{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13086/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13086","id":"gutenberg_13086","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13086","summary":null,"tags":["Arabic poetry -- Translations into English","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Poetry"],"text":"The Wisdom of the East Series\n\nEdited by\nL. CRANMER-BYNG\nDr. S. A. KAPADIA\n\n\n\nTHE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA\n\nBy\nHENRY BAERLEIN\n\nAuthor of \"In Pursuit of Dulcinea,\" \"The Shade of the Balkans,\"\n\"Yrivand,\" etc.\n\n  The stars have sunk from the celestial bowers,\n  And in the garden have been turned to flowers.\n                             MUTAMID, _in captivity_.\n\nSecond Edition\n\nLONDON: John Murray, 1909.\n\n\n\nDEDICATION\n\nTO DR. E. J. DILLON\n\nNow the book is finished, so far as I shall finish it. There is,\nmy friend, but this one page to write. And, more than probably,\nthis is the page of all the book that I shall never wish to blot.\nIncreasing wisdom or, at any rate, experience will make me frown,\nI promise you, some time or other at a large proportion of the\npages of this volume. But when I look upon your name I hear a\ntroop of memories, and in their singing is my happiness.\n\nWhen you receive this book, presuming that the Russian Censor\ndoes not shield you from it, I have some idea what you will do.\nThe string, of course, must not be cut, and you will seriously\nset about the disentangling of it. One hand assists by holding\nup, now near the nose now farther off, your glasses; the other\nhand pecks at the string. After, say, twenty minutes there will\nenter the admirable Miss Fox--oh! the tea she used to make for us\nwhen we were freezing on the mountains of Bulgaria, what time our\nChicagoan millionaire was ruffled and Milyukov, the adventurous\nprofessor, standing now not far from Russia's helm, would always\ndrive ahead of us and say, with princely gesture, that if we\nsuffered from the dust it was advisable that he should be the one\nto meet the fury of the local lions. But do not let us lose the\nscent: Miss Fox, that woman of resource, will cut the string. And\nlater on, while to her you are dictating things political and\nwhile your other secretary is discoursing music, mournful Russian\nmusic, then with many wrinkles on your brow you will hold the\nbook at arm's length.\n\n\"The Serbonian Bog,\" says Miss Fox, repeating the last lines of\nthe dictation.\n\nYour face is held sideways with what is called, I believe, a\nquizzical expression.\n\n\"Morocco,\" says she, \"viewed from the banks of the Seine, is\nbecoming more and more like the Serbonian Bog.\" Then she waits,\ndiscreet as always, while you think. Miss Fox, his thoughts are\non the Adriatic!\n\nThere his boat, eleven years ago, was sailing underneath a net of\nstars and he was talking to a fellow-traveller. They had been\njoined at first by common suffering,--and how shall mortals find\na stronger link? On board that boat there was an elderly\nAmerican, the widow of a senator's brother-in-law, whose mission\nwas, she took it, to convert those two. What specially attracted\nher to them was not, perhaps, that they excelled the other\npassengers in luridness, but that they had the privilege of\nunderstanding, more or less, her language.\n\n\"Feci quod potui,\" said Dr. Dillon, \"faciant meliora potentes.\"\n\nShe said, and let us hope with truth, that recently a Chinaman,\nanother object of her ministrations, had addressed her as \"Your\nhonour, the foreign devil.\" And this caused her to discuss the\ndetails of our final journey--in the meantime we have taken many\nothers of a more delightful sort--and she assured us that we\nshould be joined by Chinamen and all those Easterners. She had\nextremely little hope for any of them, and Abu'l-Ala, the Syrian\npoet, whom Dr. Dillon had been putting into English prose,--\nAbu'l-Ala she steadily refused to read. Nor did the prospect of\nbeholding him in English verse evoke a sign of joy upon her\ncountenance. \"Oh,\" she exclaimed, \"what good is it?\" And there is\nnaught for me to say but \"Feci quod potui, faciant meliora\npotentes.\"\n\nH. B.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n INTRODUCTION TO THE DIWAN\n\n THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA\n\n APPENDIX\n\n\n\nEDITORIAL NOTE\n\nThe object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one.\nThey desire above all things that, in their humble way, these\nbooks shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding\nbetween East and West--the old world of Thought and the new of\nAction. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but\nfollowers of the highest example in the land. They are confident\nthat a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy\nof Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of\nCharity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another\ncreed and colour. Finally, in thanking press and public for the\nvery cordial reception given to the \"Wisdom of the East\" Series,\nthey wish to state that no pains have been spared to secure the\nbest specialists for the treatment of the various subjects at\nhand.\n\nL. CRANMER-BYNG.\nS. A. KAPADIA.\n\nNORTHBROOK SOCIETY,\n158, PICCADILLY, W.\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO THE DIWAN\n\n  God help him who has no nails wherewith to scratch himself.\n                                        _Arabian proverb_.\n\nAn effort has been made to render in this book some of the poems\nof Abu'l-Ala the Syrian, who was born 973 years after Jesus\nChrist and some forty-four before Omar Khayyam. But the life of\nsuch a man--his triumph over circumstance, the wisdom he\nachieved, his unconventionality, his opposition to revealed\nreligion, the sincerity of his religion, his interesting friends\nat Baghdad and Ma'arri, the multitude of his disciples, his\nkindliness and cynic pessimism and the reverence which he\nenjoyed, the glory of his meditations, the renown of his\nprodigious memory, the fair renown of bending to the toil of\npublic life, not to the laureateship they pressed upon him, but\nthe post of being spokesman at Aleppo for the troubles of his\nnative villagers,--the life of such a one could not be told\nwithin the space at our command; it will, with other of his\npoems, form the subject of a separate volume. What appears\nadvisable is that we should devote this introduction to a\ncommentary on the poems here translated; which we call a \"diwan,\"\nby the way, because they are selected out of all his works. A\ncommentary on the writings of a modern poet is supposed to be\nsuperfluous, but in the days of Abu'l-Ala of Ma'arri you were\nheld to pay the highest compliment if, and you were yourself a\npoet, you composed a commentary on some other poet's work.\nLikewise you were held to be a thoughtful person if you gave the\nworld a commentary on your own productions; and Abu'l-Ala did not\nneglect to write upon his _Sikt al-Zand_ (\"The Falling Spark of\nTinder\") and his _Lozum ma la Yalzam_ (\"The Necessity of what is\nUnnecessary\"), out of which our diwan has been chiefly made. But\nhis elucidations have been lost. And we--this nobody will\ncontradict--have lost the old facility. For instance, Hasan ibn\nMalik ibn Abi Obaidah was one day attending on Mansur the\nChamberlain, and he displayed a collection of proverbs which Ibn\nSirri had made for the Caliph's delectation. \"It is very fine,\"\nquoth Mansur, \"but it wants a commentary.