第2，3話
Story of Yunus, a Prophet of Allah (Chapters II and III)
(Chapter I: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n1483go/)
Chapter II
A bodily urgency awoke Yunus. He yawned a lot. He was tired and a little dizzy. It took some time in the darkness before he could recall where he was. The scene of skeletons dismembered and scattered all over around him reminded him of where he was. “Oh, what happened to them? Did they fight and destroy each other? Or,” wondered Yunus, “was it only a bad dream I had on these bones?” Then he remembered that the dying florescence from the bones were caused by friction between them. “So,” he thought, “it was not a dream.”
Then, he started breathing short and heavily as if he had been exercising. He panted helplessly, and realized that the dead there had perished not from starvation but from suffocation. He despaired and prayed a farewell prayer to Allah, for he was sure he was a failure and would not be in touch with Him anymore. He sought forgiveness for his failure. But in the midst of the breathless desperate agonizing prayer, he heard the door unlocked and saw it open quietly, and he saw a young tall black man with a lantern in his hand inviting him to come out. He quickly grabbed a few breaths of cool air smelling burnt oil, and steeled himself against the visitor. The man said something politely in a language he could not understand. He took a deep breath, rose to his feet and went out, staggering and cracking the bones underneath.
The man hastily fell on his knees and, putting the lantern on the floor, said with suppressed tone, this time in Aramaic which Yunus understood more or less: “My master, if I have found favor in your sight, please allow me to escort you out of this temple safely. I am a servant of the king, a eunuch from Ethiopia. And a few days ago, to my great surprise, I heard you prophesy in none other than my own mother tongue about the destruction of Ninuwa but for the citizens’ repentance over and over again; and thus, I knew you were not demented but were possessed by Allah, your god!”
Yunus raised him to his feet, and said, “I did not know in what language I was speaking then, for I was in ecstasy, nor do I know any Ethiopian word. So, it’s Allah’s plan that you should be enlightened. Well, then, please guide me out…But tell me how long I’ve been locked here?”
“My master, you have been here for three days and three nights including tonight,” answered the eunuch as he closed and locked the door of the deadly statue. Then, he took off his mantle, and said, “Please wear this and you will be taken for one of my colleagues, just in case a guard suspects us.”
Then, carrying the lantern, he led the prophet through the labyrinth of the temple. They passed a few guard monks, who had fallen fast asleep, for the eunuch had put on the altar of the fish-god a skin bottle filled with strong wine. On their way the eunuch said to Yunus that he had now repented and believed in Allah, that he had reported to the queen about the phenomenon he had witnessed (the glossolalia) and where the prophet had been consequently locked up, in the hope of obtaining the king’s permission for him to rescue him, and that only late that evening had the queen handed him the key to the statue confidentially – lest king’s enemy should know this. “Hence,” continued the eunuch, “I came to help you escape secretly. This way the temple men shall not know that you are away.”
When they got outside the temple without meeting anyone awake, it was midnight with the new moon glowing in the color of cheese. Cold wind was blowing and fanning a fire being burnt by a group of moon worshippers in the nearby plaza. A leader was chanting a song lauding the moon in an extremely low and resounding voice and others repeated the words. Women were kneading and baking bread in the shape of the moon, and children were gathering fallen leaves and twigs for fuel. Some men and women were giving pieces of baked bread to those who had gathered to ease their hunger. The wind brought the appetizing smell toward the prophet and the eunuch. Having eaten nothing for three days, Yunus was suffering from the painful hunger again.
The eunuch said, “My master, please keep the mantle, for winter is coming, and take care not to catch a cold.” Yunus kissed his hands and wished him Allah’s blessing. After seeing him disappear in the dark, Yunus put hands into the sleeves of the mantle to warm them, but found a silver coin in one of the sleeves. He thought to return it to the eunuch, and called, “My son, come back! I found this!” But no response came from the darkness except the sound of the wind and the chanting of the moon worshippers. Yunus staggered, and picked up a fallen branch of a tree to use as a walking stick. But as he walked slowly toward the fire he started prophesying. A boy came and handed him a piece of baked bread.
