TITLE: Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. Some considerations about Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence (2008) AUTHOR(S): Jorissen, Engelbert CITATION: Jorissen, Engelbert. Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. Some considerations about Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence (2008). ドイツ文學研究 2009, 54: 49-80 ISSUE DATE: 2009 URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2433/71159 RIGHT: Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. Some considerations about Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence (2008) Engelbert Jorissen To begin with and Rushdian intertextuality Reading a fine book and then coming to its finishing I begin to feel sad because tomorrow I shall not meet these people, figures, personalities, whom I have begun to like while reading the novel (of course one may ar- gue that I can reread the book from the first page tomorrow, but this, of course, is not the point). It is as if Salman Rushdie in his novel The Enchantress of Florence (2008) wants to make the reader understand such a feeling. When, at the end of the novel, Niccolò Vespucci having ended his story, has himself, disappeared, Mughal emperor Akbar has a feeling of deep disappointment, considering: Vespucci’s story was concluded. He had crossed over into the empty page after the last page, beyond the illuminated borders of the existing world, . . .1） By the way, even in this sentence of the story, as everywhere in the novel, there seem to be at least two levels or a double sense of meaning, that is “the illuminated borders” may be read as well as the borders of the painted Mughals’ world in its miniatures. It should be mentioned at once that S. Rushdie adds a “Bibliography” −49− Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. of “Books” and “Web Sites” at the end of the novel. As for me there arises the question, why a bibliography, including, historical and scholarly texts, should appear at all in what I take as a fictitious novel?! But as for “story”, it should be mentioned at once too, that Italo Calvino’s collection of Italian stories appears among the cited (and, again not cited) titles in the appen- dixed bibliography of the novel2）. I would like to mention here as well that The Enchantress of Florence becomes in some short passages an intertext of and with S. Rushdie’s earli- er novels. For example, if in the novel the motifs of travel, departing and coming (not) home are omnipresent, these of course remember of Salman Rushdie’s The Wizard of Oz (see my Bibliography at the end). The motif of the “potato witches” in the fifteenth chapter of the novel appears already in S. Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown (see my Bibliography at the end). Rushdie’s novel is, indeed, so full of details and literary citations that it is sometimes not so easy to follow. A ‘citation’ which already seems to be- long to some standard repertoire of the author Rushdie, and/ or his narra- tor is for example the scene in which Arcalia is putting his own things and what he has robbed of Hauksbank easily into his “particolored greatcoat”, a coat of meravilious abilities: He had won the coat at cards in a hand of scarabocion played against an astonished Venetian diamond merchant who could not believe that a mere Florentine could come to the Rialto and beat the locals at their own game. The merchant, a bearded and ring- leted Jew named Shalakh Cormorano, had had the coat specially made at the most famous tailor’s shop in Venice, known as Il Moro Invidioso because of the picture of a green-eyed Arab on −50− Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. the shingle over its door, and it was an occultist marvel of a great- coat, its lining a catacomb of secret pockets and hidden folds with- in which a diamond merchant could stash his valuable wares, and a chancer such as “Uccello di Firenze” [i.e. Arcalia] could conceal all manner of tricks. (pp. 19‒20) This fine ‘miniature’ of description must remind the diligent reader of the important role of Shakespeare’s Othello (“Il Moro Invidioso”) and The Merchant of Venice (“The merchant, a bearded and ringleted Jew named Shalakh Cormorano”) in Rushdie’s novel The Moor’s Last Sigh. Then I want to mention that the novel if read with only some atten- tion is full of Rushdie’s literary discussion and interpretation of colonialism up to now. One only has to think of the Jesuit missionaries sent from Goa to Akbar’s court, or the “The New World” as it appears in the novel. But here I shall not discuss these aspects which need an own study. The Structure of the Novel and the Story The novel comprises at least four stories, which, quite independent, are nonetheless intertwined meticulously, what at first may seem not so easily be undone, or to be a accepted by the reader, because the stories de- velop in most different historical times - and places. For India this is the time of the Mughal emperor’s grandfather Babur and Akbar’s own time. For Europe, mainly Italy, and for the “New World”, this is the time of Machiavelli, and the parallel time to that of Akbar’s reign, when thinking for e.g. of the three Jesuits sent to Akbar’s court in 1580 (s. here, pp. 10 ss). Before coming to some of these stories, it might be useful to frame the total of non/historical, and, or im/possible events by giving the lifetime of −51− Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. Niccolò Machiavelli: 1469‒1527 and the Moghul Emperor Akbar: 1542‒1605 (reign: 1556‒1605), both historical dates. The two cannot have been in con- tact with one another, but it is