\" And Hasan in a week\nreturned with a commentary, very well written, of three hundred\ncouplets. One other observation: we shall not be able to present\nupon these pages a connected narrative, a dark companion of the\npoem, which is to the poem as a shadow to the bird. A medi\u00e6val\nArab would have no desire to see this theory of connection put in\npractice--no, not even with a poem; for the lines, to win his\nadmiration, would be as a company of stars much more than as a\nflying bird. Suppose that he produced a poem of a hundred lines,\nhe would perchance make fifty leaps across the universe. But if\nwe frown on such discursiveness, he proudly shows us that the\nhundred lines are all in rhyme. This Arab and ourselves--we\ndiffer so profoundly. \"Yet,\" says he, \"if there existed no\ndiversity of sight then would inferior merchandise be left\nunsold.\" And when we put his poem into English, we are careless\nof the hundred rhymes; we paraphrase--\"Behold the townsmen,\" so\ncried one of the Bedawi, \"they have for the desert but a single\nword, we have a dozen!\"--and we reject, as I have done, the\nquantitative metre, thinking it far preferable if the metre sings\nitself into an English ear, as much as possible with that effect\nthe poet wants to give; and we oppose ourselves, however\nunsuccessfully, to his discursiveness by making alterations in\nthe order of the poem. But in this commentary we shall be obliged\nto leap, like Arabs, from one subject to another. And so let us\nbegin.\n\nWith regard to prayer (_quatrain_ 1), the Moslem is indifferent\nas to whether he perform this function in his chamber or the\nstreet, considering that every spot is equally pure for the\nservice of God. And yet the Prophet thought that public worship\nwas to be encouraged; it was not a vague opinion, because he knew\nit was exactly five-and-twenty times more valuable than private\nprayer. It is related of al-Muzani that when he missed being\npresent in the mosque he repeated his prayers twenty-five times.\n\"He was a diver for subtle ideas,\" said the biographer Ibn\nKhallikan. And although our poet, quoting the Carmathians, here\ndeprecates the common worship, he remarks in one of his letters\nthat he would have gone to mosque on Fridays if he had not fallen\nvictim to an unmentionable complaint. . . . The pre-Islamic Arabs\nwere accustomed to sacrifice sheep (_quatrain_ 1) and other\nanimals in Mecca and elsewhere, at various stones which were\nregarded as idols or as altars of the gods.[1] Sometimes they\nkilled a human being, such as the four hundred captive nuns of\nwhom we read that they were sacrificed by al-Mundhir to the\ngoddess Aphrodite. Sheep are offered up to-day in Palestine: for\ninstance, if the first wife of a man is barren and the second\nwife has children, then the former vows that in return for a son\nshe will give a lamb. Apparently when it was thought desirable to\nbe particularly solemn a horse was sacrificed, and this we hear\nof with the Persians, Indians, and more western people. White was\nheld to be the favourable colour, so we read in Herodotus (i.\n189) that the Persians sacrificed white horses. In Sweden it was\nthought that a black lamb must be dedicated to the water sprite\nbefore he would teach any one to play the harp. As for the\nsubsequent fate of the victim, Burton tells us that the Moslems\ndo not look with favour on its being eaten. Unlike them, Siberian\nBuriats will sacrifice a sheep and boil the mutton and hoist it\non a scaffold for the gods, and chant a song and then consume the\nmeat. So, too, the zealous devil-worshippers of Travancore, whose\ndiet is the putrid flesh of cattle and tigers, together with\narrak and toddy and rice, which they have previously offered to\ntheir deities.\n\nThe words of Abu'l-Ala concerning day and night (_quatrain_ 2)\nmay be compared with what he says elsewhere:\n\n  These two, young for ever,\n    Speed into the West--\n  Our life in their clutches--\n    And give us no rest.\n\n\"Generation goeth and generation cometh,\" says Ecclesiastes,\n\"while for ever the earth abideth. The sun riseth also and the\nsun goeth down and cometh panting back to his place where he\nriseth.\" . . . The early dawn, the time of scarlet eyes, was also\nwhen the caravan would be attacked. However, to this day the\nrising sun is worshipped by the Bedawi, despite the prohibition\nof Mahomet and despite the Moslem dictum that the sun rises\nbetween the devil's horns. Now the divinity of the stars\n(_quatrain_ 4) had been affirmed by Plato and Aristotle; it was\nsaid that in the heavenly bodies dwelt a ruling intelligence\nsuperior to man's, and more lasting.[2] And in Islam, whose holy\nhouse, the Kaaba, had traditionally been a temple of Saturn, we\nnotice that the rationalists invariably connect their faith with\nthe worship of Venus and other heavenly bodies. We are told by\nash-Shahrastani, in his _Book of Religious and Philosophical\nSects_, that the Indians hold Saturn for the greatest luck, on\naccount of his height and the size of his body. But such was not\nAbu'l-Ala's opinion. \"As numb as Saturn,\" he writes in one of his\nletters,[3] \"and as dumb as a crab has every one been struck by\nyou.\" Elsewhere he says in verse:\n\n  If dark the night, old Saturn is a flash\n  Of eyes which threaten from a face of ash.\n\nAnd the worship of Saturn, with other deities, is about a hundred\nyears later resented by Clotilda, says Gregory of Tours, when she\nis moving Chlodovich her husband to have their son baptized. When\nthe little boy dies soon after baptism, the husband does not fail\nto draw a moral. But misfortunes, in the language of an Arab\npoet, cling about the wretched even as a coat of mail (_quatrain_\n6) is on the warrior. This image was a favourite among the Arabs,\nand when Ibn Khallikan wants to praise the verses of one As Suli,\nhe informs us that they have the reputation of delivering from\nsudden evil any person who recites them frequently. When this\nevil is complete, with rings strongly riven, it passes away while\nhe thinks that nothing can dispel it. . . . We have mention in\nthis quatrain of a winding-sheet, and that could be of linen or\nof damask. The Caliph Solaiman was so fond of damask that every\none, even the cook, was forced to wear it in his presence, and it\nclothed him in the grave. Yet he, like other Moslems (_quatrain_\n10), would believe that he must undergo the fate recorded in a\nbook. The expression that a man's destiny is written on his\nforehead, had its origin without a doubt, says Goldziher, in\nIndia. We have remarked upon the Indian ideas which had been\ngathered by Abu'l-Ala at Baghdad. There it was that he enjoyed\nthe opportunity of seeing ships (_quatrain_ 11). He spent a\nportion of his youth beside the sea, at Tripoli. But in the\ncapital were many boats whose fascination he would not resist,--\nthe Chinese junks laboriously dragged up from Bassora, and dainty\ngondolas of basket-work covered with asphalt.[4] However, though\nin this place and in others, very frequently, in fact, Abu'l-Ala\nmakes mention of the sea, his fondness of it was, one thinks, for\nliterary purposes. He writes a letter to explain how grieved he\nis to hear about a friend who purposes to risk himself upon the\nsea, and he recalls a certain verse: \"Surely it is better to\ndrink among the sand-heaps foul water mixed with pure than to\nventure on the sea.\" From Baghdad also he would carry home the\nZoroastrian view (_quatrain_ 14) that night was primordial and\nthe light created. As a contrast with these foreign importations,\nwe have reference (_quatrain_ 15) to the lute, which was the\nfinest of Arabian instruments. They said themselves that it was\ninvented by a man who flourished in the year 500 B.C. and added\nan eighth string to the lyre. Certainly the Arab lute was popular\namong the Greeks: [Greek: arabion ar' eg\u00f4 kekin\u00eaka aulon], says\nMenander. It was carried to the rest of Europe by crusaders at\nthe beginning of the twelfth century, about which time it first\nappears in paintings, and its form persisted till about a hundred\nyears ago.