Part 18
A man like thee scarce e'er appeared— A beard like thine—where shall we find it? Surely thou cherishest thy beard In hopes to hide thyself behind it.
THE LAMENT OF THE VIZIER ABU ISMAEL[51]
No kind supporting hand I meet, But Fortitude shall stay my feet; No borrowed splendors round me shine, But Virtue's luster all is mine; A Fame unsullied still I boast, Obscured, concealed, but never lost— The same bright orb that led the day Pours from the West his mellowed ray.
Zaura, farewell! No more I see Within thy walls, a home for me; Deserted, spurned, aside I'm tossed, As an old sword whose scabbard's lost: Around thy walls I seek in vain Some bosom that will soothe my pain— No friend is near to breathe relief, Or brother to partake my grief. For many a melancholy day Through desert vales I've wound my way; The faithful beast, whose back I press, In groans laments her lord's distress; In every quivering of my spear A sympathetic sigh I hear; The camel bending with his load, And struggling through the thorny road, 'Midst the fatigues that bear him down, In Hassan's woes forgets his own; Yet cruel friends my wand'rings chide, My sufferings slight, my toils deride.
Once wealth, I own, engrossed each thought, There was a moment when I sought The glitt'ring stores Ambition claims To feed the wants his fancy frames; But now 'tis past—the changing day Has snatched my high-built hopes away, And bade this wish my labors close— Give me not riches, but repose. 'Tis he—that mien my friend declares, That stature, like the lance he bears; I see that breast which ne'er contained A thought by fear or folly stained, Whose powers can every change obey, In business grave, in trifles gay, And, formed each varying taste to please, Can mingle dignity with ease.
What, though with magic influence, sleep, O'er every closing eyelid creep: Though drunk with its oblivious wine Our comrades on their bales recline, My Selim's trance I sure can break— Selim, 'tis I, 'tis I who speak. Dangers on every side impend, And sleep'st thou, careless of thy friend? Thou sleep'st while every star on high, Beholds me with a wakeful eye— Thou changest, ere the changeful night Hath streak'd her fleeting robe with white.
'Tis love that hurries me along— I'm deaf to fear's repressive song— The rocks of Idham I'll ascend, Though adverse darts each path defend, And hostile sabers glitter there, To guard the tresses of the fair.
Come, Selim, let us pierce the grove, While night befriends, to seek my love. The clouds of fragrance as they rise Shall mark the place where Abla lies. Around her tent my jealous foes, Like lions, spread their watchful rows; Amidst their bands, her bow'r appears Embosomed in a wood of spears— A wood still nourished by the dews, Which smiles, and softest looks diffuse. Thrice happy youths! who midst yon shades Sweet converse hold with Idham's maids, What bliss, to view them gild the hours, And brighten wit and fancy's powers, While every foible they disclose New transport gives, new graces shows. 'Tis theirs to raise with conscious art The flames of love in every heart; 'Tis yours to raise with festive glee The flames of hospitality: Smit by their glances lovers lie, And helpless sink and hopeless die; While slain by you the stately steed To crown the feast, is doomed to bleed, To crown the feast, where copious flows The sparkling juice that soothes your woes, That lulls each care and heals each wound, As the enliv'ning bowl goes round. Amidst those vales my eager feet Shall trace my Abla's dear retreat, A gale of health may hover there, To breathe some solace to my care. I fear not love—I bless the dart Sent in a glance to pierce the heart: With willing breast the sword I hail That wounds me through an half-closed veil: Though lions howling round the shade, My footsteps haunt, my walks invade, No fears shall drive me from the grove, If Abla listen to my love.
Ah, Selim! shall the spells of ease Thy friendship chain, thine ardor freeze! Wilt thou enchanted thus, decline Each gen'rous thought, each bold design? Then far from men some cell prepare; Or build a mansion in the air— But yield to us, ambition's tide, Who fearless on its waves can ride; Enough for thee if thou receive The scattered spray the billows leave.