Chapter III
Time went by and six years passed since the beginning of Yunus’ prophesying. Although he became weak, he had kept prophesying single-mindedly. However, Ninuwans did not repent nor did Allah exterminate them. Yunus at last invoked the Almighty:
“Allah, my God!” he said, “are you not convinced yet? Are you still waiting…yet hopeful that the Ninuwans would repent? Have I not preached your words to every one of them? Have I missed anyone? Have I not acquainted myself with every man, every woman and every child in this city? Have I not acquainted everyone with your words and judgment? And they have not repented, except a very few. I have done all that I could. What else would you like me to do? Is not Ninuwa ripe enough to harvest with your scythe? Is not six years long enough for you? Or have you already changed your mind and totally forgotten about Ninuwa and this minor prophet? Now, I fear I myself will soon be doubtful of the truth of this prophecy. I said it before, and will say it again: Ninuwans have been alarmed for too long to be alarmed! To them what I am doing is mere crying wolf. So, it’s the wolf and not the crying messenger that they need now! Inflict your heavy punishment upon them so they will learn that you are Allah the only God! But I suspect you are not yet ready. So, I’ll quit. I am tired of prophesying. Like a Hebrew slave in Israel, who is freed from slavery after working for six years if he or she chooses not to stay with the master, as the laws of your own making prescribe, am I also not entitled to a freedom from this mission now? For I have worked for you half a dozen years prophesying in this city, my Lord. So, let me have at least a furlough for a while. Or is it asking too much? I will take a shot…say…tomorrow I will say to the Ninuwans that unless they repent within three days they shall be exterminated. So, please let it be true, or I shall be an eternal laughing stock in Ninuwa.”
Thus, on the next day, Yunus did prophesy to the citizens that unless they repent within three days, they shall be exterminated one and all. The citizens did not believe him. They too were tired of his prophesying. They had heard him caution for six years by now. They would rather believe the optimistic prophets who were saying that there should be no destruction of the city but that the gods would give them lasting prosperity, because they and their forefathers had worshipped those gods for many generations and no fatal harm had ever fallen on them. They mocked Yunus by calling him “Son of Eunuch” - for he had been wearing the eunuch’s mantle for years.
So, Ninuwans were not afraid of his threats nor Allah. They would even say "Let it happen, we are not afraid of your empty threats, Son of Eunuch!" Yunus was disheartened. Then, he got angry and said, "In that case, I will desert you to your doom!" And on the next day before dark, he left Ninuwa without waiting for the three days to expire nor receiving Allah’s permission, still less the king’s.
Yunus used a raft, which he had prepared with the help of the eunuch. The prophet’s father Amittai was a lumberjack and had taught his son various things about the profession through on-the-job training, including how to make a raft. The eunuch, although he provided various materials and pieces of information for Yunus’ travel, did not stop trying to dissuade the prophet from leaving Ninuwa until the last moment. But the prophet was too adamant to change his mind.
The raft Yunus made with the eunuch was relatively small but was equipped with many commodities. For example, they put many sheep skin floats to the assembled lumbers, some placed underneath the lumbers and others above them, the latter for the purpose of providing a soft bed for the prophet to sleep on. The eunuch advised that Yunus could sell the lumbers to a lumber merchant and the sheep skin floats to an animal skin merchant at the destination down the river - which had been in fact the practice adopted by the lumber traders in those days.
They put the raft on the canal, and it was carried downstream gently. Many criminals and slaves had tried to escape the city this way but were caught by the soldiers at the strait water gate. Thanks to the eunuch’s pre-arrangement, Yunus was allowed to pass the water gate without much difficulty. He slept all night and did not wake up until the sun started scorching him the next morning.
Now, had he not slept so tightly on the raft, he would have been awakened by and witnessed a strange phenomenon in the sky that night. Hardly had he fallen asleep when the skies began to change color and looked as if they were burning and smoking. When sulfuric soot and smell came down, people of Ninuwa were filled with fear, for it was as if the world was totally demolished. They realized Yunus had not been bluffing, and the news (spread by the Ethiopian eunuch) that he had left the city and that timely, confirmed that it was the work of his god Allah, whom he also called the Almighty.
People began to repent their sins. Firstly, led by the eunuch, they began repeating what Yunus had been reciting. They shouted:
"Fellow citizens of Ninuwa,
Hear the words of Allah.