[5] But with regard to travels (_quatrain_ 18), in the\ntwenty-seventh letter of Abu'l-Ala, \"I observe,\" says he, \"that\nyou find fault with travelling. Why so? Ought not a man to be\nsatisfied with following the precedent set by Moses, who, when he\nturned towards Midyan, said, Maybe the Lord will guide me?\"\n(Koran 28, 21). Should a man be satisfied with what he hears from\nthe philosopher al-Kindi? \"In any single existing thing, if it is\nthoroughly known, we possess,\" he said, \"a mirror in which we may\nbehold the entire scheme of things\" (_quatrain_ 20). The same\nphilosopher has laid it down that, \"Verily there is nothing\nconstant in this world of coming and going (_quatrain_ 24), in\nwhich we may be deprived at any moment of what we love. Only in\nthe world of reason is stability to be found. If then we desire\nto see our wishes fulfilled and would not be robbed of what is\ndear to us, we must turn to the eternal blessings of reason, to\nthe fear of God, to science and to good works. But if we follow\nmerely after material possessions in the belief that we can\nretain them, we are pursuing an object which does not really\nexist.\" . . . And this idea of transitoriness prevails so\ngenerally among the Arabs that the salad-seller recommends his\ntransitory wares to pious folk by calling, \"God is that which\ndoes not pass away!\" So, too, the Arab pictures as a bird, a\nthing of transience, the human soul. In Syria the dove is often\ncarved upon their ancient tombstones. And the Longobards among\ntheir graves erected poles in memory of kinsfolk who had died\nabroad or had been slain in battle; on the summit of the pole was\na wooden image of a dove, whose head was pointed in the direction\nwhere the loved one lay buried. With us, as with Abu'l-Ala\n(_quatrain_ 26), the soul may metaphorically be imagined as a\nbird, but for the European's ancestor it was a thing of sober\nearnest, as it is to-day to many peoples. Thus the soul of\nAristeas was seen to issue from his mouth in the shape of a\nraven.[6] In Southern Celebes they think that a bridegroom's soul\nis apt to fly away at marriage, wherefore coloured rice is\nscattered over him to induce it to remain. And, as a rule, at\nfestivals in South Celebes rice is strewed on the head of the\nperson in whose honour the festival is held, with the object of\ndetaining his soul, which at such times is in especial danger of\nbeing lured away by envious demons.[7] . . . This metaphor was\nused by Abu'l-Ala in the letter which he wrote on the death of\nhis mother: \"I say to my soul, 'This is not your nest, fly\naway.'\" And elsewhere (_quatrain_ 34) Death is represented as a\nreaper. Says Francis Thompson:\n\n  The goodly grain and the sun-flushed sleeper\n  The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.\n\nIt is interesting to find Death also called a sower, who\ndisseminates weeds among men: \"D\u00f4 der T\u00f4t s\u00eenen S\u00e2men under si\nges\u0153te.\"\n\nIt was an ancient custom of the Arabs when they took an oath of\nspecial significance to plunge their hands into a bowl of perfume\nand distribute it among those who took part in the ceremony. Of\nthe perfumes, musk (_quatrain_ 38) was one which they affected\nmost. Brought commonly from Turkistan, it was, with certain\nquantities of sandalwood and ambra, made into a perfume. And \"the\nwounds of him who falls in battle and of the martyrs,\" said\nMahomet, \"shall on the Day of Judgment be resplendent with\nvermilion and odorous as musk.\" This was repeated by Ibnol\nFaradhi, who in the Kaaba entreated God for martyrdom and, when\nthis prayer was heard, repented having asked. . . . This quatrain\ngoes on to allude to things which can improve by being struck.\nThere is in the third book of a work on cookery (so rare a thing,\nthey tell us, that no MS. of it exists in England or in any other\ncountry that can be heard of) an observation by the eighteenth-\ncentury editor to the effect that it is a vulgar error to suppose\nthat walnut-trees, like Russian wives, are all the better for a\nbeating; the long poles and stones which are used by boys and\nothers to get the fruit down, for the trees are very high, are\nused rather out of kindness to themselves than with any regard to\nthe tree that bears it. This valued treatise, we may mention, is\nascribed to C\u0153lius Apicius; its science, learning, and\ndiscipline were extremely condemned, and even abhorred by Seneca\nand the Stoics. . . . Aloes-wood does not emit a perfume until it\nis burned:\n\n       Lo! of hundreds who aspire\n       Eighties perish--nineties tire!\n  They who bear up, in spite of wrecks and wracks,\n  Were season'd by celestial hail of thwacks.\n\n       Fortune in this mortal race\n       Builds on thwackings for its base;\n  Thus the All-Wise doth make a flail a staff,\n  And separates his heavenly corn from chaff.[8]\n\nReward may follow on such absolute obedience (_quatrain_ 40). We\nremember what is said by Fra Giovanni in the prison of\nViterbo[9]: \"Endurez, souffrez, acceptez, veuillez ce que Dieu\nveut, et votre volont\u00e9 sera faite sur la terre comme au ciel.\"\nAnd perhaps the dawn for you may be your camel's dawn (_quatrain_\n41); it was usual for Arabs on the point of death to say to their\nsons: \"Bury my steed with me, so that when I rise from the grave\nI will not have to go on foot.\" The camel was tied with its head\ntowards its hind legs, a saddle-cloth was wrapped about its neck,\nand it was left beside the grave until it died. Meanwhile, if the\nmaster is a true believer, says Mahomet, his soul has been\ndivided from the body by Azrael, the angel of death. Afterwards\nthe body is commanded to sit upright in the grave, there to be\nexamined by the two black angels, Monkar and Nakyr (_quatrain_\n42), with regard to his faith, the unity of God and the mission\nof Mahomet. If the answers be correct, the body stays in peace\nand is refreshed by the air of paradise; if incorrect, these\nangels beat the corpse upon his temples with iron maces, until he\nroars out for anguish so loudly that he is heard by all from east\nto west, except by men and jinn. Abu'l-Ala had little confidence\nin these two angels; he reminds one of St. Catherine of Sienna, a\nvisionary with uncommon sense, who at the age of eight ran off\none afternoon to be a hermit. She was careful to provide herself\nwith bread and water, fearing that the angels would forget to\nbring her food, and at nightfall she ran home again because she\nwas afraid her parents would be anxious. With regard to the angel\nof death, Avicenna has related that the soul, like a bird,\nescapes with much trouble from the snares of earth (_quatrain_\n43), until this angel delivers it from the last of its fetters.\nWe think of the goddess R\u00e2n with her net. Death is imagined\n(_quatrain_ 44) as a fowler or fisher of men, thus: \"D\u00f4 kam der\nT\u00f4t als ein diep, und stal dem reinen w\u00eebe daz leben \u00fbz ir\nl\u00eebe.\"[10]\n\nOn account of its brilliance a weapon's edge (_quatrain_ 46) has\nbeen compared in Arab poetry with sunlit glass, with the torch of\na monk, with the stars and with the flame in a dark night. Nor\nwould an Arab turn to picturesque comparisons in poetry alone.\nSpeaking of a certain letter, Abu'l-Ala assures the man who wrote\nit that \"it proceeds from the residence of the great doctor who\nholds the reins of prose and verse\" (_quatrain_ 50). Now with\nregard to glass, it was a very ancient industry among the Arabs.\nIn the second century of the Hegira it was so far advanced that\nthey could make enamelled glass and unite in one glass different\ncolours. A certain skilled chemist of the period was not only\nexpert in these processes (_quatrain_ 52), but even tried to make\nof glass false pearls, whereon he published a pamphlet.