(1864-)

n Italian poet and novelist of early promise, who has become a somewhat unique figure in contemporary literature, Gabriele d'Annunzio is a native of the Abruzzi, born in the little village of Pescara, on the Adriatic coast. Its picturesque scenery has formed the background for more than one of his stories. At the age of fifteen, while still a student at Prato, he published his first volume of poems, 'Intermezzo di Rime' (Interludes of Verse): "grand, plastic verse, of an impeccable prosody," as he maintained in their defense, but so daringly erotic that their appearance created no small scandal. Other poems followed at intervals, notably 'Il Canto Nuovo' (The New Song: Rome, 1882), 'Isotteo e la Chimera' (Isotteo and the Chimera: Rome, 1890), 'Poema Paradisiaco' and 'Odi Navali' (Marine Odes: Milan, 1893), which leave no doubt of his high rank as poet. The novel, however, is his chosen vehicle of expression, and the one which gives fullest scope to his rich and versatile genius. His first long story, 'Il Piacere' (Pleasure), appeared in 1889. As the title implies, it was pervaded with a frank, almost complacent sensuality, which its author has since been inclined to deprecate. Nevertheless, the book received merited praise for its subtle portrayal of character and incident, and its exuberance of phraseology; and more than all, for the promise which it suggested. With the publication of 'L'Innocente,' the author for the first time showed a real seriousness of purpose. His views of life had meanwhile essentially altered:--"As was just," he confessed, "I began to pay for my errors, my disorders, my excesses: I began to suffer with the same intensity with which I had formerly enjoyed myself; sorrow had made of me a new man." Accordingly his later books, while still emphatically realistic, are chastened by an underlying tone of pessimism. Passion is no longer the keynote of life, but rather, as exemplified in 'Il Trionfo della Morte,' the prelude of death. Leaving Rome, where, "like the outpouring of the sewers, a flood of base desires invaded every square and cross-road, ever more putrid and more swollen," D'Annunzio retired to Francovilla-al-Mare, a few miles from his birthplace. There he lives in seclusion, esteemed by the simple-minded, honest, and somewhat fanatical peasantry, to whose quaint and primitive manners his books owe much of their distinctive atmosphere.

In Italy, D'Annunzio's career has been watched with growing interest. Until recently, however, he was scarcely known to the world at large, when a few poems, translated into French, brought his name into immediate prominence. Within a year three Paris journals acquired rights of translation from him, and he has since occupied the attention of such authoritative French critics as Henri Rabusson, René Doumic, Edouard Rod, Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé, and, most recently, Ferdinand Brunetière, all of whom seem to have a clearer appreciation of his quality than even his critics at home. At the same time there is a small but hostile minority among the French novelists, whose literary feelings are voiced by Léon Daudet in a vehement protest under the title 'Assez d'Étrangers' (Enough of Foreigners).

It is too soon to pass final judgment on D'Annunzio's style, which has been undergoing an obvious transition, not yet accomplished. Realist and psychologist, symbolist and mystic by turns, and first and always a poet, he has been compared successively to Bourget and Maupassant, Tolstoi and Dostoïevsky, Théophile Gautier and Catulle Mendès, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Baudelaire. Such complexity of style is the outcome of his cosmopolitan taste in literature, and his tendency to assimilate for future use whatever pleases him in each successive author. Shakespeare and Goethe, Keats and Heine, Plato and Zoroaster, figure among the names which throng his pages; while his unacknowledged and often unconscious indebtedness to writers of lesser magnitude,--notably the self-styled 'Sar' Joseph Peladan--has lately raised an outcry of plagiarism. Yet whatever leaves his pen, borrowed or original, has received the unmistakable imprint of his powerful individuality.

It is easy to trace the influences under which, successively, D'Annunzio has come. They are essentially French. He is a French writer in an Italian medium. His early short sketches, noteworthy chiefly for their morbid intensity, were modeled largely on Maupassant, whose frank, unblushing realism left a permanent imprint upon the style of his admirer, and whose later analytic tendency probably had an important share in turning his attention to the psychological school.