through the narrator that their life, better some of their ideas are put into one context. Then there are the in the nov- el discussed lifetimes of Qara Köz and Argalia. Qara Köz, of whom it is told to be Babur’s, that is Akbar’s grandfather’s mysterious sister, beside his other sister Khanzada Begum, is said to have been seventeen years (p. 213) at the time of Babur’s second defeat of Samarkand (p. 214) and that is in 15043）. At the time of the battle of Chaldiran in 15144）, between the Safavids and the Ottomans, in which Sha Ismail I was beaten, Argalia is said to have been forty five (p. 216, for the battle see pp. 218‒221). After that battle Qara Köz begins to accompany Argalia, who at that moment enters the services of Selim the Grim, after that returns to Italy, namely Machiavelli’s Florence, where Argalia dies (“Argalia was dead- “At least he died in his hometown . . .”, Doria said”, p. 333), from where Qara Köz will leave, not with Argalia but with Ago Vespucci to Genua and then, on the suggestion of Andrea Doria to the “New World”. That means, as Akbar reckons rightly, the man, Niccolò Vespucci, or as he has named himself, Mogor dell’ amore, aged between thirty and forty, who has come to his court and claims until to the end of his story: ““My mother was Qara Köz, your grandfather’s sister, the great enchantress, and she learned how to stop time.””, (p.340), can by no means be Qara Köz’s son. After Niccolò Vespucci has already left doomed Fatehpur Sikri the reader learns from a nightly conversation between Akbar and his aunt Qara Köz (sic, pp. 347‒ 348), that Niccolò Vespucci must be the son of Qara Köz’s child or of “the Mirror’s”, (one of the many mirrors in the novel) daughter (“mirror of her −52− Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. mother and of the woman [i.e. Qara Köz] whose mirror the Mirror had been” (p. 348). And his father, as is further revealed in this same place, was this later mirror’s own father (one can only guess if it is meant that by this is meant Ago Vespucci), he is a child of “incest” (e.g. p. 338). Niccolò Vespucci himself has been deceived about all this, and believes to be what he is not, Akbar’s uncle. But this believe enables him to tell Akbar his fan- tastic story, which brings together, among other things, Machiavelli’s and Akbar’s time. And this, putting one of the main results of this study at the beginning, seems for me to be the main reason to tell the story of The Enchantress of Florence at all. That is a special kind of comparative culture and cultural history, by mirroring places and times, which in history lay so much afar from themselves, but are made, humanly, so similar in the novel. The first story to be narrated, thus, is that of Argalia/ Arcalia, told by Niccolò Vespucci : ““There was once an adventurer-prince named Argalia, also called Arcalia, a great warrior who possessed enchanted weapons, and in whose retinue were four terrifying giants, and he had a woman with him, Angelica . . .”” (p. 19). This beginning of a story which, with the name of Angelica, reminds the reader of texts like that of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, is repeated on various occasions (s.e.g. p. 85), but its suc- cession is, as it may seem to an irritated reader, first like being ‘surpressed’ by the narrator who seems to want to tell his story to a most elevated price (cf. p. 19, Vespucci with Hauksbank; p. 90, Vespucci with Akbar), how- ever, it develops to one of the main streams of the novel. He steals himself into to the role of an Italian “Ambassador” by the Queen of England to Akbar’s court (p. 23) what makes captain John Hauksbank die if not be murdered by Arcalia (p. 23, as for murder see p. 19 where Arcalia is said to −53− Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. have Hauksbank make drink “laudanum”). The death of captain Hauksbank nearly costs Vespucci his own life, because the crew has followed him and is asking Akbar to make the process of the ‘fake ambassador’. Akbar who at this point has more than one doubt about the identity of Vespucci, e.g. when comparing his outfit with the Spanish ambassador of King Philip of Spain, who had come with elephants, Arab horses and many gifts to his court (pp. 66‒67), whereas Arcalia has spent his first night in Fatehpur Sikri in a “whorehouse” (p. 67), puts him into jail and is intended to punish him with death, but the process turns out to Vespucci’s favour and to the blame of Hauksbank’s crew. After that Vespucci boldy declares to Akbar, who is pressing him: ““Once and for all, spit the damned thing out””, to be: ““Your relative by blood. In point of fact: your uncle”” (p. 98). Very much later one learns that that Argalia is a contemporary of Machiavelli and that and how his story began in Florence: “In the begin- ning there were three friends, Antonino Argalia, Niccolò “il Machia”, and Ago Vespucci” (p. 132). As for Florence and what happens there I shall re- turn to this same sentence one time more. As for the story to be followed here, Argalia is orphaned “before he was ten years old” (p. 136), that is be- cause of one other of the many plagues after that of 1348 described in Boccaccio’s “Foreword” of Il Decameron, in Florence, and he decides to leave Florence. For a time Vespucci uses the name “Uccello di Firenze” (p. 14): Giovanni Milano, who had been born Sir John Hauksbank in Scotland a hundred years before. In France he was “Jean Aubainc” in the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland he was “Hans Hoch”, and in Italy it was Giovanni Milano - “Milano” be- −54− Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. cause