\n\nDeath, from being a silent messenger who punctually fulfilled his\nduty, became a grasping, greedy foe (_quatrain_ 56). In the\nPsalms (xci. 3-6) he comes as a hunter with snares and arrows.\nAlso \"der T\u00f4t wil mit mir ringen.\"[11] In ancient times Death was\nnot a being that slew, but simply one that fetched away to the\nunderworld, a messenger. So was the soul of the beggar fetched\naway by angels and carried into Abraham's bosom. An older view\nwas the death-goddess, who receives the dead men in her house and\ndoes not fetch them. They are left alone to begin the long and\ngloomy journey, provided with various things.[12] \"Chacun remonte\n\u00e0 son tour le calvaire des si\u00e8cles. Chacun retrouve les peines,\nchacun retrouve l'espoir d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 et la folie des si\u00e8cles.\nChacun remet ses pas dans les pas de ceux qui furent, de ceux qui\nlutt\u00e8rent avant lui contre la mort, ni\u00e8rant la mort,--sont\nmorts\"[13] (_quatrain_ 57). It is the same for men and trees\n(_quatrain_ 59). This vision of Abu'l-Ala's is to be compared\nwith Milton's \"men as trees walking,\" a kind of second sight, a\nblind man's pageant. In reference to haughty folk, an Arab\nproverb says that \"There is not a poplar which has reached its\nLord.\" But on the other hand, \"There are some virtues which dig\ntheir own graves,\"[14] and with regard to excessive polishing of\nswords (_quatrain_ 60) we have the story of the poet Abu Tammam,\nrelated by Ibn Khallikan. He tells us how the poet once recited\nverses in the presence of some people, and how one of them was a\nphilosopher who said, \"This man will not live long, for I have\nseen in him a sharpness of wit and penetration and intelligence.\nFrom this I know that the mind will consume the body, even as a\nsword of Indian steel eats through its scabbard.\" Still, in\nArabia, where swords were so generally used that a priest would\nstrap one to his belt before he went into the pulpit, there was\nno unanimous opinion as to the polishing,--which, by the way, was\ndone with wood. A poet boasted that his sword was often or was\nrarely polished, according as he wished to emphasise the large\namount of work accomplished or the excellence of the polishing.\nImru'al-Kais says that his sword does not recall the day when it\nwas polished. Another poet says his sword is polished every day\nand \"with a fresh tooth bites off the people's heads.\"[15] This\nvigour of expression was not only used for concrete subjects.\nThere exists a poem, dating from a little time before Mahomet,\nwhich says that cares (_quatrain_ 62) are like the camels,\nroaming in the daytime on the distant pastures and at night\nreturning to the camp. They would collect as warriors round the\nflag. It was the custom for each family to have a flag\n(_quatrain_ 65), a cloth fastened to a lance, round which it\ngathered. Mahomet's big standard was called the Eagle,--and, by\nthe bye, his seven swords had names, such as \"possessor of the\nspine.\"\n\nWith _quatrain_ 68 we may compare the verses of a Christian poet,\nquoted by Tabari:\n\n And where is now the lord of Hadr, he that built it and laid\n     taxes on the land of Tigris?\n A house of marble he established, whereof the covering was\n     made of plaster; in the galbes were nests of birds.\n He feared no sorry fate. See, the dominion of him has departed.\n     Loneliness is on his threshold.\n\n\"Consider how you treat the poor,\" said Dshafer ben Mahomet, who\npilgrimaged from Mecca to Baghdad between fifty and sixty times;\n\"they are the treasures of this world, the keys of the other.\"\nTake care lest it befall you as the prince (_quatrain_ 69) within\nwhose palace now the wind is reigning. \"If a prince would be\nsuccessful,\" says Machiavelli, \"it is requisite that he should\nhave a spirit capable of turns and variations, in accordance with\nthe variations of the wind.\" Says an Arab mystic, \"The sighing of\na poor man for that which he can never reach has more of value\nthan the praying of a rich man through a thousand years.\" And in\nconnection with this quatrain we may quote Blunt's rendering of\nZohair:\n\n  I have learned that he who giveth nothing, deaf to his\n                                        friends' begging,\n     loosed shall be to the world's tooth-strokes: fools'\n                                 feet shall tread on him.\n\nAs for the power of the weak, we have some instances from\nAbbaside history. One of the caliphs wanted to do deeds of\nviolence in Baghdad. Scornfully he asked of his opponents if they\ncould prevent him. \"Yes,\" they answered, \"we will fight you with\nthe arrows of the night.\" And he desisted from his plans.\nPrayers, complaints, and execrations which the guiltless,\nfighting his oppressor, sends up to heaven are called the arrows\nof the night and are, the Arabs tell us, invariably successful.\nThis belief may solace you for the foundation of suffering\n(_quatrain_ 71), which, by the way, is also in the philosophic\nsystem of Zeno the Stoic. Taking the four elements of Empedocles,\nhe says that three of them are passive, or suffering, elements\nwhile only fire is active, and that not wholly. It was Zeno's\nopinion that everything must be active or must suffer. . . . An\nexplanation for our suffering is given by Soame Jenyns, who\nflourished in the days when, as his editor could write, referring\nto his father Sir Roger Jenyns, \"the order of knighthood was\nreceived by gentlemen with the profoundest gratitude.\" Soame's\nthesis is his \"Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil,\"\nthat human sufferings are compensated by the enjoyment possibly\nexperienced by some higher order of beings which inflict them, is\nridiculed by Samuel Johnson. We have Jenyns's assurance that\n\n    To all inferior animals 'tis given\n    To enjoy the state allotted them by Heav'n.\n\nAnd (_quatrain_ 75) we may profitably turn to Coleridge:\n\n  Oh, what a wonder seems the fear of death!\n  Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep;\n  Babes, children, youths and men,\n  Night following night, for threescore years and ten.\n\nWe should be reconciled, says Abu'l-Ala (_quatrain_ 76), even to\nthe Christian kings of Ghassan, in the Hauran. These were the\nhereditary enemies of the kings of Hirah. On behalf of the Greek\nemperors of Constantinople they controlled the Syrian Arabs. But\nthey disappeared before the triumphant Moslems, the last of their\nkings being Jabalah II., who was dethroned in the year 637. His\ncapital was Bosra, on the road between the Persian Gulf and the\nMediterranean. Nowadays the district is chiefly occupied by\nnomads; to the Hebrews it was known as Bashan, famous for its\nflocks and oak plantations. We can still discern the traces of\ntroglodyte dwellings of this epoch. The afore-mentioned Jabalah\nwas a convert to Islam, but, being insulted by a Mahometan, he\nreturned to Christianity and betook himself to Constantinople,\nwhere he died. But in the time of Abu'l-Ala, the Ghassanites were\nagain in the exercise of authority. \"These were the kings of\nGhassan,\" says Abu'l-Ala, \"who followed the course of the dead;\neach of them is now but a tale that is told, and God knows who is\ngood.\" A poet is a liar, say the Arabs, and the greatest poet is\nthe greatest liar. But in this case Abu'l-Ala in prose was not so\ntruthful as in poetry; for if Jabalah's house had vanished, the\nGhassanites were still a power. The poet, for our consolation,\nhas a simile (_quatrain_ 77) that may be put against a passage of\nHomer:\n\n  As with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er,\n  And thick bestrown, lies Ceres' sacred floor,\n  When round and round, with never-weary'd pain\n  The trampling steers beat out th' unnumber'd grain:\n  So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls,\n  Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes' souls.