CHAPTER LIII

ARABIA

'Tis beneath the dusky tent of the Bedouin Arab that we seek the model and the home of true love. There, as elsewhere, solitude and a fine climate have kindled the noblest passion of the human heart--that passion which must give as much happiness as it feels, in order to be happy itself.

In order that love may be seen in all the fullness of its power over the human heart, equality must be established as far as possible between the mistress and her lover. It does not exist, this equality, in our poor West; a woman deserted is unhappy or dishonoured. Under the Arab's tent faith once plighted cannot be broken. Contempt and death immediately follow that crime.

Generosity is held so sacred by this people, that you may steal, in order to give. For the rest, every day danger stares them in the face, and life flows on ever, so to speak, in a passionate solitude. Even in company the Arabs speak little.

Nothing changes for the inhabitant of the desert; there everything is eternal and motionless. This singular mode of life, of which, owing to my ignorance, I can give but a poor sketch, has probably existed since the time of Homer.[1] It is described for the first time about the year 600 of our era, two centuries before Charlemagne.

Clearly it is we who were the barbarians in the eyes of the East, when we went to trouble them with our crusades.[2] Also we owe all that is in our manner to these

[Pg 214] crusades and to the Moors of Spain. If we compare ourselves with the Arabs, the proud, prosaic man will smile with pity. Our arts are very much superior to theirs, our systems of law to all appearance still more superior. But I doubt if we beat them in the art of domestic happiness--we have always lacked loyalty and simplicity. In family relations the deceiver is the first to suffer. For him the feeling of safety is departed; always unjust, he is always afraid.

In the earliest of their oldest historical monuments we can see the Arabs divided from all antiquity into a large number of independent tribes, wandering about the desert. As soon as these tribes were able to supply, with more or less ease, the simplest human wants, their way of life was already more or less refined. Generosity was the same on every side; only according to the tribe's degree of wealth it found expression, now in the quarter of goat's flesh necessary for the support of life, now in the gift of a hundred camels, occasioned by some family connexion or reasons of hospitality.

The heroic age of the Arabs, that in which these generous hearts burnt unsullied by any affectation of fine wit or refined sentiment, was that which preceded Mohammed; it corresponds to the fifth century of our era, to the foundations of Venice and to the reign of Clovis. I beg European pride to compare the Arab love-songs, which have come down to us, and the noble system of life revealed in the _Thousand and One Nights_, with the disgusting horrors that stain every page of Gregory of Tours, the historian of Clovis, and of Eginhard, the historian of Charlemagne.

Mohammed was a puritan; he wished to prescribe pleasures which do no one any harm; he has killed love in those countries which have accepted Islamism.[3] It is for this reason that his religion has always been less

[Pg 215] observed in Arabia, its cradle, than in all the other Mohammedan countries.

The French brought away from Egypt four folio volumes, entitled _The Book of Songs_. These volumes contain:--

1. Biographies of the poets who composed the songs.

2. The songs themselves. In them the poet sings of everything that interests him; when he has spoken of his mistress he praises his swiftcoursers and his bow. These songs were often love-letters from their author, giving the object of his love a faithful picture of all that passed in his heart. Sometimes they tell of cold nights when he has been obliged to burn his bow and arrows. The Arabs are a nation without houses.

3. Biographies of the musicians who have composed the music for these songs.

4. Finally, the notation of the musical setting; for us these settings are hieroglyphics. The music will be for ever unknown, and anyhow, it would not please us.

There is another collection entitled _The History of those Arabs who have died for Love_.

In order to feel at home in the midst of remains which owe so much of their interest to their antiquity, and to appreciate the singular beauty of the manners of which they let us catch a glimpse, we must go to history for enlightenment on certain points.

From all time, and especially before Mohammed, the Arabs betook themselves to Mecca in order to make the tour of the Caaba or house of Abraham. I have seen at London a very exact model of the Holy City. There are seven or eight hundred houses with terraces on the roofs, set in the midst of a sandy desert devoured by the sun. At one extremity of the city is found an immense building, in form almost a square; this building surrounds the Caaba. It is composed of a long course of colonnades, necessary under an Arabian sun for the performance of the sacred procession, This colonnade is very

