The Tisroc (may he live forever)

kirke

kirke

New member
i have finished reading HHB and am a little confused about the Tisroc (may he live forever :D ) as well as Tash... can someone explain them to me? i kinda think the Tisroc is king and Tash his god but dont know.
 
You've pretty much got it. The Tisroc would be more like the Great Sultan, and Tash is the greatest of the Calormene gods. They've got others. There are a lot of similarities between the Calormenes and the Ottoman Turks, which would have been the great Oriental empire in the days of Lewis' growing up. The only disjoint was that the Ottomans were Muslims, which meant they didn't worship several gods or have idols, while the Calormenes had both.
 
There are a lot of similarities between the Calormenes and the Ottoman Turks, which would have been the great Oriental empire in the days of Lewis' growing up. The only disjoint was that the Ottomans were Muslims, which meant they didn't worship several gods or have idols, while the Calormenes had both.
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I've often wondered about the Turkish connection in Narnia, being Turkish myself, as there appear to be several references in the Narnia texts. Aslan being the Turkish word for lion is an obvious one, and 'Turkish Delight' (lokum in Turkish) even clearer.

I'm not so sure on the link between Calormenes and Turks, however, mainly because The Horse and His Boy appears to draw so heavily on One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, which isn't Turkish, but Persian (the source isn't completely clear; the 'Thousand Stories' or Hazâr Afsâna, has been suggested as one possibility. However, what is certain is that they are Persian, perhaps including elements of Indian and Arabic story telling as well. Its original title is The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, Kitāb 'Alf Layla wa-Layla in Arabic, Hazâr-o Yak Šab in Persian).

While Turks are Muslims, they aren't actually Arabs (as far as I'm aware); their ancestry is in China with the Mongols and other Turkic tribes. Further distinction comes linguistically - Turkish is a Ural-Altaic language, related to Korean and Chinese. At the other end of the spectrum, Finnish and Hungarian are also Ural-Altaic tongues. Persian, or farsi is in the Indo-European group, which includes Indian, and also English, German, French etc. Having said that, there are a couple of Persian loan-words in Turkish, like memur (civil servant), which break a number of Turkish grammatical rules. Further confusion between the ethnic groups is caused by the system of writing which would still have been used in Lewis' early years; Arabic script (although like Japanese, the script didn't fit the language all that well. This is why in Japan you have hiragana, katakana and romaji, because the Chinese derived ideograms aren't actually all that suitable for Japanese linguistics). A new alphabet was introduced in 1928 by Turkey's first head of state following the abolition of the Sultanate in 1922, Atatürk (honorary title of Mustafa Kemal - it means 'Father of the Turks'), which Lewis may or may not have known.

Hence Turks and Arabs were often merged in Western thinking, particularly as the Ottoman Empire was seen as a menacing Muslim 'other' lurking on the outskirts of Austria for much of its history. So its entirely possible Lewis might have thought of Arabs and Turks as the same people. Nevertheless, in my opinion Calormenes display Persian traits rather than Turkish.
 
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That's an interesting observation, slideyfoot, because despite all the references to the Ottomans, I've always thought the Calormenes seemed more Persian than Turkish. I think that many commentators, whose knowledge of history extends no further than the political, simply assume that since Lewis was a European from the early 20th century, and the big exotic nation within European scope at that time was the Ottoman Turks, that therefore Lewis must have modeled the Calormenes after them. But the classically educated Lewis was not under the same restrictions, and had studied many other cultures from Ancient China to Ancient Egypt. Your point about his chosing the name Aslan from Persian illustrates this. Their obvious heavy use of cavalry in warfare also supports this, for the Persians/Parthians used horses more than the Turks.

The Ottomans have always fascinated me, though, and I'm intrigued to hear that you're of Turkish heritage. The best book I've found is The Ottoman Centuries by Lord Kinross - can you recommend anything else?
 
I certainly could, as my father is a voracious and knowledgeable reader of Turkish history, so I'm more than happy to take a look at his library when I'm at the family home in a few days. He has a particular interest in Atatürk, who is unquestionably the most important figure in modern Turkish history, but I'm assuming you would prefer a broader survey?

Your point about his chosing the name Aslan from Persian illustrates this.
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Just to clarify, not what I meant. I'm not completely certain about the etymology of aslan, but as far as I'm aware, that is a Turkish word rather than a loanword from Persian. Generally you can tell the Persian words because of their stress - memur, in Turkish, would normally be pronounced 'memmurr'. However, because its a Persian loanword, the pronunciation is more like 'may-murr', with an extended vowel on the first syllable. Aslan follows usual Turkish proununication, sounds like 'A-slan', the stress falling on the second syllable rather than the first. This makes the 's' considerably softer than the common pronunciation of Lewis' character, 'Az-lan'; interestingly, it seemed that Mr Beaver in the new film leaned more towards the Turkish pronunciation.