[16]\n\nFor everything there is decay, and (_quatrain_ 78) for the\nstriped garment of a long cut which now we are unable to\nidentify.\n\nWe read in the Wisdom of Solomon: \"As when an arrow is shot at a\nmark, it parteth the air which immediately cometh together again,\nso that a man cannot know where it went through.\" In this place\n(_quatrain_ 84), if the weapon's road of air is not in vain it\nwill discover justice in the sky. How much the Arabs were averse\nfrom frigid justice is to be observed in the matter of recompense\nfor slaying. There existed a regular tariff--so many camels or\ndates--but they looked askance upon the person who was willing to\naccept this and forgo his vengeance. If a man was anxious to\naccept a gift as satisfaction and at the same time to escape\nreproach, he shot an arrow into the air. Should it come down\nunspotted, he was able to accept the gift; if it was bloody, then\nhe was obliged to seek for blood. The Arabs, by the way, had been\naddicted to an ancient game, but Islam tried to stamp this out,\nlike other joys of life. The players had ten arrows, which they\nshot into the air; seven of them bestowed a right to the portion\nof a camel, the other three did not. Abu'l-Ala was fond of using\narrows metaphorically. \"And if one child,\" he writes to a\ndistinguished sheikh, \"were to ask another in the dead of night\nin a discussion: 'Who is rewarded for staying at home many times\nwhat he would be rewarded for going on either pilgrimage?' and\nthe second lad answered: 'Mahomet, son of Sa'id,' his arrow would\nhave fallen near the mark; for your protection of your subjects\n(_quatrain_ 86) is a greater duty than either pilgrimage.\" And\nour poet calls to mind some benefits attached to slavery\n(_quatrain_ 88): for an offence against morals a slave could\nreceive fifty blows, whereas the punishment of a freeman was\ndouble. A married person who did not discharge his vows was\nliable to be stoned to death, whereas a slave in similar\ncircumstances was merely struck a certain number of blows. It was\nand still is customary, says von Kremer, if anything is broken by\na slave, forthwith to curse Satan, who is supposed to concern\nhimself in very trifling matters. The sympathy Abu'l-Ala displays\nfor men of small possessions may be put beside the modicum\n(_quatrain_ 92) he wanted for himself. And these necessaries of\nAbu'l-Ala, the ascetic, must appeal to us as more sincerely felt\nthan those of Ibn at-Ta'awizi, who was of opinion that when seven\nthings are collected together in the drinking-room it is not\nreasonable to stay away. The list is as follows: a melon, honey,\nroast meat, a young girl, wax lights, a singer, and wine. But Ibn\nat-Ta'awizi was a literary person, and in Arabic the names of all\nthese objects begin with the same letter. Abu'l-Ala was more\ninclined to celebrate the wilderness. He has portrayed\n(_quatrain_ 93) a journey in the desert where a caravan, in order\nto secure itself against surprises, is accustomed to send on a\nspy, who scours the country from the summit of a hill or rock.\nShould he perceive a sign of danger, he will wave his hand in\nwarning. From Lebid's picture of another journey--which the\npre-Islamic poet undertook to the coast lands of Hajar on the\nPersian Gulf--we learn that when they entered a village he and\nhis party were greeted by the crowing of cocks and the shaking of\nwooden rattles (_quatrain_ 95), which in the Eastern Christian\nChurches are substituted for bells. . . . And the medi\u00e6val\nleper, in his grey gown, was obliged to hold a similar object,\nwaving it about and crying as he went: \"Unclean! unclean!\"\n\nAn ambitious man desired, regardless of expense, to hand down his\nname to posterity (_quatrain_ 99). \"Write your name in a prayer,\"\nsaid Epictetus, \"and it will remain after you.\" \"But I would have\na crown of gold,\" was the reply. \"If you have quite made up your\nmind to have a crown,\" said Epictetus, \"take a crown of roses,\nfor it is more beautiful.\" In the words of Heredia:\n\n  D\u00e9j\u00e0 le Temps brandit l'arme fatale. As-tu\n  L'espoir d'\u00e9terniser le bruit de ta vertu?\n  Un vil lierre suffit \u00e0 disjoindre un troph\u00e9e;\n\n  Et seul, aux blocs \u00e9pars des marbres triomphaux\n  O\u00f9 ta gloire en ruine est par l'herbe \u00e9touff\u00e9e,\n  Quelque faucheur Samnite \u00e9br\u00e9chera sa faulx.\n\nWould we write our names so that they endure for ever? There was\nin certain Arab circles a heresy which held that the letters of\nthe alphabet (_quatrain_ 101) are metamorphoses of men. And\nMagaira, who founded a sect, maintained that the letters of the\nalphabet are like limbs of God. According to him, when God wished\nto create the world, He wrote with His own hands the deeds of\nmen, both the good and the bad; but, at sight of the sins which\nmen were going to commit, He entered into such a fury that He\nsweated, and from His sweat two seas were formed, the one of salt\nwater and the other of sweet water. From the first one the\ninfidels were formed, and from the second the Shi'ites. But to\nthis view of the everlasting question you may possibly prefer\nwhat is advanced (_quatrains_ 103-7) and paraphrased as an\nepisode: Whatever be the wisdom of the worms, we bow before the\nsilence of the rose. As for Abu'l-Ala, we leave him now\nprostrated (_quatrain_ 108) before the silence of the rolling\nworld. It is a splendour that was seen by Alfred de Vigny:\n\n  Je roule avec d\u00e9dain, sans voir et sans entendre,\n  A c\u00f4t\u00e9 des fourmis les populations;\n  Je ne distingue pas leur terrier de leur cendre.\n  J'ignore en les portant les noms des nations.\n  On me dit une m\u00e8re et je suis une tombe.\n  Mon hiver prend vos morts comme son h\u00e9catombe,\n  Mon printemps n'entend pas vos adorations.\n\n  Avant vous j'\u00e9tais belle et toujours parfum\u00e9e,\n  J'abandonnais au vent mes cheveux tout entiers. . . .\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[1] _Cf_. Lyall, _Ancient Arabian Poets_.\n\n[2] _Cf_. Whittaker, _The Neo-Platonists_.\n\n[3] Of course I use Professor Margoliouth's superb edition of the\nletters.\n\n[4] _Cf_. Thielmann, _Streifz\u00fcge im Kaukasus, etc_.\n\n[5] _Cf_. Ambros, _Geschichte der Musik_, 1862.\n\n[6] _Cf_. Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, vii. 174.\n\n[7] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, vol. i., p. 254.\n\n[8] Meredith, _The Shaving of Shagpat_.\n\n[9] Anatole France, _Le Puits de Sainte Claire_.\n\n[10] Quoted by Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, vol. 2, p. 845.\n\n[11] Stoufenb., 1126.\n\n[12] _Cf_. in Scandinavia the death-goddess Hel.\n\n[13] Romain Rolland, _Jean Christophe_.\n\n[14] Ella d'Arcy, _Modern Instances_.\n\n[15] Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Schwarzlose, _Die Waffen der alten\nAraber, aus ihren Dichtern dargestellt_.\n\n[16] Pope, _Iliad_, xx. 577.\n\n\n\nTHE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA\n\nI\n\nAbandon worship in the mosque and shrink\n  From idle prayer, from sacrificial sheep,\n  For Destiny will bring the bowl of sleep\nOr bowl of tribulation--you shall drink.\n\n\nII\n\nThe scarlet eyes of Morning are pursued\n  By Night, who growls along the narrow lane;\n  But as they crash upon our world the twain\nDevour us and are strengthened for the feud.\n\n\nIII\n\nVain are your dreams of marvellous emprise,\n  Vainly you sail among uncharted spaces,\n  Vainly seek harbour in this world of faces\nIf it has been determined otherwise.\n\n\nIV\n\nBehold, my friends, there is reserved for me\n  The splendour of our traffic with the sky:\n  You pay your court to Saturn, whereas I\nAm slain by One far mightier than he.