The Indiscreet Jewels · Chapter
XX: Eighth Trial of the Ring explained
Mangogul investigates the fashionable affliction of 'the vapors' among the women of Banza, using the ring to expose the true thoughts behind their affected melancholy.
What happens
Mangogul investigates the fashionable affliction of 'the vapors' among the women of Banza, using the ring to expose the true thoughts behind their affected melancholy. He first visits Salica, who feigns vapors for her physician Farfadi, then Arsinoe, whose Toy reveals a comedic oscillation between laughter and lamentation over her absent lover Narces.
Themes in this chapter
Satire of Court and Society
The chapter mocks the vapors as a fashionable disease adopted by women to appear genteel, exposing the performative nature of courtly ailments.
Truth vs. Appearance
Mangogul's ring reveals the true thoughts behind the women's theatrical vapors, contrasting public pretense with private reality.
Gender and Sexual Politics
The vapors are linked to women's roles and relationships, with Salica using them to attract her physician and Arsinoe lamenting her lover.
Characters to notice
- Mangogul
The Sultan who resolves to test vaporish women with his ring, visiting Salica and Arsinoe.
- Mirzoza
The favorite who explains Callirhoe's absence due to vapors and complains of Mangogul's restlessness.
- Salica
A woman found in bed feigning vapors, with her Toy revealing the performance is for her physician Farfadi.
- Arsinoe
A woman alone in her chambers whose Toy alternates between laughter and weeping over Narces's absence.
- Farfadi
The little stammering humpbacked physician attending Salica during her vaporish farce.
Key passages
“There was a time, as we have seen, when the women dreaded the prating of their Toys, were stifled, and died away; but another succeeded, when they set themselves above this dread, threw away their muzzles, and had nothing beyond the vapors.”
Women once feared their Toys' gossip and were silenced, but later they overcame that fear and replaced it with the fashionable affliction of the vapors.
Introduces the shift from fear of exposure to the vapors as a social performance.
“Prince, without my three beasts, my nightingale, my lapdog and Callirhoe, I am good for nothing; and you see that I have not the last.”
Mirzoza tells Mangogul she needs her nightingale, lapdog, and Callirhoe to function, and Callirhoe is absent due to vapors.
Mirzoza's playful excuse for her own dullness, linking vapors to her attendant's absence.
“Oh! how tired I am of this humor! behold, madam has taken into her noddle to have the vapors. This farce will last eight days at least, and may I die, if I know the cause: for after Farfadi’s efforts to ferret out this disease, I think it is in the wrong to continue.”
Salica's Toy expresses boredom with her mistress's vapors, calling it a farce that will last a week, and doubts the physician's diagnosis.
The ring reveals Salica's vapors as a deliberate act, not a genuine illness.
“A woman who gives herself the vapors, gives them melancholy or merry, as is most convenient.”
Mangogul observes that women choose the mood of their vapors—sad or happy—based on what suits them.
Highlights the calculated nature of the vapors as a social tool.