HISTORY OF FOLD

Evening Star, Issue 23351, 22 August 1939, Page 6

HISTORY OF FOLD

SPORT IN ANCIENT PERSIA

There is, on the face of it, small connection between Meadow Brook and that ancient capital of Persia, Ispahan, and it is indeed a long stretch in history from the pre-Christian era to today, writes Eric Wakeham from London to the ‘ New York Times.’ Yet existing monuments and ancient literature prove that the connection exists, that those eight picked stalwarts of America and England ranged' against each other in this year’s series for the Westchester Cup at Meadow Brook are but carrying on a game which has been played for at least a score and seven centuries.

In the main square of Ispahan there standi to-day two stone pillars, shaped at the top like mitres. The distance between these two structures coincides exactly with that between the less solid posts between which the teams of America and England endeavour to hit the ball. The stone pillars are, in fact, the goal posts of the polo ground of the capital of the Shah Abbas, and wa know from the pen of the traveller Sir. Anthony Shirley that the game played there resembled the modern game. The form of sticks used was the' same as that of to-day, the ball was bowled; into the centre of the ground in tha modern manner, and tactics and a code of rules were evident. Persian, and even Chinese pictures give proof of the game down the centuries. If the famous ‘ Shah Namah,’ tha ‘Book of Kings,’ of the eleventh.century Persian poet Fridausi is to ha believed, the modern polo match is but a latter-day counterpart of one played ' on the uplands of Iran, the hero of which was the father of a monarch who was a mythical hero as early as tha seventh century b.c. Siawush, Prince of Iran, fled from' his_ father’s court, there having been a little trouble over a woman, to that of the neighbouring King ' of Turon.-' Thefe Afrasiab welcomed Siawush as a friend and a renowned polo player. One of the first remarks exchanged, after the tautological compliments necessary on such occasions was: “ To-morrow let’ us play polo.” And play they did in the first international match recorded. . After a’ friendly exhibition, which may well be considered the equivalent'of the modern habit of a preliminary , knocking about of the ball, the match started— Iran v. Turan. To the shouts of spectators, the clashing of symbals, and the throb of drums, the players of those ancient .kingdoms rode at each other through the dust. It was not long before the superiority of. the Iranians was manifest. The Turanians lost their tempers, and only the diplomatic injunctions of Siawush to his men, couched in “ high, piping Pahlevi,” a tongue unknown to the Turanians, that the match was a game, not’ a battle, saved a delicate international situation. MOKE LIKE A BATTLE.

To this day men in the remote hili States bordering Kashmir play a game more resembling a battle than the game of more genteel Western civilisation. The ground is the village street. Each side possesses a band, which, vies in cacophonic rivalry with the other. Tha tunes are measures of encouragement, with definite meaning, drubbed out on hand drums, kettle drums of goat skin,, and) cornets of peculiar shape and excruciating tone.: -The captain of the Side winning, ‘the toss gallops up tha centre of the ground with the ball in his hand. The ball is thrown into the air and struck, while the teams thunder in the wake of their captains. Any player may catch the . ball in mid-air and ride for the goal) endeavouring not to he pulled out of the saddle by his opponents, who are permitted by the rules to perpetrate most things short of actual murder. A mere 'hit through the posts does 'not necessarily score. The ball has to be picked up by hand by a member'of the same side. Since opponents take the opportunity at any such attempt to slash, at the hall to nit back into, play, cricket batting gloves would be an amenity ta polo. There are, however, .no batting gloves, and knuckles consequently acquire a hardness similar to that of the’ walls surrounding the “ground.” No periods exist. Many references to polo are traceable down the centuries. A stick and ball were the instruments of diplomatic insult when the King of Persians presented these implements to Alexander as a hint that Alxander would do well to ■ confine himself to a harmless game father _ than take up more dangerous pursuits. Alexander riposted neatly by accepting the ball as representing himself with tmch to beat

it. . As a youth, Bahrain, the Great Hunter, of Omar Khayyam’s lay, bad a special tutor for polo, Timui used, tha heads of the inhabitants of Damascus as polo balls when wreaking vengeance on that lovely city. ! Akhar, the Great Mogul, looked on the game as the best possible training for his officers and horses, and even made them plav at night with flaming balls of palm - wood, so enthusiastic was he. Since Akhar needed, and habitually took, but three hours of sleep a night, thie pastime probably appealed more to him than his officers. . , , / In the days of Firdausi and Tarounal, Raschild the stick was shaped like a mustard spoon, and we hear that the gay monarch of Bagdad was too small to reach down with his stick' at polo. An Emperor of Byzantium, we know from Cinnamus, was incapacitated from a toss at polo, and the Kutb Minar. that lofty pillar dominating the site of one of the seven ancient capi-* tals of India, near the Imperial Delhi of to-day, is a memorial to a royal Moslem who was killed, playing polo at Lahore. , Nor is. polo for women a modern innovation.. In the sixth century a.d., Shirin, the Byzantine .Queen or King Khusru Parvez of Persia,. and her <0 maidens- defeated the King and hu courtiers on the-.polo field. “These doves, these cities of sugar,” as the king described Shirin and her maidens when going down to the ground 1 with happy heart to see the. honris play,’ turned into hawks and lionesses on the polo field, and the king, slightly nettled by defeat, changed his views. ■ The game was evidently general among high-born women of the period, and a frieze in Central India depicts court women of the Mogul era playing the Byzantine form of polo, in which the ball was of leather and the stick possessed a 'racket head. The king’s actions even were staked on a game of polo by Shirin. She challenged a rival to a game. Gurdiya, the she devil, as Shirin described her to the king, defeated Shirin and became the bride of the king as a result. Whether Shinn thereafter also remained as queen, or whether she reverted to the harem of some 12,000 which Khusru is reputed to have possessed, history does not relate.. So much, however, once rested on the result of a mere game—but a game which remains to-day, as then, the king of games.