'Il Piacere,' though largely inspired by Paul Bourget, contains as large an element of 'Notre Coeur' and 'Bel-Ami' as of 'Le Disciple' and 'Coeur de Femme.' In this novel, Andrea Sperelli affords us the type of D'Annunzio's heroes, who, aside from differences due to age and environment, are all essentially the same,--somewhat weak, yet undeniably attractive; containing, all of them, "something of a Don Juan and a Cherubini," with the Don Juan element preponderating. The plot of 'Il Piacere' is not remarkable either for depth or for novelty, being the needlessly detailed record of Sperelli's relations with two married women, of totally opposite types.

'Giovanni Episcopo' is a brief, painful tragedy of low life, written under the influence of Russian evangelism, and full of reminiscences of Dostoïevsky's 'Crime and Punishment.' Giovanni is a poor clerk, of a weak, pusillanimous nature, completely dominated by a coarse, brutal companion, Giulio Wanzer, who makes him an abject slave, until a detected forgery compels Wanzer to flee the country. Episcopo then marries Ginevra, the pretty but unprincipled waitress at his pension, who speedily drags him down to the lowest depths of degradation, making him a mere nonentity in his own household, willing to live on the proceeds of her infamy. They have one child, a boy, Ciro, on whom Giovanni lavishes all his suppressed tenderness. After ten years of this martyrdom, the hated Wanzer reappears and installs himself as husband in the Episcopo household. Giovanni submits in helpless fury, till one day Wanzer beats Ginevra, and little Ciro intervenes to protect his mother. Wanzer turns on the child, and a spark of manhood is at last kindled in Giovanni's breast. He springs upon Wanzer, and with the pent-up rage of years stabs him.

'L'Innocente,' D'Annunzio's second long novel, also bears the stamp of Russian influence. It is a gruesome, repulsive story of domestic infidelity, in which he has handled the theory of pardon, the motive of numerous recent French novels, like Daudet's 'La Petite Paroisse' and Paul Marguerite's 'La Tourmente.'

In another extended work, 'Il Trionfo della Morte' (The Triumph of Death), D'Annunzio appears as a convert to Nietzsche's philosophy and to Wagnerianism. Ferdinand Brunetière has pronounced it unsurpassed by the naturalistic schools of England, France, or Russia. In brief, the hero, Giorgio Aurispa, a morbid sensualist, with an inherited tendency to suicide, is led by fate through a series of circumstances which keep the thought of death continually before him. They finally goad him on to fling himself from a cliff into the sea, dragging with him the woman he loves.

The 'Vergini della Rocca' (Maidens of the Crag), his last story, is more an idyllic poem than a novel. Claudio Cantelmo, sickened with the corruption of Rome, retires to his old home in the Abruzzi, where he meets the three sisters Massimilla, Anatolia, Violante: "names expressive as faces full of light and shade, and in which I seemed already to discover an infinity of grace, of passion, and of sorrow." It is inevitable that he should chose one of the three, but which? And in the dénouement the solution is only half implied.

D'Annunzio is now occupied with a new romance; and coming years will doubtless present him all the more distinctively as a writer of Italy on whom French inflences have been seed sowed in fertile ground. The place in contemporary Italian of such work as his is indisputably considerable.

THE DROWNED BOY

From 'The Triumph of Death'

All of a sudden, Albadora, the septuagenarian Cybele, she who had given life to twenty-two sons and daughters, came toiling up the narrow lane into the court, and indicating the neighboring shore, where it skirted the promontory on the left, announced breathlessly:--

"Down yonder there has been a child drowned!"

Candia made the sign of the cross. Giorgio arose and ascended to the loggia, to observe the spot designated. Upon the sand, below the promontory, in close vicinity to the chain of rocks and the tunnel, he perceived a blotch of white, presumably the sheet which hid the little body. A group of people had gathered around it.

As Ippolita had gone to mass with Elena at the chapel of the Port, he yielded to his curiosity and said to his entertainers:--

"I am going down to see."

"Why?" asked Candia. "Why do you wish to put a pain in your heart?"