\n\n\nV\n\nYou that must travel with a weary load\n  Along this darkling, labyrinthine street--\n  Have men with torches at your head and feet\nIf you would pass the dangers of the road.\n\n\nVI\n\nSo shall you find all armour incomplete\n  And open to the whips of circumstance,\n  That so shall you be girdled of mischance\nTill you be folded in the winding-sheet.\n\n\nVII\n\nHave conversation with the wind that goes\n  Bearing a pack of loveliness and pain:\n  The golden exultation of the grain\nAnd the last, sacred whisper of the rose\n\n\nVIII\n\nBut if in some enchanted garden bloom\n  The rose imperial that will not fade,\n  Ah! shall I go with desecrating spade\nAnd underneath her glories build a tomb?\n\n\nIX\n\nShall I that am as dust upon the plain\n  Think with unloosened hurricanes to fight?\n  Or shall I that was ravished from the night\nFall on the bosom of the night again?\n\n\nX\n\nEndure! and if you rashly would unfold\n  That manuscript whereon our lives are traced,\n  Recall the stream which carols thro' the waste\nAnd in the dark is rich with alien gold.\n\n\nXI\n\nMyself did linger by the ragged beach,\n  Whereat wave after wave did rise and curl;\n  And as they fell, they fell--I saw them hurl\nA message far more eloquent than speech:\n\n\nXII\n\n_We that with song our pilgrimage beguile,\n  With purple islands which a sunset bore,\n  We, sunk upon the sacrilegious shore,\nMay parley with oblivion awhile_.\n\n\nXIII\n\nI would not have you keep nor idly flaunt\n  What may be gathered from the gracious land,\n  But I would have you sow with sleepless hand\nThe virtues that will balance your account.\n\n\nXIV\n\nThe days are dressing all of us in white,\n  For him who will suspend us in a row.\n  But for the sun there is no death. I know\nThe centuries are morsels of the night.\n\n\nXV\n\nA deed magnanimous, a noble thought\n  Are as the music singing thro' the years\n  When surly Time the tyrant domineers\nAgainst the lute whereoutof it was wrought.\n\n\nXVI\n\nNow to the Master of the World resign\n  Whatever touches you, what is prepared,\n  For many sons of wisdom are ensnared\nAnd many fools in happiness recline.\n\n\nXVII\n\nLong have I tarried where the waters roll\n  From undeciphered caverns of the main,\n  And I have searched, and I have searched in vain,\nWhere I could drown the sorrows of my soul.\n\n\nXVIII\n\nIf I have harboured love within my breast,\n  'Twas for my comrades of the dusty day,\n  Who with me watched the loitering stars at play,\nWho bore the burden of the same unrest.\n\n\nXIX\n\nFor once the witcheries a maiden flung--\n  Then afterwards I knew she was the bride\n  Of Death; and as he came, so tender-eyed,\nI--I rebuked him roundly, being young.\n\n\nXX\n\nYet if all things that vanish in their noon\n  Are but the part of some eternal scheme,\n  Of what the nightingale may chance to dream\nOr what the lotus murmurs to the moon!\n\n\nXXI\n\nHave I not heard sagacious ones repeat\n  An irresistibly grim argument:\n  That we for all our blustering content\nAre as the silent shadows at our feet.\n\n\nXXII\n\nAye, when the torch is low and we prepare\n  Beyond the notes of revelry to pass--\n  Old Silence will keep watch upon the grass,\nThe solemn shadows will assemble there.\n\n\nXXIII\n\nNo Sultan at his pleasure shall erect\n  A dwelling less obedient to decay\n  Than I, whom all the mysteries obey,\nBuild with the twilight for an architect.\n\n\nXXIV\n\nDark leans to dark! the passions of a man\n  Are twined about all transitory things,\n  For verily the child of wisdom clings\nMore unto dreamland than Arabistan.\n\n\nXXV\n\nDeath leans to death! nor shall your vigilance\n  Prevent him from whate'er he would possess,\n  Nor, brother, shall unfilial peevishness\nPrevent you from the grand inheritance.\n\n\nXXVI\n\nFarewell, my soul!--bird in the narrow jail\n  Who cannot sing. The door is opened! Fly!\n  Ah, soon you stop, and looking down you cry\nThe saddest song of all, poor nightingale.\n\n\nXXVII\n\nOur fortune is like mariners to float\n  Amid the perils of dim waterways;\n  Shall then our seamanship have aught of praise\nIf the great anchor drags behind the boat?\n\n\nXXVIII\n\nAh! let the burial of yesterday,\n  Of yesterday be ruthlessly decreed,\n  And, if you will, refuse the mourner's reed,\nAnd, if you will, plant cypress in the way.\n\n\nXXIX\n\nAs little shall it serve you in the fight\n  If you remonstrate with the storming seas,\n  As if you querulously sigh to these\nOf some imagined haven of delight.\n\n\nXXX\n\nSteed of my soul! when you and I were young\n  We lived to cleave as arrows thro' the night,--\n  Now there is ta'en from me the last of light,\nAnd wheresoe'er I gaze a veil is hung.\n\n\nXXXI\n\nNo longer as a wreck shall I be hurled\n  Where beacons lure the fascinated helm,\n  For I have been admitted to the realm\nOf darkness that encompasses the world.\n\n\nXXXII\n\nMan has been thought superior to the swarm\n  Of ruminating cows, of witless foals\n  Who, crouching when the voice of thunder rolls,\nAre banqueted upon a thunderstorm.\n\n\nXXXIII\n\nBut shall the fearing eyes of humankind\n  Have peeped beyond the curtain and excel\n  The boldness of a wondering gazelle\nOr of a bird imprisoned in the wind?\n\n\nXXXIV\n\nAh! never may we hope to win release\n  Before we that unripeness overthrow,--\n  So must the corn in agitation grow\nBefore the sickle sings the songs of peace.\n\n\nXXXV\n\nLo! there are many ways and many traps\n  And many guides, and which of them is lord?\n  For verily Mahomet has the sword,\nAnd he may have the truth--perhaps! _perhaps!_\n\n\nXXXVI\n\nNow this religion happens to prevail\n  Until by that religion overthrown,--\n  Because men dare not live with men alone,\nBut always with another fairy-tale.\n\n\nXXXVII\n\nReligion is a charming girl, I say;\n  But over this poor threshold will not pass,\n  For I may not unveil her, and alas!\nThe bridal gift I can't afford to pay.\n\n\nXXXVIII\n\nI have imagined that our welfare is\n  Required to rise triumphant from defeat;\n  And so the musk, which as the more you beat,\nGives ever more delightful fragrancies.\n\n\nXXXIX\n\nFor as a gate of sorrow-land unbars\n  The region of unfaltering delight,\n  So may you gather from the fields of night\nThat harvest of diviner thought, the stars.\n\n\nXL\n\nSend into banishment whatever blows\n  Across the waves of your tempestuous heart;\n  Let every wish save Allah's wish depart,\nAnd you will have ineffable repose.\n\n\nXLI\n\nMy faith it is that all the wanton pack\n  Of living shall be--hush, poor heart!--withdrawn,\n  As even to the camel comes a dawn\nWithout a burden for his wounded back.\n\n\nXLII\n\nIf there should be some truth in what they teach\n  Of unrelenting Monkar and Nakyr,\n  Before whose throne all buried men appear--\nThen give me to the vultures, I beseech.\n\n\nXLIII\n\nSome yellow sand all hunger shall assuage\n  And for my thirst no cloud have need to roll,\n  And ah! the drooping bird which is my soul\nNo longer shall be prisoned in the cage.\n\n\nXLIV\n\nLife is a flame that flickers in the wind,\n  A bird that crouches in the fowler's net--\n  Nor may between her flutterings forget\nThat hour the dreams of youth were unconfined.\n\n\nXLV\n\nThere was a time when I was fain to guess\n  The riddles of our life, when I would soar\n  Against the cruel secrets of the door,\nSo that I fell to deeper loneliness.\n\n\nXLVI\n\nOne is behind the draperies of life,\n  One who will tear these tanglements away--\n  No dark assassin, for the dawn of day\nLeaps out, as leapeth laughter, from the knife.\n\n\nXLVII\n\nIf you will do some deed before you die,\n  Remember not this caravan of death,\n  But have belief that every little breath\nWill stay with you for an eternity.