[Pg 216] important in the history of the manners and poetry of the Arabs; it was apparently for centuries the one place where men and women met together. Pell-mell, with slow steps, and reciting in chorus their sacred songs, they walked round the Caaba--it is a walk of three-quarters of an hour. The procession was repeated many times in the same day; this was the sacred rite for which men and women came forth from all parts of the desert. It is under the colonnade of the Caaba that Arab manners became polished. A contest between the father and the lover soon came to be established--in love-lyrics the lover discovered his passion to the girl, jealously guarded by brothers and father, as at her side he walked in the sacred procession. The generous and sentimental habits of this people existed already in the camp; but Arab gallantry seems to me to have been born in the shadow of the Caaba, which is also the home of their literature. At first, passion was expressed with simplicity and vehemence, just as the poet felt it; later the poet, instead of seeking to touch his mistress, aimed at fine writing; then followed that affectation which the Moors introduced into Spain and which still to-day spoils the books of that people.[4]

I find a touching proof of the Arab's respect for the weaker sex in his ceremony of divorce. The woman, during the absence of her husband from whom she wished to separate, opened the tent and drew it up, taking care to place the opening on the opposite side to that which she had formerly occupied. This simple ceremony separated husband and wife for ever.

[Pg 217] FRAGMENTS

Gathered and translated from an Arabic Collection entitled: _The Divan of Love_(39)

Compiled by Ebn-Abi-Hadglat. (Manuscripts of the King's Library, Nos. 1461 and 1462.)

Mohammed, son of Djaafar Elahouazadi, relates that Djamil being sick of the illness of which he died, Elabas, son of Sohail, visited him and found him ready to give up the ghost. "O son of Sohail," said Djamil to him, "what do you think of a man who has never drunk wine, who has never made illicit gain, who has never unrighteously given death to any living creature that God has forbidden us to kill, and who confesses that there is no other God but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet?" "I think," answered Ben Sohail, "that such a man will be saved and will gain Paradise; but who is he, this man of whom you talk?" "'Tis I," answered Djamil. "I did not think that you professed the faith," returned Ben Sohail, "and moreover, for twenty years now you have been making love to Bothaina, and celebrating her in your verses." "Here I am," answered Djamil, "at my first day in the other world and at my last in this, and I pray that the mercy of our Master Mohammed may not be extended to me at the day of judgment, if ever I have laid hands on Bothaina for anything reprehensible."

This Djamil and Bothaina, his mistress, both belonged to the Benou-Azra, who are a tribe famous in love among all the tribes of the Arabs. Also their manner of loving has passed into a proverb, and God has made no other creatures as tender in love as they.

Sahid, son of Agba, one day asked an Arab: "Of what people are you?" "I am of the people that die when they love," replied the Arab. "Then you are of the

[Pg 218] tribe of Azra," added Sahid. "Yes, by the Master of the Caaba," replied the Arab. "Whence comes it that you love in this manner?" Sahid asked next. "Our women are beautiful and our young men are chaste," answered the Arab.

One day someone asked Aroua-Ben-Hezam:[5] "Is it really true what people tell of you, that you of all mankind have the heart most tender in love?" "Yes, by Allah, it is true," answered Aroua, "and I have known in my tribe thirty young men whom death has carried oil and who had no other sickness but love."

An Arab of the Benou-Fazarat said one day to an Arab of the Benou-Azra: "You, Benou-Azra, you think it a sweet and noble death to die of love; but therein is a manifest weakness and stupidity; and those whom you take for men of great heart are only madmen and soft creatures." "You would not talk like that," the Arab of the tribe of Azra answered him, "if you had seen the great black eyes of our women darting fire from beneath the veil of their long lashes, if you had seen them smile and their teeth gleaming between their brown lips!"

Abou-el-Hassan, Ali, son of Abdalla, Elzagouni, relates the following story: A Mussulman loved to distraction the daughter of a Christian. He was obliged to make a journey to a foreign country with a friend, to whom he had confided his love. His business prolonged his stay in this country, and being attacked there by a mortal sickness, he said to his friend: "Behold, my time approaches; no more in the world shall I meet her whom I love, and I fear, if I die a Mussulman, that I shall not meet her again in the other life." He turned Christian and died. His friend betook himself to the young Christian woman, whom he found sick. She said to him:

[Pg 219] "I shall not see my friend any more in this world, but I want to be with him in the other; therefore I confess that there is no other God but Allah, and that Mohammed is the prophet of God." Thereupon she died, and may God's mercy be upon her.*