Hastening down the narrow lane, he descended by a short cut to the beach, and continued along the water. Reaching the spot, somewhat out of breath, he inquired:--

"What has happened?"

The assembled peasants saluted him and made way for him. One of them answered tranquilly:--

"The son of a mother has been drowned."

Another, clad in linen, who seemed to be standing guard over the corpse, bent down and drew aside the sheet.

The inert little body was revealed, extended upon the unyielding sand. It was a lad, eight or nine years old, fair and frail, with slender limbs. His head was supported on his few humble garments, rolled up in place of pillow,--the shirt, the blue trousers, the red sash, the cap of limp felt. His face was but slightly livid, with flat nose, prominent forehead, and long, long lashes; the mouth was half open, with thick lips which were turning blue, between which the widely spaced teeth gleamed white. His neck was slender, flaccid as a wilted stem, and seamed with tiny creases. The jointure of the arms at the shoulder looked feeble. The arms themselves were fragile, and covered with a down similar to the fine plumage which clothes the bodies of newly hatched birds. The whole outline of the ribs was distinctly visible; down the middle of the breast the skin was divided by a darker line; the navel stood out, like a knot. The feet, slightly bloated, had assumed the same sallow color as the little hands, which were callous and strewn with warts, with white nails beginning to turn livid. On the left arm, on the thighs near the groin, and further down, on the knees and along the legs, appeared reddish blotches of scurf. Every detail of this wretched little body assumed, in the eyes of Giorgio, an extraordinary significance, immobile as it was and fixed forever in the rigidity of death.

"How was he drowned? Where?" he questioned, lowering his voice.

The man dressed in linen gave, with some show of impatience, the account which he had probably had to repeat too many times already. He had a brutal countenance, square-cut, with bushy brows, and a large mouth, harsh and savage. Only a little while after leading the sheep back to their stalls, the lad, taking his breakfast along with him, had gone down, together with a comrade, to bathe. He had hardly set foot in the water, when he had fallen and was drowned. At the cries of his comrade, some one from the house overhead on the bluff had hurried down, and wading in up to the knees, had dragged him from the water half dead; they had turned him upside down to make him throw up the water, they had shaken him, but to no purpose. To indicate just how far the poor little fellow had gone in, the man picked up a pebble and threw it into the sea.

"There, only to there; at three yards from the shore!"

The sea lay at rest, breathing peacefully, close to the head of the dead child. But the sun blazed fiercely down upon the sand; and something pitiless, emanating from that sky of flame and from those stolid witnesses, seemed to pass over the pallid corpse.

"Why," asked Giorgio, "do you not place him in the shade, in one of the houses, on a bed?"

"He is not to be moved," declared the man on guard, "until they hold the inquest."

"At least carry him into the shade, down there, below the embankment!"

Stubbornly the man reiterated, "He is not to be moved."

There could be no sadder sight than that frail, lifeless little being, extended on the stones, and watched over by the impassive brute who repeated his account every time in the selfsame words, and every time made the selfsame gesture, throwing a pebble into the sea:--

"There; only to there."

A woman joined the group, a hook-nosed termagant, with gray eyes and sour lips, mother of the dead boy's comrade. She manifested plainly a mistrustful restlessness, as if she anticipated some accusation against her own son. She spoke with bitterness, and seemed almost to bear a grudge against the victim.

"It was his destiny. God had said to him, 'Go into the sea and end yourself.'"

She gesticulated with vehemence. "What did he go in for, if he did not know how to swim--?"

A young lad, a stranger in the district, the son of a mariner, repeated contemptuously, "Yes, what did he go in for? We, yes, who know how to swim--" ...

Other people joined the group, gazed with cold curiosity, then lingered or passed on. A crowd occupied the railroad embankment, another gathered on the crest of the promontory, as if at a spectacle. Children, seated or kneeling, played with pebbles, tossing them into the air and catching them, now on the back and now in the hollow of their hands. They all showed the same profound indifference to the presence of other people's troubles and of death.

Another woman joined the group on her way home from mass, wearing a dress of silk and all her gold ornaments. For her also the harassed custodian repeated his account, for her also he indicated the spot in the water. She was talkative.

