IN MEMORY OF THE BELOVED KINSMAN HOVHANNES, OF THOSE AT REST IN THE LORD, THE MOST NOBLE GULBENKIAN BROTHERS BADRIG, GULABI, AND HARUTIUN RAISE THIS FUNERAL MONUMENT, PAPIK AND TORNIK
A MEMORIAL TO THE MOST NOBLE MR. BADRIG GULBENKIAN
Has it fallen to me, then, to Hayrik1 alone, to be the scribe of the Gulbenkian house's memories? Never for the living, always for the dead, who have left this world and fallen asleep in the Lord. Am I to set their virtuous memory at the head of a book, and leave it to your great-named family as a memorial no one will forget?
It was morning, just at sunrise. Oh, I did not know that the sun of your kinsman, my own beloved, had already gone down. And that hour, oh, that hour, when they brought me the black news. He is dead. Hovhannes, the man of progress, is dead. I said, take it, Hayrik's wreath is ready, Papik and Tornik.2 Carry it and lay it on his grave.
The sharp axe of pitiless death has still not left the Gulbenkian house. In a short span of time it cut down three thick-trunked cypresses, one after another, and it never said, it is enough. Let sons stand in place of the fathers.3
We thought death's grim officer had gone on his way, but he soon turned back. He struck and cut down that matchless branch, newly grafted with a marriage shoot, and from the shoot a newborn child had budded. Oh, that merciless officer of death had no pity. He tumbled the child out of its parents' loving arms, and with one blow he felled the two newly planted plane trees, wedded to each other, Hovhannes and Arax. Had they sworn a vow, then, never to be parted, even in death?
Hovhannes did hurry on ahead, and he left his life behind him, luckless Arax. Oh, I have no more need of the world, said Arax, no more need of life, and she ran after him and was gone. I do not know whether they were laid to sleep in a single chamber in the burial ground of the Holy Savior, those two love-bound husband and wife. But I know their souls were joined in heaven.
I turn to you now and speak with your soul, my beloved Hovhannes. You gave yourself to your nation and to Hayrik at every turn. The last time, the lot fell to you to travel as a delegate to Holy Etchmiadzin, Mother See of the Armenians, and to cast your free vote in the election of the Supreme Patriarch.4 They tell me you carried out that duty with complete honor, and that you left your good name and your memory here among us.
I do not know what thought moved you to bring your inseparable wife Arax along, so that she might see the land of the Armenians and its Mother See, the spiritual birthplace of our Father the Illuminator,5 which brought a whole nation to birth, and so that she might see the Arax too, the river of paradise,6 whose name she was given at her baptism. It was a piece of good fortune for you both, to drink at least once the deathless water of the Yeraskh, and to keep and remember always that everlasting token of our homeland.
The Gulbenkian house mourned you. Those who loved you mourned, and so did your friends. Hayrik was your friend too, and he mourned more than any of them. He had known you from your childhood, and he knew the fine marks of your spirit. Your face was always bright and cheerful, and I read the script of your heart and spirit like an open book, a book where a single word had been cut deep since your schooldays. That word was progress. If it had been nothing more than progress in this world's sciences, I would not have counted it so great a thing. What made it great was that the faith and godliness of the Gulbenkian son kept pace with it.
In the old merchant trade your fathers left you, you moved forward fearless and bold. And what was in your mind? What were you after? To grow rich, to grow great, to live in the world's splendor and simply enjoy your life? No. You wanted to grow rich only so that you could do good, for the nation, for the Church, for the enlightenment of the Armenians, and to give, always, with an open hand.
But oh, you died before your time, and the hopes you carried for the years ahead were left uncrowned. And who in this world has ever gone to the grave with his hope crowned and full? Ah, you left the Gulbenkian house a bereaved little Husik7 for an heir, and you went. Who knows? With the guardian Father of heaven watching over him, he may yet grow up, come into his strength, make his progress, remember his father, and crown your hope and your noble aim.
And Hayrik, from the land of Ararat, from the valley of old Aragats, from Noah's orchard on Masis,8 and from Mount Varag9 in Vaspurakan, gathers Papik and Tornik into a bouquet and crowns your name with it. Your memory will stay living and undying, always.
And you, kind-hearted eldest heir of the Gulbenkian family, my beloved Badrig. Take this bouquet of mine, this wreath, and carry it and lay it on your kinsman's grave. That wreath does not wither. Then go home, take the poor bereaved child in your arms, kiss him, and tell him, from now on I am your father and your guardian, and that is enough.
Notes
- Hayrik, "Little Father," is the name by which the Armenian people knew the author, Mkrtich Khrimian (1820-1907), then Catholicos of All Armenians. He speaks of himself by it throughout. ↩
- Papik and Tornik, "Grandfather and Grandson," is the title of this book. ↩
- An allusion to Psalm 45:16, "In place of your fathers shall be your sons." ↩
- In 1892 lay and clerical delegates from across the Armenian world gathered at Holy Etchmiadzin, near Yerevan, and elected Khrimian himself Catholicos of All Armenians. This was the election in which Hovhannes cast his vote. ↩
- St. Gregory the Illuminator (c. 257-331), apostle of Armenia's conversion to Christianity. Etchmiadzin is his see. ↩
- The Arax (classical Yeraskh), the great river of the Ararat plain. Armenian tradition counted it among the rivers flowing out of Eden. ↩
- The child's name, Husik, is a diminutive of hoys (yoys), "hope," a wordplay the whole sentence leans on. It is also the name of an early patriarch of Armenia. ↩
- Masis is the Armenian name of Great Ararat, where the ark rested and where Noah planted the first vineyard (Genesis 9:20). ↩
- Mount Varag, near Van, site of the monastery of Varagavank, where Khrimian had been abbot. The source prints «Վարազայ», an evident typo for «Վարագայ». ↩