In Memory of the Beloved Kinsman Hovhannes

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, then, to me — to Hayrik¹ alone — to be the scribe of the Gulbenkian house's remembrances: not for the living, but ever for the dead, who left this world and fell asleep in the Lord; to stamp their virtuous memory upon the brow of a written labor, and leave it to your great-named family line as a memorial never to be forgotten?

It was morning, at sunrise — ah, I did not know that the sun of your kinsman, of my beloved, had already gone down. And I — alas for that hour, when the black news was told: the forward-striving Hovhannes is dead! I said: Take it — see, Hayrik's wreath is ready, Papik and Tornik;² carry it and lay it upon his grave.

The sharp axe of pitiless death has not yet gone out from the Gulbenkian house. In a little span of time it struck down, one after another, three thick-trunked cypresses, and did not say, It is enough — let sons now stand in the fathers' stead.³

We thought death's grim bailiff had gone his way, but he soon turned back again; he struck and cut down that matchless branch, newly grafted with a wedding shoot, and from the shoot a fresh-sprung babe had budded. Alas, death's merciless bailiff knew no pity; he rolled the babe away out of its parents' doting arms; with one blow he felled the two newly planted plane trees joined together — Hovhannes it was, and Arax. Had they sworn a vow, then, to remain undivided even in death?

Though Hovhannes hastened on ahead, leaving behind his life — luckless Arax. Oh, I have no more need now of world or life, said Arax, and ran after him, and went. I know not whether they were laid to sleep in one chamber in the resting-ground of the Holy Savior, those two love-bound spouses; but I know that their souls were joined in heaven.

I turn now to you; with your soul I speak, my longed-for Hovhannes. You were devoted to your nation and to Hayrik on every occasion. At the last, the lot fell to you to go as a delegate to Holy Etchmiadzin, Mother See of the Armenians, and cast your free vote in the election of the Supreme Patriarch.⁴ They tell me now that in this duty you bore yourself with every nobility, and left behind you there your good name and memory.

I know not what thought moved you, that you took your inseparable wife Arax along as well — that she might see the land of the Armenians, the Mother See of the Armenians, the spiritual birthing-place of our Father the Illuminator,⁵ which bore a whole nation; that she might see, too, the Arax, river of paradise,⁶ with whose name she had been sealed at baptism. It was a happiness for you both, at least once to drink the immortal water of the Yeraskh, and to keep and remember always that everlasting token of our Fatherland.

The Gulbenkian house mourned you; loved ones and friends mourned. Hayrik too was your friend, who mourned more than any; from childhood he had known you and the beautiful marks of your spirit. Your face was always bright and cheerful; as in an open book I would read the script of your heart and spirit, where from your schooldays one word only was engraved deep: progress! Had it been mere progress in this world's sciences, I should not have counted it so great — had not the faith and godliness of the Gulbenkian scion kept pace beside your progress.

In the arena of your ancient, father-bequeathed merchant calling you pressed forward fearless and bold — and what was your thought, your aim? To grow rich, to grow great, to conduct your life in mere worldly splendor and enjoy it? No: to grow rich only in order to do good — to the nation, to the Church, to the enlightenment of the Armenians — and to give always with an open hand.

But alas, you died before your time, your hopes for the future left uncrowned. And who in this world ever went to the grave with his hope fully crowned? Ah, mourned one, you left the Gulbenkian house a little Husik⁷ for an heir, and departed. Who knows — the guardian Father of heaven preserving him — one day he will grow, flourish, go forward, remember his father's memory, 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, binding Papik and Tornik like a bouquet of flowers, wreathes your name with it; and your memory shall remain ever living and immortal.

And you, tender-hearted eldest heir of the Gulbenkian family, my beloved Badrig: take this my bouquet-wreath, carry it and lay it upon your kinsman's grave. That wreath is unfading. Then return home, embrace and kiss the mourned babe, and say: henceforth I am your father and your guardian — and it is enough.