"I am always saying to my children, 'Don't you go into the water, or I will kill you!' The sea is the sea. Who can save himself?"

She called to mind other instances of drowning; she called to mind the case of the drowned man with the head cut off, driven by the waves all the way to San Vito, and found among the rocks by a child.

"Here, among these rocks. He came and told us, 'There is a dead man there.' We thought he was joking. But we came and we found. He had no head. They had an inquest; he was buried in a ditch; then in the night he was dug up again. His flesh was all mangled and like jelly, but he still had his boots on. The judge said, 'See, they are better than mine!' So he must have been a rich man. And it turned out that he was a dealer in cattle. They had killed him and chopped off his head, and had thrown him into the Tronto."...

She continued to talk in her shrill voice, from time to time sucking in the superfluous saliva with a slight hissing sound.

"And the mother? When is the mother coming?"

At that name there arose exclamations of compassion from all the women who had gathered.

"The mother! There comes the mother, now!"

And all of them turned around, fancying that they saw her in the far distance, along the burning strand. Some of the women could give particulars about her. Her name was Riccangela; she was a widow with seven children. She had placed this one in a farmer's family, so that he might tend the sheep, and gain a morsel of bread.

One woman said, gazing down at the corpse, "Who knows how much pains the mother has taken in raising him!" Another said, "To keep the children from going hungry she has even had to ask charity."

Another told how, only a few months before, the unfortunate child had come very near strangling to death in a courtyard in a pool of water barely six inches deep. All the women repeated, "It was his destiny. He was bound to die that way."

And the suspense of waiting rendered them restless, anxious. "The mother! There comes the mother now!"

Feeling himself grow sick at heart, Giorgio exclaimed, "Can't you take him into the shade, or into a house, so that the mother will not see him here naked on the stones, under a sun like this?"

Stubbornly the man on guard objected:--"He is not to be touched. He is not to be moved--until the inquest is held."

The bystanders gazed in surprise at the stranger,--Candia's stranger. Their number was augmenting. A few occupied the embankment shaded with acacias; others crowned the promontory rising abruptly from the rocks. Here and there, on the monstrous bowlders, a tiny boat lay sparkling like gold at the foot of the detached crag, so lofty that it gave the effect of the ruins of some Cyclopean tower, confronting the immensity of the sea.

All at once, from above on the height, a voice announced, "There she is."

Other voices followed:--"The mother! The mother!"

All turned. Some stepped down from the embankment. Those on the promontory leaned far over. All became silent, in expectation. The man on guard drew the sheet once more over the corpse. In the midst of the silence, the sea barely seemed to draw its breath, the acacias barely rustled. And then through the silence they could hear her cries as she drew near.

The mother came along the strand, beneath the sun, crying aloud. She was clad in widow's mourning. She tottered along the sand, with bowed body, calling out, "O my son! My son!"

She raised her palms to heaven, and then struck them upon her knees, calling out, "My son!"

One of her older sons, with a red handkerchief bound around his neck, to hide some sore, followed her like one demented, dashing aside his tears with the back of his hand. She advanced along the strand, beating her knees, directing her steps toward the sheet. And as she called upon her dead, there issued from her mouth sounds scarcely human, but rather like the howling of some savage dog. As she drew near, she bent over lower and lower, she placed herself almost on all fours; till, reaching him, she threw herself with a howl upon the sheet.

She arose again. With hand rough and toil-stained, hand toughened by every variety of labor, she uncovered the body. She gazed upon it a few instants, motionless as though turned to stone. Then time and time again, shrilly, with all the power of her voice, she called as if trying to awaken him, "My son! My son! My son!"

Sobs suffocated her. Kneeling beside him, she beat her sides furiously with her fists. She turned her despairing eyes around upon the circle of strangers. During a pause in her paroxysms she seemed to recollect herself. And then she began to sing. She sang her sorrow in a rhythm which rose and fell continually, like the palpitation of a heart. It was the ancient monody which from time immemorial, in the land of the Abruzzi, the women have sung over the remains of their relatives. It was the melodious eloquence of sacred sorrow, which renewed spontaneously, in the profundity of her being, this hereditary rhythm in which the mothers of bygone ages had modulated their lamentations.