Contempt and want the wretch await Who slumbers in an abject state— 'Midst rushing crowds, by toil and pain The meed of Honor we must gain; At Honor's call, the camel hastes Through trackless wilds and dreary wastes, Till in the glorious race she find The fleetest coursers left behind: By toils like these alone, he cries, Th' adventurous youths to greatness rise; If bloated indolence were fame, And pompous ease our noblest aim, The orb that regulates the day Would ne'er from Aries' mansion stray.
I've bent at Fortune's shrine too long— Too oft she heard my suppliant tongue— Too oft has mocked my idle prayers, While fools and knaves engrossed her cares, Awake for them, asleep to me, Heedless of worth she scorned each plea. Ah! had her eyes more just surveyed The diff'rent claims which each displayed, Those eyes from partial fondness free Had slept to them, and waked for me. But, 'midst my sorrows and my toils, Hope ever soothed my breast with smiles; The hand removed each gathering ill, And oped life's closing prospects still. Yet spite of all her friendly art The specious scene ne'er gained my heart; I loved it not although the day Met my approach, and cheered my way; I loath it now the hours retreat, And fly me with reverted feet.
My soul from every tarnish free May boldly vaunt her purity, But ah, how keen, however bright, The saber glitter to the sight, Its splendor's lost, its polish vain, Till some bold hand the steel sustain.
Why have my days been stretched by fate, To see the vile and vicious great— While I, who led the race so long, Am last and meanest of the throng? Ah, why has death so long delayed To wrap me in his friendly shade, Left me to wander thus alone, When all my heart held dear is gone!
But let me check these fretful sighs— Well may the base above me rise, When yonder planets as they run Mount in the sky above the sun. Resigned I bow to Fate's decree, Nor hope his laws will change for me; Each shifting scene, each varying hour, But proves the ruthless tyrant's power.
But though with ills unnumbered curst, We owe to faithless man the worst; For man can smile with specious art, And plant a dagger in the heart. He only's fitted for the strife Which fills the boist'rous paths of life, Who, as he treads the crowded scenes, Upon no kindred bosom leans. Too long my foolish heart had deemed Mankind as virtuous as they seemed; The spell is broke, their faults are bare, And now I see them as they are; Truth from each tainted breast has flown, And falsehood marks them all her own. Incredulous I listen now To every tongue, and every vow, For still there yawns a gulf between Those honeyed words, and what they mean; With honest pride elate, I see The sons of falsehood shrink from me, As from the right line's even way The biassed curves deflecting stray— But what avails it to complain? With souls like theirs reproof is vain; If honor e'er such bosoms share The saber's point must fix it there.
But why exhaust life's rapid bowl, And suck the dregs with sorrow foul, When long ere this my mouth has drained Whatever zest the cup contained? Why should we mount upon the wave, And ocean's yawning horrows brave, When we may swallow from the flask Whate'er the wants of mortals ask? Contentment's realms no fears invade, No cares annoy, no sorrows shade, There placed secure, in peace we rest, Nor aught demand to make us blest. While pleasure's gay fantastic bower, The splendid pageant of an hour, Like yonder meteor in the skies, Flits with a breath no more to rise.
As through life's various walks we're led, May prudence hover o'er our head! May she our words, our actions guide, Our faults correct, our secrets hide! May she, where'er our footsteps stray, Direct our paths, and clear the way!
Till, every scene of tumult past, She bring us to repose at last, Teach us to love that peaceful shore, And roam through folly's wilds no more!
MOORISH LITERATURE
SCIENCE AND HISTORY AMONG THE MOORS
"_The religion sacred to philosophers is to study that which is, for the most sublime worship one can render to God is the recognition and knowledge of his works._" —AVERROES.