\n\n\nXLVIII\n\nAstrologers!--give ear to what they say!\n  \"The stars be words; they float on heaven's breath\n  And faithfully reveal the days of death,\nAnd surely will reveal that longer day.\"\n\n\nXLIX\n\nI shook the trees of knowledge. Ah! the fruit\n  Was fair upon the bleakness of the soil.\n  I filled a hundred vessels with my spoil,\nAnd then I rested from the grand pursuit.\n\n\nL\n\nAlas! I took me servants: I was proud\n  Of prose and of the neat, the cunning rhyme,\n  But all their inclination was the crime\nOf scattering my treasure to the crowd.\n\n\nLI\n\nAnd yet--and yet this very seed I throw\n  May rise aloft, a brother of the bird,\n  Uncaring if his melodies are heard--\nOr shall I not hear anything below?\n\n\nLII\n\nThe glazier out of sounding Erzer\u00fbm,\n  Frequented us and softly would conspire\n  Upon our broken glass with blue-red fire,\nAs one might lift a pale thing from the tomb.\n\n\nLIII\n\nHe was the glazier out of Erzer\u00fbm,\n  Whose wizardry would make the children cry--\n  There will be no such wizardry when I\nAm broken by the chariot-wheels of Doom.\n\n\nLIV\n\nThe chariot-wheels of Doom! Now, hear them roll\n  Across the desert and the noisy mart,\n  Across the silent places of your heart--\nSmile on the driver you will not cajole.\n\n\nLV\n\nI never look upon the placid plain\n  But I must think of those who lived before\n  And gave their quantities of sweat and gore,\nAnd went and will not travel back again.\n\n\nLVI\n\nAye! verily, the fields of blandishment\n  Where shepherds meditate among their cattle,\n  Those are the direst of the fields of battle,\nFor in the victor's train there is no tent.\n\n\nLVII\n\nWhere are the doctors who were nobly fired\n  And loved their toil because we ventured not,\n  Who spent their lives in searching for the spot\nTo which the generations have retired?\n\n\nLVIII\n\n\"Great is your soul,\"--these are the words they preach,--\n  \"It passes from your framework to the frame\n  Of others, and upon this road of shame\nTurns purer and more pure.\"--Oh, let them teach!\n\n\nLIX\n\nI look on men as I would look on trees,\n  That may be writing in the purple dome\n  Romantic lines of black, and are at home\nWhere lie the little garden hostelries.\n\n\nLX\n\nLive well! Be wary of this life, I say;\n  Do not o'erload yourself with righteousness.\n  Behold! the sword we polish in excess,\nWe gradually polish it away.\n\n\nLXI\n\nGod who created metal is the same\n  Who will devour it. As the warriors ride\n  With iron horses and with iron pride--\nCome, let us laugh into the merry flame.\n\n\nLXII\n\nBut for the grandest flame our God prepares\n  The breast of man, which is the grandest urn;\n  Yet is that flame so powerless to burn\nThose butterflies, the swarm of little cares.\n\n\nLXIII\n\nAnd if you find a solitary sage\n  Who teaches what is truth--ah, then you find\n  The lord of men, the guardian of the wind,\nThe victor of all armies and of age.\n\n\nLXIV\n\nSee that procession passing down the street,\n  The black and white procession of the days--\n  Far better dance along and bawl your praise\nThan if you follow with unwilling feet.\n\n\nLXV\n\nBut in the noisy ranks you will forget\n  What is the flag. Oh, comrade, fall aside\n  And think a little moment of the pride\nOf yonder sun, think of the twilight's net.\n\n\nLXVI\n\nThe songs we fashion from our new delight\n  Are echoes. When the first of men sang out,\n  He shuddered, hearing not alone the shout\nOf hills but of the peoples in the night.\n\n\nLXVII\n\nAnd all the marvels that our eyes behold\n  Are pictures. There has happened some event\n  For each of them, and this they represent--\nOur lives are like a tale that has been told.\n\n\nLXVIII\n\nThere is a palace, and the ruined wall\n  Divides the sand, a very home of tears,\n  And where love whispered of a thousand years\nThe silken-footed caterpillars crawl.\n\n\nLXIX\n\nAnd where the Prince commanded, now the shriek\n  Of wind is flying through the court of state:\n  \"Here,\" it proclaims, \"there dwelt a potentate\nWho could not hear the sobbing of the weak.\"\n\n\nLXX\n\nBeneath our palaces the corner-stone\n  Is quaking. What of noble we possess,\n  In love or courage or in tenderness,\nCan rise from our infirmities alone.\n\n\nLXXI\n\nWe suffer--that we know, and that is all\n  Our knowledge. If we recklessly should strain\n  To sweep aside the solid rocks of pain,\nThen would the domes of love and courage fall.\n\n\nLXXII\n\nBut there is one who trembles at the touch\n  Of sorrow less than all of you, for he\n  Has got the care of no big treasury,\nAnd with regard to wits not overmuch.\n\n\nLXXIII\n\nI think our world is not a place of rest,\n  But where a man may take his little ease,\n  Until the landlord whom he never sees\nGives that apartment to another guest.\n\n\nLXXIV\n\nSay that you come to life as 'twere a feast,\n  Prepared to pay whatever is the bill\n  Of death or tears or--surely, friend, you will\nNot shrink at death, which is among the least?\n\n\nLXXV\n\nRise up against your troubles, cast away\n  What is too great for mortal man to bear.\n  But seize no foolish arms against the share\nWhich you the piteous mortal have to pay.\n\n\nLXXVI\n\nBe gracious to the King. You cannot feign\n  That nobody was tyrant, that the sword\n  Of justice always gave the just award\nBefore these Ghassanites began to reign.\n\n\nLXXVII\n\nYou cultivate the ranks of golden grain,\n  He cultivates the cavaliers. They go\n  With him careering on some other foe,\nAnd your battalions will be staunch again.\n\n\nLXXVIII\n\nThe good law and the bad law disappear\n  Below the flood of custom, or they float\n  And, like the wonderful Sar'aby coat,\nThey captivate us for a little year.\n\n\nLXXIX\n\nGod pities him who pities. Ah, pursue\n  No longer now the children of the wood;\n  Or have you not, poor huntsman, understood\nThat somebody is overtaking you?\n\n\nLXXX\n\nGod is above. We never shall attain\n  Our liberty from hands that overshroud;\n  Or can we shake aside this heavy cloud\nMore than a slave can shake aside the chain?\n\n\nLXXXI\n\n\"There is no God save Allah!\"--that is true,\n  Nor is there any prophet save the mind\n  Of man who wanders through the dark to find\nThe Paradise that is in me and you.\n\n\nLXXXII\n\nThe rolling, ever-rolling years of time\n  Are as a diwan of Arabian song;\n  The poet, headstrong and supremely strong,\nRefuses to repeat a single rhyme.\n\n\nLXXXIII\n\nAn archer took an arrow in his hand;\n  So fair he sent it singing to the sky\n  That he brought justice down from--ah, so high!\nHe was an archer in the morning land.\n\n\nLXXXIV\n\nThe man who shot his arrow from the west\n  Made empty roads of air; yet have I thought\n  Our life was happier until we brought\nThis cold one of the skies to rule the nest.\n\n\nLXXXV\n\nRun! follow, follow happiness, the maid\n  Whose laughter is the laughing waterfall;\n  Run! call to her--but if no maiden call,\n'Tis something to have loved the flying shade.\n\n\nLXXXVI\n\nYou strut in piety the while you take\n  That pilgrimage to Mecca. Now beware,\n  For starving relatives befoul the air,\nAnd curse, O fool, the threshold you forsake.\n\n\nLXXXVII\n\nHow man is made! He staggers at the voice,\n  The little voice that leads you to the land\n  Of virtue; but, on hearing the command\nTo lead a giant army, will rejoice.\n\n\nLXXXVIII\n\nBehold the cup whereon your slave has trod;\n  That is what every cup is falling to.\n  Your slave--remember that he lives by you,\nWhile in the form of him we bow to God.\n\n\nLXXXIX\n\nThe lowliest of the people is the lord\n  Who knows not where each day to make his bed,\n  Whose crown is kept upon the royal head\nBy that poor naked minister, the sword.