jew come from Armenia, one might expect the legend to be prominent there. The basic type does exist: Christ is asked by the violet to move on, so he curses it. Or He asks a gardener for a bunch of grapes and is refused; so by His curse the gardener is transformed into a bear and the vineyard becomes a forest. Or He comes to a house in disguise and is offered — or refused — hospitality76. But in Armenian folk tradition the only immortal being even remotely resembling this Wandering Jew type of whom I am aware is P‘ok‘r Mher, Little Mithra, in the fourth and final branch of the Epic of Sasun. He fights with his father, the great hero David (and Christ was of the Davidic house!), who curses him — as a Cain — to wander, deathless. Mher finds refuge in the rock at Van still called Arm. Mheri durn, Tk. Meher kapisi, “‘Mithra's Gate”. This is a blind portal that opens once yearly, on Ascension eve, and Mher stands there, covered with hair, looking like the Caucasian garmakoci — the “wild man”. An Armenian MS. of the 16th cent. contains a drawing of the vayri mard, “wild man” (see Plate 2); and he looks strikingly like the costumed scapegoat (associated, as we have seen, with Ham, and with Nero the Antichrist) of Armenian Carnival indeed77. Mher is to remain till the

75 See W.R. JONES, The Wandering Jew in Medieval Armenia and England: the Origin and Transit of the Legend, in The Armenian Review, 26 (1973), No. 2-102, pp. 64- 69, citing G.K. ANDERSON, The Legend of the Wandering Jew, Providence, 1965; and R. EDELMANN, Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew: Origin and Background, and E. KÖNIG, The Wandering Jew: Legend or Myth?, both printed in G. HASAN-ROKEM and A. DUN- DES, eds., The Wandering Jew: Essays on the Interpretation of a Christian Legend, Bloomington, IN, 1986. 76 See A. ™ANALANYAN, Avandapatum, Erevan, 1969, index s.v. K‘ristos. 77 Mekhitharist Convent of San Lazzaro, MS. 1434, fol. 30r, a booklet of model-drawings dated by S. Der Nersessian to the 16th cent., possibly from Constantinople: see 178 J.R. RUSSELL earth hardens enough for the hooves of his great horse to tread upon it without sinking in — that is, till the end of the world — even as myth dooms the Wandering Jew to wait till Christ's return.

Harvard University James R. RUSSELL Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations 6 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 U.S.A.

Abstract. The 16th-century Armenian cleric and poet Minas of Tokat/ Eudokia wrote a humorous encomium to «herisa», an Armenian porridge of wheat and meat eaten in the winter days before Lent. The poem mentions the lewd Abeghat{ogh (“Monks' Leave”), with its blasphemous parody of Christian Easter rites; and employs in particular the words «mort{e zt{ot{ovn», “Flay the Stammerer!” which one argues is in reference to an ancient survival of a rite cognate to Roman Lupercalia, which was celebrated at the same time of the year. The social importance of Carnival is also discussed, as well as the situation of the Armenians of Galicia — for it was at Lvov that Minas wrote of his hunger.

F. MACLER, Documents d'art arméniens, Paris, 1924, p. 31 and fig. 17, reporting on Fr. Alisan's publication of the MS. in Bazmavep, 1896; most recently, M. HOYLE, tr., R.W. SCHELLER, Exemplum: Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Trans- mission in the Middle Ages (ca. 900-ca. 1470), Amsterdam, 1995, pp. 407-412 and fig. 263. Scheller links the drawing of the wild man, reasonably, to the vast mediaeval dossier of portrayals of the monstrous races. Without contradicting this suggestion, one might add to it that an Armenian might have observed such a “wild man” yearly as a costumed player in the rites and revels of Carnival. We do encounter the monstrous races in mediaeval Armenian literature, too: in the romance entitled Patmutïwn Farman Mankann “The History of the Youth Farman” (see tr. and study by J.R. Russell in Acta Orientalia Ac. Sci. Hungaricae, 50 [1997], 1-3, pp. 203-244, the Päyipär the fleet-footed declares Gazank¨ en mardakerp: ampïs pahapan,/ Vasn ayn te¥ik¨n ansen ew anbnakan “Manlike beasts will guard my way-/ The place is uninhabited and barren” (lines 875-6, p. 234). THE PRAISE OF PORRIDGE 179

Pl. 1. The aycemard, “goat-man” of Pl. 2. The vayri mard, “wild man”, Tiflis Barekendan revels. in the model-book Mekhitharist From V. BDOYAN, Convent of San Lazzaro, Venice, Hay zo¥ovrdakan xa¥er, vol. 1, Erevan, MS. 1434, fol. 30r: tracing in 1963, p. 147 pl. 11. F. MACLER, Documents d'art arméniens, Paris, 1924, p. 31.