MOORISH LITERATURE
SCIENCE AND HISTORY
(INTRODUCTION)
The name "Moor" is used loosely to describe all those peoples who sprang from the mingling of the Berber, or Hamitic, stock of North Africa, with the Arabs or Semitic stock who swept over the region in the Mohammedan conquest. The chief achievement of this mixed or Moorish race was the establishment of their brilliant kingdom and independent caliphate in Spain. Under the most powerful of these Spanish caliphs, Ahderrahman III. (A.D. 912-961), their capital Cordova had six hundred mosques, including its still celebrated chief mosque, the most beautiful building of that age in Europe. The Moorish kingdom of Spain had then seventeen universities and over seventy large libraries. It was the most cultured land of Europe, the goal of scholars from less peaceful and less learned Christendom.
The Moorish kingdom in the course of the twelfth century broke up into many tiny States. These soon fought among themselves and plunged each other into a common ruin. African Moors, of far more ignorant and fanatic type, came to aid their Spanish brethren; and under the pressure of these barbarians, culture rapidly declined. The universities were broken up. The great scholar Averroes, who had been the pride of his nation, was accused of heresy. His teachings were found not sufficiently subservient to the Koran; and finally, in 1195, he was driven into exile. This event, or Averroes' death soon afterward, may be reckoned as marking the downfall of the Moorish leadership in science and philosophy.
In our volume we give some of Averroes' most celebrated commentaries, as typifying the culmination of Moorish culture. We give also, as its opening note, the speech with which Tarik, the first conqueror of Spain, in the year A.D. 711 led his army to cross the Straits of Gibraltar and began the attack upon the earlier Christian inhabitants. This speech does not, however, preserve the actual words of Tarik; it only presents the tradition of them as preserved by the Moorish historian Al Maggari, who wrote in Africa long after the last of the Moors had been driven out of Spain. In Al Maggari's day the older Arabic traditions of exact service had quite faded. The Moors had become poets and dreamers instead of scientists and critical historians. The very name of Al Maggari's history may be accepted as typifying its character. He called it "Breath of Perfumes."
SCIENCE AND HISTORY
PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHTS
(BY AVERROES)
The first to preach the resurrection were the prophets of Israel after Moses, then the Evangelical Christians, then the Sabians, whose religion has been called by Ibn-Hazm the oldest in the world. The reason so many founders of religion established this dogma was because they supposed this belief would moralize men and induce them to be virtuous in their own interests. I do not quarrel with Al Ghazali or Motecallemin for saying that the soul is immortal, but I object to the idea that the soul is a mere accident, and that a man can take again the body which has fallen into decay. No, he may take another, similar to the first, but that which has been dead can not return to life. These two bodies are only one, viewed as a species, but they are two in number. Aristotle has said in the last lines of his "Generation and Corruption": "A body once corrupted can never become the same again; it can never return as an individual whole, but it can return to the specific variety of which it is a part. When air separates from water or water separates from air, each of these substances can not become again the thing it was, but must return to its own species."
* * * * *
How have we come to adopt these tales of the creation? Through habit. Just as a man inured to poison can take it with impunity, so a man used to them from childhood can accept the most unbelievable opinions. Therefore the opinions of the masses are only formed through habit. The people believe that which they hear incessantly repeated. And that is why the power of religion is so much stronger than that of philosophy, for it is not accustomed to hearing the opposite of its belief, a thing which happens very often to philosophy: So one sees frequently, nowadays, men who, having entered suddenly into the study of the speculative sciences, lose the religious beliefs which they have only held through habit, and become _zendihs_ (infidels).
The religion sacred to philosophers is to study that which _is_, for the most sublime worship one can render to God is the recognition and knowledge of his works, which leads us to know him, himself, in all his _reality_. In the eyes of God that is the noblest action, while the vilest action is to tax with error and presumption those who practise this worship, higher than any other, who adore him by this religion, the best of all religions.
Among the most dangerous of these fictions concerning a future life are those which counsel virtue as a means of arriving at happiness. In that case virtue is no longer worth anything, since one only abstains from voluptuousness in the hope of being doubly repaid in the future. The brave will only seek death to evade a worse evil. The good will only respect the belongings of others in order to acquire twice as much.