Eltemimi relates that there was in the tribe of the Arabs of Tagleb a Christian girl of great riches who was in love with a young Mussulman. She offered him her fortune and all her treasures without succeeding in making him love her. When she had lost all hope she gave an artist a hundred dinars, to make her a statue of the young man she loved. The artist made the statue, and when the girl got it, she placed it in a certain spot where she went every day. There she would begin by kissing this statue, and then sat down beside it and spent the rest of the day in weeping. When the evening came she would bow to the statue and retire. This she did for a long time. The young man chanced to die; she desired to see him and to embrace him dead, after which she returned to her statue, bowed to it, kissed it as usual, and lay down beside it. When day came, they found her dead, stretching out her hand towards some lines of writing, which she had written before she died.*

Oueddah, of the land of Yamen, was renowned among the Arabs for his beauty. He and Om-el-Bonain, daughter of Abd-el-Aziz, son of Merouan, while still only children, were even then so much in love that they could not bear to be parted from each other for a moment. When Om-el-Bonain became the wife of Oualid-Ben-Abd-el-Malek, Oueddah became mad for grief. After remaining a long time in a state of distraction and suffering, he betook himself to Syria and began every day to prowl around the house of Oualid, son of Malek, without at first finding the means to attain his desire. In the end, he made the acquaintance of a girl, whom he succeeded in attaching to himself by dint of his perseverance and his pains. When he thought he could rely on her, he

[Pg 220] asked her if she knew Om-el-Bonain. "To be sure I do," answered the girl, "seeing she is my mistress." "Listen," continued Oueddah, "your mistress is my cousin, and if you care to tell her about me, you will certainly give her pleasure." "I'll tell her willingly," answered the girl. And thereupon she ran straight to Om-el-Bonain to tell her about Oueddah. "Take care what you say," cried Om-el-Bonain. "What? Oueddah is alive?" "Certainly he is," said the girl. "Go and tell him," Om-el-Bonain went on, "on no account to depart until a messenger comes to him from me." Then she took measures to get Oueddah brought to her, where she kept him hidden in a coffer. She let him come out to be with her when she thought it safe; but if someone arrived who might have seen him, she made him get inside the coffer again.

It happened one day that a pearl was brought to Oualid and he said to one of his attendants: "Take this pearl and give it to Om-el-Bonain." The attendant took the pearl and gave it to Om-el-Bonain. As he was not announced, he entered where she dwelt at a time when she was with Oueddah, and thus he was able to throw a glance into Om-el-Bonain's apartment without her noticing him. Oualid's attendant fulfilled his mission and asked something of Om-el-Bonain for the jewel he had brought her. She refused him with severity and reprimanded him. The attendant went out incensed against her, and went to tell Oualid what he had seen, describing the coffer into which he had seen Oueddah enter. "You lie, bastard slave! You lie," said Oualid. And he ran in haste to Om-el-Bonain. There were several coffers in her apartment; he sat down on the one in which Oueddah was hid and which the slave had described, saying: "Give me one of these coffers." "They are all yours, as much as I myself," answered Om-el-Bonain. "Then," continued Oualid, "I would like to have the one on which I am seated." "There are

[Pg 221] some things in it that only a woman needs," said Om-el-Bonain. "It is not them, it is the coffer I desire," added Oualid. "It is yours," she answered. Oualid had the coffer taken away at once, and summoned two slaves, whom he ordered to dig a pit in the earth down to the depth where they would find water. Then placing his mouth against the coffer: "I have heard something of you," he cried. "If I have heard the truth, may all trace of you be lost, may all memory of you be buried. If they have told me false I do no harm by entombing a coffer: it is only the funeral of a box." Then he had the coffer pushed into the pit and covered with the stones and the earth which had been dug up. From that time Om-el-Bonain never ceased to frequent this spot and to weep, until one day they found her there lifeless, her face pressed towards the earth.*[6]

[1] Nine hundred years before Jesus Christ.

[2] 1095.

[3] Morals of Constantinople. The one way of killing passion-love is to prevent all crystallisation by facility.

[4] There are a large number of Arabic manuscripts at Paris. Those of a later date show some affectation, but no imitation of the Greeks or Romans; it is this that makes scholars despise them.

[5] This Aroua-Ben-Hezam was of the tribe of Azra, of which mention has just been made. He is celebrated as a poet, and still more celebrated as one of the numerous martyrs to love whom the Arabs enumerate.

[6] These fragments are taken from different chapters of the collection which I have mentioned. The three marked by an * are taken from the last chapter, which is a very summary biography of a considerable number of Arab martyrs to love.

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