She sang on and on:--"Open your eyes, arise and walk, my son! How beautiful you are! How beautiful you are!"

She sang on:--"For a morsel of bread I have drowned you, my son! For a morsel of bread I have borne you to the slaughter! For that have I raised you!"

But the irate woman with the hooked nose interrupted her:--"It was not you who drowned him; it was Destiny. It was not you who took him to the slaughter. You had placed him in the midst of bread." And making a gesture toward the hill where the house stood which had sheltered the lad, she added, "They kept him there, like a pink at the ear."

The mother continued:--"O my son, who was it sent you; who was it sent you here, to drown?"

And the irate woman:--"Who was it sent him? It was our Lord. He said to him, 'Go into the water and end yourself.'"

As Giorgio was affirming in a low tone to one of the bystanders that if succored in time the child might have been saved, and that they had killed him by turning him upside down and holding him suspended by the feet, he felt the gaze of the mother fixed upon him. "Can't you do something for him, sir?" she prayed. "Can't you do something for him?"

And she prayed:--"O Madonna of the Miracles, work a miracle for him!"

Touching the head of the dead boy, she repeated:--"My son! my son! my son! arise and walk!"

On his knees in front of her was the brother of the dead boy; he was sobbing, but without grief, and from time to time he glanced around with a face that suddenly grew indifferent. Another brother, the oldest one, remained at a little distance, seated in the shade of a bowlder; and he was making a great show of grief, hiding his face in his hands. The women, striving to console the mother, were bending over her with gestures of compassion, and accompanying her monody with an occasional lament.

And she sang on:--"Why have I sent you forth from my house? Why have I sent you to your death? I have done everything to keep my children from hunger; everything, everything, except to be a woman with a price. And for a morsel of bread I have lost you! This was the way you were to die!"

Thereupon the woman with the hawk nose raised her petticoats in an impetus of wrath, entered the water up to her knees, and cried:--"Look! He came only to here. Look! The water is like oil. It is a sign that he was bound to die that way."

With two strides she regained the shore. "Look!" she repeated, pointing to the deep imprint in the sand made by the man who recovered the body. "Look!"

The mother looked in a dull way; but it seemed as if she neither saw nor comprehended. After her first wild outbursts of grief, there came over her brief pauses, amounting to an obscurement of consciousness. She would remain silent, she would touch her foot or her leg with a mechanical gesture. Then she would wipe away her tears with the black apron. She seemed to be quieting down. Then, all of a sudden, a fresh explosion would shake her from head to foot, and prostrate her upon the corpse.

"And I cannot take you away! I cannot take you in these arms to the church! My son! My son!"

She fondled him from head to foot, she caressed him softly. Her savage anguish was softened to an infinite tenderness. Her hand--the burnt and callous hand of a hard-working woman--became infinitely gentle as she touched the eyes, the mouth, the forehead of her son.

"How beautiful you are! How beautiful you are!"

She touched his lower lip, already turned blue; and as she pressed it slightly, a whitish froth issued from the mouth. From between his lashes she brushed away some speck, very carefully, as though fearful of hurting him.

"How beautiful you are, heart of your mamma!"

His lashes were long, very long, and fair. On his temples, on his cheeks was a light bloom, pale as gold.

"Do you not hear me? Rise and walk."

She took the little well-worn cap, limp as a rag. She gazed at it and kissed it, saying:--

"I am going to make myself a charm out of this, and wear it always on my breast."

She lifted the child; a quantity of water escaped from the mouth and trickled down upon the breast.

"O Madonna of the Miracles, perform a miracle!" she prayed, raising her eyes to heaven in a supreme supplication. Then she laid softly down again the little being who had been so dear to her, and took up the worn shirt, the red sash, the cap. She rolled them up together in a little bundle, and said:--

"This shall be my pillow; on these I shall rest my head, always, at night; on these I wish to die."