a milan was a hawk - leader of the White Company, erst- while general of Florence, and victor, on Florence’s behalf, of the battle of Polpetto against the hated Venetians (pp. 136‒137). (For John Hauksbank, in history and art see below.) Vespucci is still remindful of John Hauksbank as a great condottiere, the age of which, that is of the condottieri, as it is said - by the way histori- cally - has come to an end now, that is with Argalia’s youth. But Argalia knows there is still one great figure of that historically type of fighters: “The greatest remaining mercenary fighter, according to Argalia, was Andrea Doria5）, leader of the Band of Gold, who just then were busy with the liberation of Genoa6） from French control” (p. 137). Argalia is ready to give up his Christian faith: “I might turn Turk myself. Argalia the Turk, Wielder of the Enchanted Lance, with four huge Swiss giants, Muslim con- verts, in my retinue. Swiss Mohammendans, yes. Why not. When you’re a mercenary it’s gold and treasure that talk, and for that you have to go east.” (pp. 137‒138). At one point Argalia declares: . . . I’ll be dying on a burning caravel outside Constantinople with a Turkish scimitar in my gut. (p. 137) He will not die in that way, but he will die as a Turk, as he is named later in the novel, and that is as a mighty Turk, as e.g.: “Argalia the Turk, was simply to powerful for Lorenzo [i.e. de’ Medici] to be able to move against him openly.” (p. 289) Machiavelli and events in his time Machiavelli’s life during his exile outside Florence as described in the novel has made me think repeatedly, while reading the novel, of one of the −55− Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. most famous and frequently cited letters by Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s life itself is described with many details, one can guess much about his relation with his wife, and about Machiavelli’s political carrier or failure, as e.g. about his torture during which he suffered the “strappado” (p. 238). Here I cite the mentioned letter from a book by Paul Larivaille, and while he com- ments that this letter, as a response to Francesco Vettori reaches even “parody”7） it is for me one of the most beautiful letters by Machiavelli. In this letter from 10 December, 1513 strikes me the part where Machiavelli describes how he leaves his home in the morning to do some cuttings in his woods taking with him a book by Dante, Petrarca or “one of these mi- nor poets like Tibullo, Ovidio and the like” (“o uno di questi poeti minori, come Tibullo, Ovidio et simili”8）). And how he then, after eating lunch in the “hosteria” and, later, playing there trumps with some beccaio, miller or baker, returns home, where he changes into his official clothes, this, in or- der to be prepared properly to read and meet the classical authors: “. . . and revested decently, I enter into the antique courts of the classical writers . . .” (“. . . et rivestito condecentemente, entro nelle antique corti deg- li antiqui huomini”)9）. Even if parody would underly here, Machiavelli’s atti- tude towards the classical authors, described as so subtle, moves and makes one think about one’s own reading habitudes. The letter is indeed so moving because it shows a politically powerless and helpless Machiavelli, who is still so much political because he is playing trumps with the hard working laborers from the countryside, that he is taking in their opinions, and observing the situation in the field, that is outside Florence. And then, instead of becoming leisurely when coming home and beginning to read the classics, he instead dresses as best as he can in order to be allowed to −56− Travelling through times and spaces: Making to meet Akbar with Machiavelli. appear before his ‘teachers’ from antiquity in an adequate style. Machiavelli’s religious position as described in the novel, it is said that “He was not a deeply religious man, il Machia, but he was a Christian. He avoided mass, but he believed all other religions to be false” (p. 244), this puts him into a somewhat less interesting position than that of Akbar, who is drawn as searching at least momentarily for religious alternatives. But this description stands in no way against the many citations of the man- drake-plant, which of course is a continuing allusion to Machiavalli’s com- medy La Mandragola, which indeed, especially with the figure of Fra Timoteo is darkly anticlerical but not antichristian. After Arcalia and Qara Köz have come to Florence they are wel- comed, especially Qara Köz arises to a position sembling to a saint. However that changes quickly, and, what remains, and I think here is were Rushdie wants make a point, is her foreigness, otherness, strangeness. This is called by the narrator Qara Köz’s short step “from enchantress to witch” (p. 297), after she had become momentarily even an idol of ““Eastern wis- dom”” (p. 289). Behind this lie of course much of Rushdie’s thinkings about difference as uttered in others of his precedent novels, e.g. expressed with S. Chamcha’s fancy to become a real British in The Satanic Verses, and with the first Indian/Christian than more Christian/Foreigner paintress Aurora in the Moor’s Last Sigh. Having been stamped to be a witch she is forced to leave Florence, and as it is shown, even better Italy. After Argalia’s death she is led by Ago Vespucci, who, up to that time, different from Argalia, and Machiavelli, who did indeed a lot of diplomatic travelling during his lifetime, and, what goes without saying, different from Ago’s fa- mous elder cousin, only now starts the voyage of his life. This leads him −57−