\n\n\nXC\n\nWhich is the tyrant? say you. Well, 'tis he\n  That has the vine-leaf strewn among his hair\n  And will deliver countries to the care\nOf courtesans--but I am vague, you see.\n\n\nXCI\n\nThe dwellers of the city will oppress\n  Your days: the lion, a fight-thirsty fool,\n  The fox who wears the robe of men that rule--\nSo run with me towards the wilderness.\n\n\nXCII\n\nOur wilderness will be the laughing land,\n  Where nuts are hung for us, where nodding peas\n  Are wild enough to press about our knees,\nAnd water fills the hollow of our hand.\n\n\nXCIII\n\nMy village is the loneliness, and I\n  Am as the travellers through the Syrian sand,\n  That for a moment see the warning hand\nOf one who breasted up the rock, their spy.\n\n\nXCIV\n\nWhere is the valiance of the folk who sing\n  These valiant stories of the world to come?\n  Which they describe, forsooth! as if it swum\nIn air and anchored with a yard of string.\n\n\nXCV\n\nTwo merchantmen decided they would battle,\n  To prove at last who sold the finest wares;\n  And while Mahomet shrieked his call to prayers,\nThe true Messiah waved his wooden rattle.\n\n\nXCVI\n\nPerchance the world is nothing, is a dream,\n  And every noise the dreamland people say\n  We sedulously note, and we and they\nMay be the shadows flung by what we seem.\n\n\nXCVII\n\nZohair the poet sang of loveliness\n  Which is the flight of things. Oh, meditate\n  Upon the sorrows of our earthly state,\nFor what is lovely we may not possess.\n\n\nXCVIII\n\nHeigho! the splendid air is full of wings,\n  And they will take us to the--friend, be wise\n  For if you navigate among the skies\nYou too may reach the subterranean kings.\n\n\nXCIX\n\nNow fear the rose! You travel to the gloom\n  Of which the roses sing and sing so fair,\n  And, but for them, you'd have a certain share\nIn life: your name be read upon the tomb.\n\n\nC\n\nThere is a tower of silence, and the bell\n  Moves up--another man is made to be.\n  For certain years they move in company,\nBut you, when fails your song do fail as well.\n\n\nCI\n\nNo sword will summon Death, and he will stay\n  For neither helm nor shield his falling rod.\n  We are the crooked alphabet of God,\nAnd He will read us ere he wipes away.\n\n\nCII\n\nHow strange that we, perambulating dust,\n  Should be the vessels of eternal fire,\n  That such unfading passion of desire\nShould be within our fading bodies thrust.\n\n\nCIII\n\n_Deep in a silent chamber of the rose\nThere was a fattened worm. He looked around,\nEspied a relative and spoke at him:\nIt seems to me this world is very good_.\n\n\nCIV\n\n_A most unlovely world, said brother worm,\nFor all of us are piteous prisoners.\nAnd if, declared the first, your thought is true,\nAnd this a prison be, melikes it well_.\n\n\nCV\n\n_So well that I shall weave a song of praise\nAnd thankfulness because the world was wrought\nFor us and with such providential care--\nMy brother, I will shame you into singing_.\n\n\nCVI\n\n_Then, cried the second, I shall raise a voice\nAnd see what poor apologies are made.\nAnd so they sang, these two, for many days,\nAnd while they sang the rose was beautiful_.\n\n\nCVII\n\n_But this affected not the songful ones,\nAnd evermore in beauty lived the rose.\nAnd when the worms were old and wiser too,\nThey fell to silence and humility_.\n\n\nCVIII\n\nA night of silence! 'Twas the swinging sea\n  And this our world of darkness. And the twain\n  Rolled on below the stars; they flung a chain\nAround the silences which are in me.\n\n\nCIX\n\nThe shadows come, and they will come to bless\n  Their brother and his dwelling and his fame,\n  When I shall soil no more with any blame\nOr any praise the silence I possess.\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nON THE NAME ABU'L-ALA\n\nArab names have always been a stumbling-block, and centuries ago\nthere was a treatise written which was called \"The Tearing of the\nVeil from before Names and Patronymics.\" Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Jarit\nal-Misri is a fair example of the nomenclature; here we have the\npatronymic (Abu Bakr--father of Bakr), the personal name (Ahmad),\nthe surname (ibn Jarit--son of Jarit), and the ethnic name\n(al-Misri--native of Egypt). In addition, they made use of fancy\nnames if they were poets (such as Ssorrdorr, the sack of pearls,\nwho died in the year 1072), names connoting kindred, habitation\n(such as Ahmad al-Maidani, the great collector of proverbs, who\nlived near the Maidan, the race-course of Naisapur), faith or\ntrade or personal defects (such as a caliph who was called the\nfather of flies, since on account of his offensive breath no fly\nwould rest upon his lip), and finally they gave each other names\nof honour (such as sword of the empire, helper of the empire,\netc.). Then the caliph gave, as a distinction, double titles and,\nwhen these became too common, triple titles. (\"In this way,\" says\nal-Biruni, \"the matter is opposed to sense and clumsy to the last\ndegree, so that a man who says the titles is fatigued when he has\nscarcely started and he runs the risk of being late for prayer.\")\n. . . The patronymic was, of all of these, the most in favour. At\nfirst it was assumed when the eldest son was born; when Bakr came\ninto the world his father took the name of Abu Bakr, and acquired\na new importance. This was not by any means peculiar to the\nArabs: \"O Queen,\" says Das, a king of Indian folk-song, \"O Queen,\nthe name of childless has departed from me.\" When the Arab had no\nson, he used an honorific patronymic (such as Abu'l-Ala, father\nof excellence, or Abu'l-Feda, father of redemption). At times\nthis manufactured patronymic was a thing of mockery, more or less\ngentle (such as a companion of the Prophet who was fond of cats,\nand was entitled \"father of the cat\"). The prevalence among the\nArabs of the patronymic is immediately noticed, (a camel is the\nfather of Job; a strongly built person is the father of the\nlocust; a licentious person is the father of the night; and there\nare multitudes of such formations). . . . With regard to\nsurnames, it was not the custom always for them to denote that\nso-and-so was the son of his father's family. \"Who is your\nfather?\" says an Arab to the mule, and he replies, \"The horse is\nmy maternal uncle.\" So there are some people who, for shame,\nprefer that we should think of them as members of their mother's\nfamily. . . .\n\nThe following additional quatrains may be quoted:\n\n  Unasking have we come,--too late, too soon\n    Unasking from this plot of earth are sent.\n    But we, the sons of noble discontent,\n  Use half our lives in asking for the moon.\n\n(\"We all sorely complain,\" says Seneca, \"of the shortness of\ntime, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our\nlives are either spent in doing nothing at all or in doing\nnothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do.\nWe are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as\nthough there would be no end of them.\")\n\n  So then your hand has guarded me! Be blessed,\n    And, if you like such reading, read, I pray,\n    Through Moses' book, or credit them who say\n  That old Isaiah's hand is far the best.\n\n  Some day, some day the potter shall return\n    Into the dust. O potter, will you make\n    An earth which I would not refuse to take,\n  Or such unpleasant earth as you would spurn?\n\n  Then out of that--men swear with godly skill--\n    Perchance another potter may devise\n    Another pot, a piece of merchandise\n  Which they can love and break, if so they will.\n\n  And from a resting-place you may be hurled\n    And from a score of countries may be thrust--\n    Poor brother, you the freeman of the dust,\n  Like any slave are flung about the world.","title":"The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":10596}