She placed these humble relics on the sand, beside the head of her child, and rested her temple on them, stretching herself out, as if on a bed.

Both of them, mother and son, now lay side by side, on the hard rocks, beneath the flaming sky, close to the homicidal sea. And now she began to croon the very lullaby which in the past had diffused pure sleep over his infant cradle.

She took up the red sash and said, "I want to dress him."

The cross-grained woman, who still held her ground, assented. "Let us dress him now."

And she herself took the garments from under the head of the dead boy; she felt in the jacket pocket and found a slice of bread and a fig.

"Do you see? They had given him his food just before,--just before. They cared for him like a pink at the ear."

The mother gazed upon the little shirt, all soiled and torn, over which her tears fell rapidly, and said, "Must I put that shirt on him?"

The other woman promptly raised her voice to some one of her family, above on the bluff:--"Quick, bring one of Nufrillo's new shirts!" The new shirt was brought. The mother flung herself down beside him.

"Get up, Riccangela, get up!" solicited the women around her.

She did not heed them. "Is my son to stay like that on the stones, and I not stay there too?--like that, on the stones, my own son?"

"Get up, Riccangela, come away."

She arose. She gazed once more with terrible intensity upon the little livid face of the dead. Once again she called with all the power of her voice, "My son! My son! My son!"

Then with her own hands she covered up with the sheet the unheeding remains.

And the women gathered around her, drew her a little to one side, under shadow of a bowlder; they forced her to sit down, they lamented with her.

Little by little the spectators melted away. There remained only a few of the women comforters; there remained the man clad in linen, the impassive custodian, who was awaiting the inquest.

The dog-day sun poured down upon the strand, and lent to the funeral sheet a dazzling whiteness. Amidst the heat the promontory raised its desolate aridity straight upward from the tortuous chain of rocks. The sea, immense and green, pursued its constant, even breathing. And it seemed as if the languid hour was destined never to come to an end.

Under shadow of the bowlder, opposite the white sheet, which was raised up by the rigid form of the corpse beneath, the mother continued her monody in the rhythm rendered sacred by all the sorrows, past and present, of her race. And it seemed as if her lamentation was destined never to come to an end.

TO AN IMPROMPTU OF CHOPIN

When thou upon my breast art sleeping,

I hear across the midnight gray--

I hear the muffled note of weeping,

So near--so sad--so far away!

All night I hear the teardrops falling--

Each drop by drop--my heart must weep;

I hear the falling blood-drops--lonely,

Whilst thou dost sleep--whilst thou dost sleep.

From 'The Triumph of Death.'

INDIA

India--whose enameled page unrolled

Like autumn's gilded pageant, 'neath a sun

That withers not for ancient kings undone

Or gods decaying in their shrines of gold--

Where were thy vaunted princes, that of old

Trod thee with thunder--of thy saints was none

To rouse thee when the onslaught was begun,

That shook the tinseled sceptre from thy hold?

Dead--though behind thy gloomy citadels

The fountains lave their baths of porphyry;

Dead--though the rose-trees of thy myriad dells

Breathe as of old their speechless ecstasy;

Dead--though within thy temples, courts, and cells,

Their countless lamps still supplicate for thee.

Translated by Thomas Walsh, for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature.'

ANTAR

(About 550-615)

BY EDWARD S. HOLDEN

rabia was opened to English readers first by Sale's translation of the 'Kuran,' in 1734; and by English versions of the 'Arabian Nights' from 1712 onward. The latter were derived from Galland's translation of the 'Thousand and One Nights,' which began to appear, in French, in 1704. Next to nothing was generally known of Oriental literature from that time until the end of the eighteenth century. The East India Company fostered the study of the classics of the extreme Orient; and the first Napoleon opened Egypt,--his savans marched in the centre of the invading squares.

The flagship of the English fleet which blockaded Napoleon's army carried an Austro-German diplomatist and scholar,--Baron von Hammer-Purgstall,--part of whose mission was to procure a complete manuscript of the 'Arabian Nights.' It was then supposed that these tales were the daily food of all Turks, Arabians, and Syrians. To the intense surprise of Von Hammer, he learned that they were never recited in the coffee-houses of Constantinople, and that they were not to be found at all outside of Egypt.