I think the Persian word for lion is actually shir, seen in various other literary lions like Shir Khan from The Jungle Book (though Shir Khan is also a geographical location, so it may not be meant as 'Khan [i.e., King or ruler] of the Lions', or even 'Lion Khan').
 
Right, right - sorry, about the confusion. Having reread your post I caught what you said about aslan. Interestingly, I've got a book at home which is the story of a traveler in the mid-Asian area (east of the Caspian) in the early 1800s, and he meets a tribe whose leader is called Aslan-something - obviously meaning lion. Though it was north of Persia, the region was more where the turks would hail from.

Atatürk has always fascinated me as well. Many westerners I've read consider some of his tactics ruthless, but hey - he was a man of his time and the times were difficult. I admire the way he watched out for his people and held out against the colonial powers that wanted to carve up all of Turkey.

Have you ever read Fromkin's Peace to end all Peace?
 
Nope, can't say I have; considering the subject matter, I'd imagine its somewhere in my father's bookshelf, but if not, then thanks for the birthday present idea! ;)

My knowledge generally comes from my father as I was growing up; he would often tell me stories about Turkish history, in particular the Sultans, and we had an old tape (which I'm very annoyed I can't find anymore!) of a fantastic documentary tracing the various dynasties.

I've got more interested in looking into the historical facts as I've grown older, but the one problem with academia is that it rarely leaves space for much leisure reading. On the other hand, my area is poetry, which tends to be more about analysing smaller texts rather than reading lots of larger ones (except for critical studies, of course). That means I can easily fit in short books, like Narnia, and I read snippets of Orientalism and an intriguing history of Israel's modern foundation, called God, Guns and Israel.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to indulge some of my non-poetic interests at greater length in the not too distant future.


EDIT: Ok, I asked my father and he suggested four books. Firstly, The Ottoman Empire by Halil İnalcık (though I imagine you'll normally see Inalcik, which is misses out the Turkish vowels). The author is an academic, and this was originally published in 1973, reissued in paperback in 1994. The subtitle is 'The Classical Age: 1300-1600' with a picture of Fatih Mehmet on the front, so clearly limited to that period.

Secondly, a more recent book called The Ottoman Peoples and the End of Empire by Justin McCarthy, another history professor, which as the title suggests covers the end of the period.

Thirdly, what my father described as a 'popular' book, Inside the Seraglio by John Freely, focusing more directly on the sultans (the subtitle mentioned their 'private lives'). I thought he was another professor, as his wife taught one of my creative writing modules at university and I think mentioned it, but from the inside blurb, it says he has a PhD in physics. Whichever, he appears to have written numerous books on Turkey, and I know his wife speaks fluent Turkish - she shocked me at my first seminar with her by correctly pronouncing my name in the register!

Finally, Andrew Mango's book on Atatürk, which has its subject as the title. My father has met Dr Mango on a few occasions, and he is apparently a very knowledgeable man when it comes to Turkish history. He appears to be an expert on the Islamic world in general - his academic study was focused on Persian and Arabic, with a dissertation on the Islamic versions of legends on Alexander the Great.
 
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aslan and shir

"Aslan" is the Turkish word. It is not a Persian loan.
It's used in other Turkic languages, eg Uzbek ="arslon".
Uighuer, although a Turkic language, uses Persian "shir"
There is also an older form "Arslan", which is still used in Turkey in names.

"Shir" is the Persian word for lion.

"memur" is actually utimately an Arabic word, but came through Persian to Turkish.

CS Lewis did make a trip to Athens sometime in his life (And if I remember correctly he may have also visited Istanbul on the trip - can anyone verify that?)
 
I'd assumed that Persian and Arabic were closely related, but then I'm not familiar with either language; what are the significant differences?

CS Lewis did make a trip to Athens sometime in his life (And if I remember correctly he may have also visited Istanbul on the trip - can anyone verify that?)
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The only trip abroad I've read about is what sounded like a package holiday Lewis went on with Joy Davidman - that may have been somewhere in Greece, however.
 
I always had the impression that "the Tisroc (may he live forever)" was a fancy way of saying, "Oh, he's really great!" Obviously, there's no way he would have lived forever. I'm sure there's a whole lineage of Tisrocs. It does make me wonder who first Tisroc was.

I think it's on the line of Babylon and Persia, they would say to their kings, "O King, live forever!" I think CS Lewis modeled Calormen after Babylon and Persia.
 
This is a quote from the lyrics to "Zadok the Priest" sung at Charles III's coronation:

God save the king
Long live the king
God save the king
May the king live forever
Amen, amen, alleluia, alleluia, amen, amen
Amen, amen, alleluia, amen

Nobody wants to be the person who says the King could ever live too long for his (or their) own good.
 
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Quite a few Britishers had cause NOT to want Charles the Second to go on forever imprisoning dissenters like John Bunyan.
 
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