Such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy emperor awake Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

I woke with these lines from Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium" in mind. I have known them by heart since my early teens. I thought, as Yeats the magus did, of vehicles of soul and ancient statue magic. Then the historian in me wanted to check the details.

All Yeats said about the origin of his imagery was that “I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang." [1]

Those who have investigated the spources available to Yeats in languages he could read have concluded that his main - and probably only - source was a brief passage in Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on the emperor Theophilus. We can now range further.

The Frankish ambassador Liudprand of Cremona, who visited Constantinople in 949, reported that "In front of the imperial throne stood a certain tree of gilt bronze, whose branches, similarly gilt bronze, were filled with birds of different sizes, which emitted the songs of the different birds corresponding to their species."

The mechanical magic was not confined to singing birds. The emperor's throne was fitted out so it could be raised up to the ceiling, from whence the ruler could look down godlike on his courtiers and guests. Liudprand goes on: "The emperor's throne was made in such a cunning manner that at one moment it was down on the ground, while at another it rose higher and was to be seen up in the air. This throne was of immense size and was, as it were, guarded by lions, made either of bronze or wood covered with gold, which struck the ground with their tails and roared with open mouth and quivering tongue". When a visitor was received, the lions began to roar and the bords started singing. The visitor was expected to prostartte himslef three times. When he rose, he would fimnd the meperor seated high above hom. Liudprand averred that "I was moved neither by fear nor astonishment [however] I could not think how this was done, unless perhaps he was lifted up by some such machine as is used for raising the timbers of a wine press".[2]

After the sack of Constantinople by the Franks in the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Robert de Clari wrote that he saw mechanical figures of incredible verisimilitude that used to "play by enchantment" - giuer par encantement. "There were figures of men and women, and of horses and oxen and camels and bears and lions and of many manner of beasts, all made of copper, and which were so well made and so naturally formed that there is not a master in heathendom or Christendom who has enough skill as to make figures as good as these figures were made. And in the past they used to perform by enchantment, but they do not play any longer. And the Franks looked at the Games of the Emperor in wonder when they saw it." [3]

The more I read, the more I wanted to identify the golden tree. Historian Allegra Iafrate makes a convincing case that it was a plane tree (platanus). In the Greek world plane trees were admired for their longevity, stature and shade. In Persian tradition - interwoven with Greek, as the vine embraces the plane tree - the chinār (plane) was venerated. Herodotus and Xenophon both wrote that Persian kings had golden plane trees in their palaces. The Persians believed that plane trees sometimes housed souls of the dead, and listening to wind and spirit by a plane tree was a recognized form of divination. [4]

The "Grecian goldsmiths" were also influenced by the fabrications of the Abbasid court in Baghdad. In 917, Byzantine ambassadors arrived at the court of the Abbasid caliph Al-Muqtadir. They were greeted with an elaborate ceremony, and led through room after room in the palace. Near the end of the tour, they were shown into a chamber where "the amazement of the ambassador grew even greater upon entering the Tree Room [Dar ash-Shajarah]; for there he gazed upon birds fashioned out of silver and whistling with every motion, while perched on a tree of silver weighing 500 dirhams." [5] The Byzantine emperor Theophilus is said to have instructed his craftsmen to copy this marvelous tree. It stood at the centre of a pool, surrounded by armored knights, its branches full of singing mechanical birds - and who knows how many itinerant souls?

1. W. B. Yeats, Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1933) 450.

1. The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona trans. Paolo Squatriti (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 2007), 197–98.

2. Robert de Clari, La Conquete de Constantinople, ed. Philippe Lauer (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Edouard Champion, 1924), 88. 3. Allegra Iafrate, The Wandering Throne of Solomon Objects and Tales of Kingship in the Medieval Mediterranean (Leiden: Brill, 2015) 79-80.

4. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi translated in Jacob Lassner, The Topography of Baghdad in the Early Middle Ages. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1970) 88.

Journal drawing by Robert Moss

Killing the demon parrot

As demons go, one of the scariest (because most likely to turn up any day, recognized or not) is one of the most unlikely: the parrot. Why? Well, if you think about what you most associate with parrots, other than bright colors and finger-nipping, you may have the answer. But let's hear a story first, because a story is the shortest way to get to a truth.

The story comes from Persia, and it is about a hero on a quest. The hero's name, some say, is Hatim, and he is a prince. The prince is summoned by his king and given an interesting assignment. He is to search for a mysterious castle known as the Bath Badgerd - the Castle of Nonexistence - and find out what is there. He sets out on a long journey, where he must battle with monsters and face every kind of hardship. Everyone he meets gives him a reason to abandon his mission. People are unanimous on one point: no traveler who reached the castle has ever returned.

The hero is not dismayed. At last he comes to a round, domed building that must be part of the Bath Badgerd. He is greeted by a hairdresser who is carrying a mirror, and invited to wash off the dust of the journey in a beautiful pool. As soon as he enters the water, there is the roar of thunder, and the water level starts to rise. He thrashes about in the pool but can't escape. The water is rushing him up towards the ceiling. He's going to drown. But with his last breath, he cries out for divine help, and grabs for the keystone above him.

This changes everything. There is more rolling thunder, and the hero is transported, quick as thought, to the middle of a hot desert. His ordeals begin again, and it requires much wandering, on dragging, bloody feet, before he comes to a beautiful garden. He is now at the very heart of the Bath Badgerd, and about to face the greatest of his challenges.

In the midst of the garden is a circle of stone statues. They are very lifelike; each figure looks like a person frozen in the midst of a cry or a violent motion of the upper body. At the center of this circle is a parrot in a cage. Under the unfriendly eye of the parrot there is a golden bow, and a golden arrow chained to the cage.

A voice from above explains the scene. "What you are seeking is here, but you won't live to see it. The stone men are those who tried before you, and became petrified. The treasure of this place is a diamond beyond price that was hidden here by Gayomart, the First Man. In order to claim it, you must kill the parrot. The bow and arow are your weapons. You have three chances to shoot the parrot. If you fail, you will be petrified."

How hard can it be to shoot a parrot at close range? The state of the stone men is not encouraging, but the hero takes up the bow and lets fly. The arrow flies wide, the parrot cackles - and the prince is turned into stone, from his feet to his crotch. He takes extra care with his aim, before shooting the second arrow. He misses again and is turned to stone, up to the base of his heart. Now he remembers how he escaped being drowned in the flood, by invoking a higher power. He shuts his eyes, calls on his God, and fires without calculation. The arrow finds its mark. With a boom of thunder, the parrot vanishes. In its place appears the great jewel of the First Man, the diamond of the greater Self, and the petrified men are released from the spell.

Marie-Louise von Franz found in this old Persian fairy story a parable of "individuation" - the Jungian term for the process by which an individual advances towards the embodiment of his or her true Self [1]. All of the symbols are rich in meaning: the round building, the barber (or hairdresser), the mirror, the fast-rising waters. But let's stay with the demon. Of all the adversaries and obstacles the hero must overcome on his journey to find the jewel beyond price, the most formidable is a parrot in a cage. We can now answer the question, "Why"? Because we can never get to the greater Self by copying other people or by repeating ourselves. The parrot is famous for doing both: for imitating others and for endless repetition. When we fail to kill the demon of imitation and repetition in our lives, we consign ourselves to the petrified human forest.

[1] Marie-Louise von Franz, “The Process of Individuation” in Carl G. Jung, Man and his Symbols (New York: Doubleday, 1964) and Individuation in Fairy Tales (Boston: Shambhala, 2001).