Let us fear Him and stop evildoings.
Let us repent and drop wrongdoings.
For, Yunus said, if we ever continue our sinful ways,
Alas, He shall exterminate our city in three days!"
The penitents gathered and formed groups one after another to propagate Yunus’ prophecy. Then they marched the streets in all directions chanting the words of the prophecy on the melody Yunus had composed. They did not need torches, for the sky was bright till the sunrise.
By midnight, the chanting groups merged to form large crowds. Then an inventive citizen made a wooden placard on which he wrote Yunus’ prophecy, and each group made a few placards after it, and they carried them throughout the city. The placards attracted many because of their novelty although most of the citizens were unable to read. The whole city was in confusion. Crowds thronged in streets and gathered at each public plaza, for they were scared by the phenomenon in the sky. They demanded to know the cause of it. Some were shouting one thing and others another.
Gradually, the words on the placards were put in the mouths of the people, and the city was echoed with the chants of Yunus’ prophecy. Some started fasting, others whitened their bodies with ashes and put on sackcloth, and pleaded for pardon.
Those who were seen in the middle of wrongdoing were soon surrounded by a crowd who condemned them and demanded repentance. Idols together with their altars were destroyed and burnt at every major plaza and shrine, and some human idols hid themselves underground and others declared they were not gods.
The heavenly phenomenon continued until the third day, and citizens continued to seek Allah’s mercy. The ritual of child sacrifice for a god, which was attempted so as to appease the same deity, who they said was the worker of the phenomenon in the sky, was interrupted by the citizens, who threatened to cook the priests instead that was trying to conduct the ritual, and thus the priests including the Chief Priest fled from Ninuwa.
This revolution in the city caused by Yunus was soon reported to the king. To the royal family, it was a welcome change that people repented and stopped sinning, and lived more like lambs than wolves. However, the people did not live like lambs but surged to the palace and wanted the king to repent too. They brought the placards to the gate of the palace and chanted Yunus’ prophecy. The excited crowd seemed to keep staying until and unless the king in person should appear and declare his repentance in front of them.
The king, no less scared by the phenomenon than the others, was not slow to anticipate the impending riot, and declared that he too would repent. As the crowd watched, the king took off his royal robe and changed into dark sackcloth and poured ashes from a pot over his head, as he shouted, "I repent! I hereby repent and shall fear Allah, the mighty god of Yunus!" The crowd raised a roar of approval.
The ministers and members of the royal family and servants of all the ranks followed the king, repenting loudly, burning their coats and pouring the ashes of the coats over their heads, and praying to Allah the Most High for pardon and mercy.
In the afternoon of the third day, the king of Ninuwa proclaimed that all the citizens and their animals should fast and should not even drink water. Then, at the sunset of that day, the king ordered that people should pour ashes over their heads and wear sackcloth and pray all night long aloud to Allah for mercy, swearing they would never do unrighteous things.
People obeyed the orders from the palace. Thus, the third day heard many prayers for forgiveness and songs blessing Allah, and passed peacefully without taking any mortal’s life with it.
So, Yunus was successful and fulfilled his mission assigned by Allah, although he was no longer in the city and was riding down a river on the raft.
Yunus knew he was on the Tigris, of which the canal was a bypass, and knew that it would carry him to a foreign sea. He had wanted to go back to Samaria; but he was afraid of Allah. He knew Allah was not glued to Israel, but he felt like going in the opposite direction from Israel where Allah’s holy temple was, the dwelling place of his Name. So, arriving at a seaport of an island Dilmun in Persian Gulf after several days of rafting, he sold the raft together with the sheep skin floats to a lamber merchant and bought a ticket and jumped on a fine ship, which was leaving for a long voyage bound for Indus. Yunus thought if he could reach a distant place way beyond the horizon of the vast ocean, he would eventually be unreachable by Allah, for in those days people did not yet realize that the earth was round - still less spinning.
Yunus climbed down into the bottom of the ship and fell into a deep sleep.
As the ship sailed outside the harbor, the wind rose and got stronger and pushed her off the course. A gray giant-like cloud far away began to collapse and surge to roof the vast ocean, and soon the sea line was darkened by black rain. Upon a flash of lightening and cracking of thunder, cold rain started to pour on the ship. The waves, pushed high by the strong winds, tackled the ship with such force that she squeaked and rolled dangerously and would topple any moment. Then, a whirl wind rose and started twirling her.