Wine is forbidden because it excites wickedness and quarrels; but I am preserved from those excesses by wisdom: I take it only to sharpen my wits.[52]
That renegade philosopher, Al Ghazali, has gathered up all he learned from the writings of the philosophers, and has turned against them the arms he borrowed from them.
As for us, the philosophers, at the risk of exposing ourselves to the rage of the persecutors of philosophy, which was our mother, we will, when the time is ripe, uncover the poison hidden in Al Ghazali's book.
* * * * *
Our social state does not bring out all the resources and possibilities there are in women; it would seem that they are only destined to bear and rear children, and this state of servitude has destroyed in them the capability for larger things. That is why one never sees, with us, a woman possessed of the moral virtues—their lives pass like those of flowers, and they are a burden upon their husbands. From this comes also the misery which devours our cities, for there are twice as many women there as men, but the former are not permitted to work for their own support.
* * * * *
My father aided in rescuing from prison Ibn Badja, who was accused of heresy. My father does not understand that his own son will one day be regarded as a far worse heretic.
God alone knows if I am one; but it is absolutely certain that it was only the intrigues of my enemies which led to my condemnation. I thought only of editing Aristotle and establishing accord between religion and philosophy.
TARIK'S ADDRESS TO HIS SOLDIERS
(FROM THE HISTORY OF AL MAGGARI)
When Tarik had been informed of the approach of the enemy, he rose in the midst of his companions and, after having glorified God in the highest, he spoke to his soldiers thus:
"Oh my warriors, whither would you flee? Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy. You have left now only the hope of your courage and your constancy. Remember that in this country you are more unfortunate than the orphan seated at the table of the avaricious master. Your enemy is before you, protected by an innumerable army; he has men in abundance, but you, as your only aid, have your own swords, and, as your only chance for life, such chance as you can snatch from the hands of your enemy. If the absolute want to which you are reduced is prolonged ever so little, if you delay to seize immediate success, your good fortune will vanish, and your enemies, whom your very presence has filled with fear, will take courage. Put far from you the disgrace from which you flee in dreams, and attack this monarch who has left his strongly fortified city to meet you. Here is a splendid opportunity to defeat him, if you will consent to expose yourselves freely to death. Do not believe that I desire to incite you to face dangers which I shall refuse to share with you. In the attack I myself will be in the fore, where the chance of life is always least.
"Remember that if you suffer a few moments in patience, you will afterward enjoy supreme delight. Do not imagine that your fate can be separated from mine, and rest assured that if you fall, I shall perish with you, or avenge you. You have heard that in this country there are a large number of ravishingly beautiful Greek maidens, their graceful forms are draped in sumptuous gowns on which gleam pearls, coral, and purest gold, and they live in the palaces of royal kings. The Commander of True Believers, Alwalid, son of Abdalmelik, has chosen you for this attack from among all his Arab warriors; and he promises that you shall become his comrades and shall hold the rank of kings in this country. Such is his confidence in your intrepidity. The one fruit which he desires to obtain from your bravery is that the word of God shall be exalted in this country, and that the true religion shall be established here. The spoils will belong to yourselves.
"Remember that I place myself in the front of this glorious charge which I exhort you to make. At the moment when the two armies meet hand to hand, you will see me, never doubt it, seeking out this Roderick, tyrant of his people, challenging him to combat, if God is willing. If I perish after this, I will have had at least the satisfaction of delivering you, and you will easily find among you an experienced hero, to whom you can confidently give the task of directing you. But should I fall before I reach to Roderick, redouble your ardor, force yourselves to the attack and achieve the conquest of this country, in depriving him of life. With him dead, his soldiers will no longer defy you."
MOORISH LITERATURE
POETRY OF THE SPANISH MOORS
"_Fortune, that whilom owned my sway, And bowed obsequious to my nod, Now sees me destined to obey, And bend beneath oppression's rod._" PRINCE MOHAMMED BEN ABAD.
