1835.] Origin and Ceremonies of the Mohurrum. 333 



*^ It is related by a historian, that when his holiness, 

 the prince Hoosien, the martyr, suffered martyrdom, 

 the son of Ziad (commander of the enemy's forces) 

 issued orders, that an account of the victory obtained 

 by Yazeed should be published to the world." 



Such narrative in prose is always embellished with 

 ©ccasional verses such as : 



When the king of martyrs was slain in a distant 

 country, the female part of his family shed tears 

 like dew." 



The chorus join him at intervals and repeat the above 

 couplet and the like. 



I cannot help remarking here, that the recitation of 

 the martyrdom of the Imams in verse and prose is heigh* 

 tened by circumstances of language, gesture and deli- 

 very, that are calculated to excite emotion in the hearts 

 of the hearers, but it seems frequently to inspire them 

 with fury and indignation, rather than sorrow, and 

 prompts them to a spirit of revenge, which not unfre- 

 quently finds its object in the votaries of another per- 

 suasion, and particularly in the followers of Soonnee doc- 

 trines. As the recitation of this mournful history is in- 

 tended to give the chorus a breathing time ; so, at in- 

 tervals of the relation by the narrator, who is something 

 like the dramatic boryphaeus, the chorus is sung. This 

 is indeed not unlike the singing dithyrambics or hymns 

 jn honor of Bacchus in tragedy or in dramatic poems. 



The narrator, if he is a man of acquirements, displays 

 like the king's story-tellers in Persia so extraordinary a 

 skill, and such varied powers, that we can hardly believe, 

 while we look upon his altered countenance, and listen 

 to his changed toneSj that it is the same^personj who at 



