_Page 11._ “The ārNāmusicians singing and playing, and the guests drinking.”—Music contributes as much as wine to the pleasures of an Eastern carousal. “Wine,” they say, “is as the body, music is the soul, and joy is their offspring.” The gamut, or scale of musical notes, is called in the East, _durr-imafassal_, “separate pearls.” The musical instruments commonly employed are: the _Kānūn_, the dulcimer or harp; the _sitār_, a three-stringed instrument (from _si_, three, and _tār_, string), whence cithara and guitar; and the _arghān_ or _orghanūn_, the organ. Old Persian writers describe the _arghān_ as invented by _Iflatūn_ (Plato), and as superior to all psalteries (_mazamīr_), and used in Yūnan (Ionia or Greece) and in Rūm (Iconium). Also the _chang_ (Arabic, _junk_), the harp; the _rabāb_, rebeck; the _tambūr_, tambourine; and the _barbat_, or barbitan.—Morier, in his Second Journey (p. 92), was treated with a concert of four musicians; “one of whom played on the _Kamāncha_ [viol]; a second sang, fanning his mouth with a piece of paper to aid the undulations of his voice; the third was a tambourine-player; and the last beat two little drums placed on the ground before him.” Gentius, in a note to the _Gulistān_ of Sa`dī, says that “music is in such consideration [in Persia], that it is a maxim of their sages, that when a king is about to die, if he leaves for his successor a very young son, his aptitude for reigning should be proved by some agreeable songs; and if the child is pleasurably affected, then it is a sign of his capacity and genius, but if the contrary, he should be declared unfit.”—It would appear that the old Persian musicians, like Timotheus, know the secret art of swaying the passions. The celebrated philosopher Alfarabi (who died about the middle of the tenth century), among his other accomplishments, excelled in music, in proof of which a curious anecdote is told. Returning from the pilgrimage to Mecca, he introduced himself, though a stranger, at the court of Sayfu-’d-Dawla, Sultan of Syria, when a party of musicians chanced to be performing, and he joined them. The prince admired his skill, and desiring to hear something of his own, Alfarabi unfolded a composition, and distributed the parts among the band. The first movement threw the prince and his courtiers into violent and inextinguishable laughter, the next melted all into tears, and the last lulled even the performers to sleep.—At the retaking of Bagdād by the Turks, in 1638, when the springing of a mine, whereby eight hundred janissaries perished, was the signal for a general massacre, and thirty thousand Persians were put to the sword, “a Persian musician, named Shāh Kūlī, who was brought before Murād, played and sang so sweetly, first a song of triumph, and then a dirge, that the Sultan, moved to pity by his music, gave orders to stop the massacre.”[32]