POETRY OF THE SPANISH MOORS
(INTRODUCTION)
While the scientific leadership of the Moors faded with the breaking of their military unity in the twelfth century, they still retained in some of their smaller kingdoms, and especially in that of Granada, a high degree of culture. The love of beauty and the spirit of romance were strong among all the Spanish Moors; and so their poetry continued long after science failed them. Poetry indeed became their main expression. Granada, the last of all their Spanish kingdoms, did not fall before the advancing Christians until 1492. Then, as our histories have so often told, Ferdinand and Isabella, the Christian rulers of Spain, conducted a holy war for the destruction of Granada. Its last fortress surrendered, and its people withdrew to Africa. There, according to a characteristically dreamy legend, they still retain the keys of their mansions in Granada, treasuring them up for the day of their triumphant return.
Of the Moorish poetry which survived the fall of Granada, much was preserved by the Spaniards themselves and in the Spanish language. The victors knew how to value the spirit of the vanquished; and ballads of Moorish origin, telling of Moorish loves, long remained popular in Spain. The authors of most of these have been forgotten. The text of some of the best known of them is given here.
MOORISH POETRY
VERSES TO MY DAUGHTERS[53]
(BY PRINCE MOHAMMED BEN ABAD)
With jocund heart and cheerful brow I used to hail the festal morn— How must Mohammed greet it now?— A prisoner helpless and forlorn.
While these dear maids in beauty's bloom, With want opprest, with rags o'erspread, By sordid labors at the loom Must earn a poor, precarious bread.
Those feet that never touched the ground, Till musk or camphor strewed the way, Now bare and swoll'n with many a wound, Must struggle through the miry clay.
Those radiant cheeks are veiled in woe, A shower descends from every eye, And not a starting tear can flow, That wakes not an attending sigh.
Fortune, that whilom owned my sway, And bowed obsequious to my nod, Now sees me destined to obey, And bend beneath oppression's rod.
Ye mortals with success elate, Who bask in hope's delusive beam, Attentive view Mohammed's fate, And own that bliss is but a dream.
SERENADE TO MY SLEEPING MISTRESS[54]
(BY ALI BEN ABAD)
Sure Harut's[55] potent spells were breathed Upon that magic sword, thine eye; For if it wounds us thus while sheathed, When drawn, 'tis vain its edge to fly.
How canst thou doom me, cruel fair, Plunged in the hell[56] of scorn to groan? No idol e'er this heart could share, This heart has worshiped thee alone.
THE INCONSISTENT[57]
When I sent you my melons, you cried out with scorn, They ought to be heavy and wrinkled and yellow; When I offered myself, whom those graces adorn, You flouted, and called me an ugly old fellow.
THE BULLFIGHT OF GAZUL[58]
King Almanzor of Granada, he hath bid the trumpet sound, He hath summoned all the Moorish lords, from the hills and plains around; From _vega_ and _sierra_, from Betis and Xenil, They have come with helm and cuirass of gold and twisted steel.
'Tis the holy Baptist's feast they hold in royalty and state, And they have closed the spacious lists beside the Alhambra's gate; In gowns of black and silver laced, within the tented ring, Eight Moors to fight the bull are placed in presence of the King.
Eight Moorish lords of valor tried, with stalwart arm and true, The onset of the beasts abide, as they come rushing through; The deeds they've done, the spoils they've won, fill all with hope and trust, Yet ere high in heaven appears the sun they all have bit the dust.
Then sounds the trumpet clearly, then clangs the loud tambour, Make room, make room for Gazul—throw wide, throw wide the door; Blow, blow the trumpet clearer still, more loudly strike the drum, The _Alcaydé_ of Algava to fight the bull doth come.
And first before the King he passed, with reverence stooping low, And next he bowed him to the Queen, and the _Infantas_ all a-row; Then to his lady's grace he turned, and she to him did throw A scarf from out her balcony, 'twas whiter than the snow.