"This is a double catastrophe! A storm and tornado at once!" shouted the helmsman, who could no longer hold the spinning helm.
"Oh, my good god, help, help me this once!" cried a sailor holding to a rope lest he be blown away.
"Boatswain, furl the sail, hurry!” the captain shouted to the sailor. “And you there, drop the anchor immediately!" (The latter was to prevent the ship from dashing against rocks or going aground on shallows, for in those days ships sailed alongside the coasts.)
All the cabin lamps having gone out owing to the rough motion, passengers stirred and groped their way from their darkened creaking corners up the hatchway to the deck with troubled hearts. They were rapidly outpaced by many rats running toward as high a place as possible. A few ferrets, which fed on them, appeared on the deck too and hissed and danced crazily, causing the ship dog to chase after them barking.
"My men, beseech your gods for mercy! Ask your respective gods to kindly calm the sea and lull the wind," the captain was ordering. "You, good passengers, too! You surely worship a god or two; so, do pray to your dear gods and vow that when you can ever walk on the firm land again you will do a handsome offering for them!"
The terror-stricken individuals on the deck sought mercy of their gods for their dear lives. But the stormy winds were not endeared. Nor did the ship stop making shrieks as if she were having labor pains and wanting to be delivered as soon as possible – or, perchance, was she too praying for mercy to some secret goddess?
The rats and ferrets clinging to high places squeaked and squealed for mercy too; then the ship dog whined and joined their lament with pensive howling – keeping its throat stretched as perpendicularly to heaven as possible, despite the motion.
"Oh, my god, my beloved god Bel, please pardon and help us!” a rich lumber merchant cried earnestly. “I swear I will make a shrine of Lebanon cedar for you if you help me out of this peril."
“Ah, great goddess Artemis, daughter of Zeus and the twin sister of Apollo!” pleaded a gambler. “I bet a hecatomb to be sacrificed in your wonderful shrine if I’d be allowed to live to do so! So please help me I don’t have to hand in my cards yet!”
“Alas, my plentiful Dagon, the fish-god and filler of our stomach with corn and wine! Please do not allow our stomach to be filled with salty water and seaweed!” the chef.
"Please turn from your anger, my lord Poseidon, god of the Sea!” prayed the captain. “Please spare us our lives! What did we do to deserve this catastrophe? We did nothing wrong to you, did we? Or is there anyone among us who overlooked a duty? If so, please let us know of it and we shall amend the wrong immediately."
"Oh, Baal, my good god Baal, please! Please help Jojo! If you must sink this ship, please turn me a dolphin, for I can’t swim!" shouted an apprentice cook in tears.
"Mother, Mother, help me! I am scared!" wept a cabin boy bitterly, who had come out to sea for the first time in his life.
The sailors, while uttering respective prayers to different gods, began throwing cargos and anything they could reach overboard so as to lower the gravity center of the ship as well as to lighten her.
Now, Yunus was still sleeping in the bottom of the ship, although his body was shaken and rolled like a log.
The captain came down there with a lantern. Hearing a groaning in the dark, he soon found the prophet and was awe-struck that a man should be able to stay asleep in such a rough motion.
"Terrible man!” thought the captain with a shudder, “sleeping in this tumult?! …Still, you are steadfastly awake to some sin or suffering you seem to have bred. …Certainly, some god must be angry at you and working this storm to rouse you up…in vain. …But, how come am I here?! I don’t know… Alas, alas! has the same god possessed me to come down here to kick this man up? For I don’t recollect why and how on earth I have come down in the midst of this dangerous motion!"
"Hey!” he shouted, shaking Yunus up, “How can you sleep in a moment like this? Wake up, and pray now to your god and appease his anger, whoever he may be! Maybe your god would turn merciful and help us."
"My God? No! I can't pray..."
"Don't you worship any god?"
"Yes, I do. I worship almighty god Allah, the Creator. But I am now escaping from him."
"You are escaping from your god? What do you mean? You must tell me!"