His dismay and disappointment were soon richly compensated, however, by the discovery of the Arabian romance of 'Antar,' the national classic, hitherto unknown in Europe, except for an enthusiastic notice which had fallen by chance into the hands of Sir William Jones. The entire work was soon collected. It is of interminable length in the original, being often found in thirty or forty manuscript volumes in quarto, in seventy or eighty in octavo. Portions of it have been translated into English, German, and French. English readers can consult it best in 'Antar,' a Bedouin romance, translated from the Arabic by Terrick Hamilton, in four volumes 8vo (London, 1820). Hamilton's translation, now rare, covers only a portion of the original; and a new translation, suitably abridged, is much needed.

The book purports to have been written more than a thousand years ago,--in the golden prime of the Caliph Harún-al-Rashid (786-809) and of his sons and successors, Amin (809-813) and Mamun (813-834),--by the famous As-Asmai (born 741, died about 830). It is in fact a later compilation, probably of the twelth century. (Baron von Hammer's MS. was engrossed in the year 1466.) Whatever the exact date may have been, it was probably not much later than A.D. 1200. The main outlines of Antar's life are historical. Many particulars are derived from historic accounts of the lives of other Arabian heroes (Duraid and others) and are transferred bodily to the biography of Antar. They date back to the sixth century. Most of the details must be imaginary, but they are skillfully contrived by a writer who knew the life of the desert Arab at first hand. The verses with which the volumes abound are in many cases undoubtedly Antar's. (They are printed in italics in what follows.) In any event, the book in its present form has been the delight of all Arabians for many centuries. Every wild Bedouin of the desert knew much of the tale by heart, and listened to its periods and to its poems with quivering interest. His more cultivated brothers of the cities possessed one or many of its volumes. Every coffee-house in Aleppo, Bagdad, or Constantinople had a narrator who, night after night, recited it to rapt audiences.

The unanimous opinion of the East has always placed the romance of 'Antar' at the summit of such literature. As one of their authors well says:--"'The Thousand and One Nights' is for the amusement of women and children; 'Antar' is a book for men. From it they learn lessons of eloquence, of magnanimity, of generosity, and of statecraft." Even the prophet Muhammad, well-known foe to poetry and to poets, instructed his disciples to relate to their children the traditions concerning Antar, "for these will steel their hearts harder than stone."

The book belongs among the great national classics, like the 'Shah-nameh' and the 'Nibelungen-Lied.' It has a direct relation to Western culture and opinion also. Antar was the father of knighthood. He was the preux-chevalier, the champion of the weak and oppressed, the protector of women, the impassioned lover-poet, the irresistible and magnanimous knight. European chivalry in a marked degree is the child of the chivalry of his time, which traveled along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and passed with the Moors into Spain (710). Another current flowed from Arabia to meet and to modify the Greeks of Constantinople and the early Crusaders; and still another passed from Persia into Palestine and Europe. These fertilized Provençal poetry, the French romance, the early Italian epic. The 'Shah-nameh' of Firdausi, that model of a heroic poem, was written early in the eleventh century. 'Antar' in its present form probably preceded the romances of chivalry so common in the twelfth century in Italy and France.

Antarah ben Shedad el Absi (Antar the Lion, the Son of Shedad of the tribe of Abs), the historic Antar, was born about the middle of the sixth century of our era, and died about the year 615, forty-five years after the birth of the prophet Muhammad, and seven years before the Hijra--the Flight to Medina--with which the Muhammadan era begins. His father was a noble Absian knight. The romance makes him the son of an Abyssinian slave, who is finally discovered to be a powerful princess. His skin was black. He was despised by his father and family and set to tend their camels. His extraordinary strength and valor and his remarkable poetic faculty soon made him a marked man, in a community in which personal valor failed of its full value if it were not celebrated in brilliant verse. His love for the beautiful Ibla (Ablah in the usual modern form), the daughter of his uncle, was proved in hundreds of encounters and battles; by many adventurous excursions in search of fame and booty; by thousands of verses in her honor.

