Vahe H. Apelian
Recently I came across a booklet among my mother’s files. The cover of the notebook reads in Armenian “Shamlian-Tatigian Armenian Evangelical High School-Bourj Hammoud”. On the very top of the cover in an ornate Arabic script “Armenian Evangelical Secondary School, Bourj Hamoud, Lebanon” is noted. On the lower part of the front cover, in a square, the following is noted in Armenian for filling in: “Name, Class, Notebook, Scholastic year.”
Obviously, it is a notebook that was once prepared for use by the students of the Armenian Evangelical Shamlian-Tatigian High School in Nor Marash, to write down their class notes or assignments. My mother taught there Armenian language, history and also Bible for a quarter of century. During different periods of her teaching career she taught the elementary as well as the senior class students. In that section where the student noted his or her name, class, notebook subject and the scholastic year, she has noted her name and the following notation “Limerics for drawing lots during Hampartsoum festivity”. Incidentally Nor (New) Marash is a suburb of the Bourj Hamoud Municipality in Lebanon, which not far in too distant past was exclusively Armenian populated.
In the notebook she has jotted down in her beautiful handwriting one hundred and five (105) limericks, for lack of a better wording because mostly they are stanzas; that is to day they are mostly quatrains, consisting of four lines that rhyme in a poetic verse conveying a massage of, longing, of wisdom but overwhelmingly of love. Regretfully she has not noted the year she collected them. But it is not hard to surmise that the collection dates at least some forty years as she, by law, retired in from Shamlian-Tatigian School in early 1980’s after having taught there for 25 years and joined the rest of the family in the U.S., where she continued teaching.
My mother used to tell me that on the Armenian Highland Hamartsoum was celebrated with much more festivity than the previous major holidays, namely the New Year, the Christmas, and the Easter. Traditionally the Armenians called the Christmas and Easter, Zadig with Christmas designated as Sourp Zadig (Saint Zadig), at times also as Bzdig Zadig (Litter Zadig) while Easter is designated as Meds Zadig (Great Zadig).
Hampartsoum is the Feast of the Ascension that biblically comes after forty days of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The reason the Feast of Ascension was celebrated in a much more festive mood was the weather, which was severe on the Armenian Highland but mellowed down and started getting warmer by the Feast Ascension enabling people to venture out of their homes after winter long hibernation of sort. It was during the Feast Ascension, she would further elaborate and say that the young brides paid their first visit to their parental homes and the young came onto to open and socialized and celebrate the feast during which love blossomed among the young. It might be worth noting that months that did not contain the letter “r” were considered the most temperate and enjoyable on the Armenian Highland. Those four months are May (Mayis), the month the Feast of Ascension is celebrated, June (Hounis), July (Houlis), and August (Ocostos).
The Feast of Ascension ambiance is best captured by the famous opera “Anoush”. The plot of the opera centers and stems from Hampartoum celebration where the famous quadrant is song “Hampartoum yayla, yayla jan yayla, happy days yayla”. The limericks she has collected were sung or recited or might have been used as lots for drawing during the Hampartsoum festivity games. It was during such a game that Anoush drew her ominous lot that turned out to be true as tragedy struck her. Her brother and her lover Saro engaged in show of prowess. Tradition dictated that it would end in a draw but this time, enthused by the presence of her lover Anoush, Saro scored an outright win enraging Anoush’s brother who fatally shot Saro driving Anoush to madness.
The four lined stanzas in her collection, as noted, are mostly expressions of love and naturally it was the young men who expressed their love and longing. They are not literary works but mundane compositions. What is interesting is that some draw parallels to a long lost Armenian world. I quote two lines from a stanza that cites two Armenian Highland landmarks, Lake Van and Massis that are no more part of the lives of Armenians who once lived around the Lake Van and at the foot of Massis. In that limerick, the lover proclaims:
“I am a rainbow for you bridging Lake of Van
To quench your burning heart, I fetch snow for you from Massis.”
Such and similar expressions of love abound in the limericks or the stanzas, she jotted down. Naturally most, if not almost all are expressions of a young man’s Love or longing for his love praising her beauty.
As to the women, I came across one quatrain where she lamented her luck and noted saying:
“What should I tell to my father and to my mother?
They married me off to a gharib.”
The word “gharib” is a word that is fairly well known and used in conversation but appears not to have made inroad in Armenian dictionaries because it is not an Armenian adjective. It means foreign, emotionally distant.
There were a few limericks that are councils as how to best behave by being attentive to what one utters, or being compassionate or knowing many languages but especially Armenian and so forth.
I came across a few words that I did not know, although they are Armenian words that seemed were used in conversation but seemed to have been discontinued, such as կարեվեր (garever), which means deep wound, Խալ (khal), which means beauty spot. Another word was Ժանիք (janik), meaning canine tooth. It is a word I have no recollection of having heard in conversation although I knew what it meant.
My mother’s collection in her beautiful handwriting also became a source of reflection for me on this upcoming mothers’ day. She taught mostly Armenian language and history and Bible for some five decades in Armenian schools in Kessab, Beirut and in Los Angeles. She loved poetry and recited poetry well. She had an uncanny ability to memorize them and recited them at will until age ravaged her mind. She surely had deemed worthwhile to have these mundane quatrains preserved and so she jotted them down. In four installments I posted them on my blog for all those interested to read the limericks that were once song or recited during Feast of Ascension festivity, a tradition that seems understandably lost in the Diaspora, far from the Armenian Highland.
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