"Well, my god Allah told me to alarm the people of Ninuwa against his punishment, and persuade them to repent and stop their sins. But Ninuwans are so adamant, especially against foreign gods, so scarcely any one repented in spite of my efforts. So, I cursed them predicting their destruction and quitted the city, thereby disobeying Allah. After all, the task was a burden too heavy for me."
"(Aside) Why, you are a burden too heavy for my ship!"
"So, I am not fit to pray to Allah anymore!"
"Not fit to pray? Yes, you must pray! You see, this storm may be nothing but your god's fume at you. …Suppose your god is only trying to bring you back…back to Ninuwa. Oh, yes, you must pray to your god immediately, and say that you’ll go back to Ninuwa! The lives of many innocent men here are endangered due to your misconduct. If you do not repent and pray to your god for mercy, I as the captain of this ship in peril shall become your god's hand to do away with you.”
Meanwhile, on the deck, the captain's first mate was calling to the troubled men: "Hear me now, every one of you! Please, each one, draw one stick from this vase. And anyone whose stick is stained in red is the one who has invited this storm by somehow angering some god or goddess."
So, one by one the passengers and sailors came and drew their sticks uneasily, for each one had started thinking, "Oh, it must be that sin of mine that brought this storm!"
"Phew! I knew it was not me! Look at my lot, everyone!" said the lumber merchant with a great relief, since he had known that there was a risk of being thrown into the sea as a human sacrifice if he had drawn the wrong stick.
"Oh, thank god, me neither! I am often lucky at lotteries, so I feared I’d pick the red one. But my good god never makes a mistake, ha-ha" said the apprentice cook with tears in his eyes, and he resumed his prayer to Baal.
"Look! I am not the one to blame either. But poor my child, he is not to blame either, but you ruffians mercilessly threw the innocent boy into the cold water to be bitten by ravenous sharks!" cried a puppeteer, who had just lost one of his dear puppets.
Thus, one after another the sticks were drawn from the vase, but none had a red mark on it. There were only a few remaining in the vase.
"Now, who have not drawn yet?" asked an astrologer.
"I made the lottery, so I draw last according to the usage," said the first mate, shaking the vase to mix the sticks, as he had done each time a person picked his stick.
“I don’t see Captain. Where has he gone?” asked the gambler.
“And that athlete…that narrowly got on board with that hop skip and jump,” said the chef.
"Ah, that monk,” said a fire worshipper, “we left him sleeping below. He’s making such a terrible noise one would suspect he is a…speak of which, here he is.”
"There is no need for further drawing!" exclaimed Yunus, who had just climbed up to the deck, helped by the captain. "This storm has arisen on account of my misconduct, and is a work of my god Allah the Highest!"
The captain explained to them how Yunus had disobeyed and escaped from his god, and grabbing the last few lottery sticks from the vase, he thrust the red-marked one toward the stormy heaven and shouted:
"I solemnly ask the god of this man Yunus! On account of this red stick, do you mean to sink these innocent sticks as well into the sea?"
However, the storm only increased its violence.
"Alas, my Jove! the anchor cable is broken!" shouted the boatswain. “We are done unless the storm stops.”
People gathered round Yunus and unanimously showered accusations and complaints upon him.
"Hey! We are in danger of losing our lives owing to your presence here!" the chef.
"Pray tell, what manner of a man are you?" the fire worshipper.
“And on what account did you come to the sea?” the chef again.
"Where are you from?" the astrologer.
"I am a Hebrew from Gath," Yunus answered. "I fear Allah, the god in heaven, who made the sea and the earth."
"And what made you think you had any business running away from such a mighty god of yours?" the astrologer.
"Hey, we are not willing to get involved in a quarrel between you and your god," the gambler.
"What could we possibly do to escape this violent storm?" the first mate.
A wave jumped aboard and flooded almost the entire deck.
"Throw me into the sea. Then, it will be calm,” said Yunus, knowing that the time had come for him to perish. “I know it very well. It is me alone that Allah wants to feel this storm, and if you get rid of me, the ship and all of you will be safe."
However, the sailors went back to the oars and tried once more to row the ship toward a nearest harbor. Nonetheless, the rough sea and the violent winds pushed her farther away from the coast until the land disappeared from their view.
