Note 462 — ISKANDAR ZU AL-KARNAYN[460] AND A CERTAIN TRIBE OF POOR FOLK.

These terrific preachments to Eastern despots (who utterly ignore them) are a staple produce of Oriental tale-literature and form the chiaro-oscuro, as it were, of a picture whose lights are brilliant touches of profanity and indelicate humour. It certainly has the charm of contrast. Much of the above is taken from the Sikandar-nameh (Alexander Book) of the great Persian poet, Nizámi, who flourished A.H. 515–597, between the days of Firdausi (ob. A.D. 1021) and Sa’adi (ob. A.D. 1291). In that romance Sikandar builds, “where the sun goes down,” a castle of glittering stone which kills men by causing excessive laughter and surrounds it with yellow earth like gold. Hence the City of Brass. He also converts, instead of being converted by, the savages of the text. He finds a stone of special excellence which he calls Almás (diamond); and he obtains it from the Valley of Serpents by throwing down flesh to the eagles. Lastly he is accompanied by “Bilínás” or “Bilínús,” who is apparently Apollonius of Tyana.