Now, the people urged the captain to make the decision.
The captain tore his coat and grabbed Yunus from behind by the shoulders and said with his face looking to the rain-pouring heaven: "Oh, god of this man Yunus, who is said to have created the earth and the sea, if you are not a merciless god, please do not take our lives just because this man is with us! But if you cannot pardon him, then we shall but have to put him into the deep sea, for we cannot go against your will. We can act only as you ordain, and our hands shall be clean of the life of this man. So, please show mercy to us and save at least our lives."
So saying, the captain pushed Yunus forward and the latter jumped overboard.
In a moment, there shone a bright golden light along the far swelling horizon as if it were a golden bow, and the dark clouds gave way to the blue sky, which expanded quickly from the horizon upwards and over. And, as Yunus had prophesied, the sea grew calm and flat, and it was as if someone had laid a vast blue carpet across the ocean.
At this the people were filled with awe and gratitude, and did not forget to pray and give praise to Allah, Yunus’ god, with thanks for saving their lives. The ship dog, feeling at ease now, resumed barking at the noisy rats and the ferrets, which quickly were absorbed in the hull.
Suddenly, a shout was heard over the noise of numerous prayers:
"Ahoy, look! Yunus is there!” It was the helmsman at helm shouting with his right hand pushed to the starboard side, which was the opposite of the prophet’s jumping. “He is alive! Let us go rescue him while he is afloat!"
The men rushed to the starboard and discerned that Yunus was drifting in the distance, and he was holding to a wooden puppet that had spilled from a wooden box of the puppeteer.
"(Aside) But if we rescue him, will not the storm come back?" everyone.
"Lower away the boat!" the captain.
“Aye, aye, sir,” the first mate.
"Ahoy, Yunus, we will come and rescue you in a moment, so hang in there!" the helmsman.
But no voice returned from Yunus.
As soon as the boat was on the calm water, the captain jumped into it, followed by two sturdy sailors and the dog. The three men rowed the boat toward Yunus as hard as they could. It was when the boat got within a stone's throw from Yunus that a sailor who had just climbed up to the mast-head of the ship shouted with his eyes popped:
"Captain, beware! Something big is coming! It's fast!"
“Where away?” the captain.
“There!” the sailor pointed in a direction beyond Yunus.
Captain and the others in the boat stopped rowing and turned their heads in the pointed direction. A huge swell of water was seen to rise and fall repeatedly as it approached.
The dog ran to the bow and began barking furiously at the strange apparition.
“Wha…what is that?!” the lumber merchant.
“Alas, it’s Hydra the sea serpent!” the astrologer.
"I bet it's a kraken! A giant squid! Look, it’s white!" the gambler.
"No, that's a whale!" the pop-eyed sailor on the mast-head, “It has flukes.”
"It’s going to attack Yunus!" the chef.
“It’s opened the mouth! It’s gonna bite him!” the fire worshipper.
"Ah, poor man! He is done at one gulp!" the first mate.
"Look, there goes the jet! So, it's a whale!" the astrologer.
"Ye, bloody monster, get this!" shouted Captain fiercely, as he stood up at the bow of the boat, and lanced a long boat-hook, which had been in the boat.
It flew high and landed on the vast white forehead of the sea monster, scratching and leaving a red thin line across it.
Whether offended by this or not, the monster wriggled the body and with its snow white flukes scooped and flipped the boat high in the air. The three men in the boat (to say nothing of the dog) shrieked as they were thrown into the air and down into the water and they did not come to the surface soon. When they popped up near the capsized boat and coughed and spat out the bitter brine, the monster jetted again raising an instant rainbow.
"Captain, are you alright?!" asked the sailors and passengers on the starboard of the ship, which rolled gently as the waves caused by the white whale’s exercise reached her.
"Ye, crook-jawed man-eating fish!" shouted Captain as he clutched at the boat, "if you claim to be on a god's errand, show us a sign now!"
The whale gave a glance at the captain with its left eye, and blew again and swam away dividing the peaceful green sea.
"That was the fate of Yunus, a runaway prophet that disobeyed Allah. How terrible!” the first mate. “But Yunus, did you really hear the voice of Allah and yet run?"
Continues to Chapter IV: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n2358go/