The historic Antar is the author of one of the seven "suspended poems." The common explanation of this term is that these seven poems were judged, by the assemblage of all the Arabs, worthy to be written in golden letters (whence their name of the 'golden odes'), and to be hung on high in the sacred Kaabah at Mecca. Whether this be true, is not certain. They are at any rate accepted models of Arabic style. Antar was one of the seven greatest poets of his poetic race. These "suspended poems" can now be studied in the original and in translation, by the help of a little book published in London in 1894, 'The Seven Poems,' by Captain F.E. Johnson, R.A.

The Antar of the romance is constantly breaking into verse which is passionately admired by his followers. None of its beauties of form are preserved in the translation; and indeed, this is true of the prose forms also. It speaks volumes for the manly vigor of the original that it can be transferred to an alien tongue and yet preserve great qualities. To the Arab the work is a masterpiece both in form and content. Its prose is in balanced, rhythmic sentences ending in full or partial rhymes. This "cadence of the cooing dove" is pure music to an Eastern ear. If any reader is interested in Arabic verse, he can readily satisfy his curiosity. An introduction to the subject is given in the Terminal Essay of Sir Richard Burton's 'Arabian Nights' (Lady Burton's edition, Vol. vi., page 340). The same subject is treated briefly and very clearly in the introduction to Lyall's 'Ancient Arabian Poetry'--a book well worth consulting on other accounts.

The story itself appeals to the Oriental's deepest feelings, passions, ideals:--

"To realize the impetuous feelings of the Arab," says Von Hammer, "you must have heard these tales narrated to a circle of Bedouins crowded about the orator of the desert.... It is a veritable drama, in which the spectators are the actors as well. If the hero is threatened with imminent danger, they shudder and cry aloud, 'No, no, no; Allah forbid! that cannot be!' If he is in the midst of tumult and battle, mowing down rank after rank of the enemy with his sword, they seize their own weapons and rise to fly to his rescue. If he falls into the snares of treachery, their foreheads contract with angry indignation and they exclaim, 'The curse of Allah be on the traitor!' If the hero at last sinks under the superior forces of the enemy, a long and ardent sigh escapes from their breasts, with the farewell blessing, 'Allah's compassion be with him--may he rest in peace.'... Descriptions of the beauties of nature, especially of the spring, are received with exclamations. Nothing equals the delight which sparkles in every eye when the narrator draws a picture of feminine beauty."

The question as to the exact relation of the chivalry of Europe to the earlier chivalry of Arabia and of the East is a large one, and one which must be left to scholars. It is certain that Spenser and Sir Philip Sidney owe far more to Saladin than we commonly suppose. The tales of Boccaccio (1350) show that the Italians of that day still held the Arabs to be their teachers in chivalry, and at least their equals in art, science, and civilization; and the Italy of 1300 was a century in advance of the rest of Europe. In 1268 two brothers of the King of Castile, with 800 other Spanish gentlemen, were serving under the banners of the Muslim in Tunis. The knightly ideal of both Moors and Spaniards was to be

"Like steel among swords,
Like wax among ladies."

Hospitality, generosity, magnanimity, the protection of the weak, punctilious observance of the plighted faith, pride of birth and lineage, glory in personal valor--these were the knightly virtues common to Arab and Christian warriors. Antar and his knights, Ibla and her maidens, are the Oriental counterparts of Launcelot and Arthur, of Guinevere and Iseult.

The primary duty of the early Arab was blood-revenge. An insult to himself, or an injury to the tribe, must be wiped out with the blood of the offender. Hence arose the multitude of tribal feuds. It was Muhammad who first checked the private feud by fixing "the price of blood" to be paid by the aggressor or by his tribe. In the time of Antar revenge was the foremost duty. Ideals of excellence change as circumstances alter. Virtues go out of fashion (like the magnificence of Aristotle), or acquire an entirely new importance (as veracity, since England became a trading nation). Some day we may possess a natural history of the virtues.

The service of the loved one by the early Arab was a passion completely different from the vain gallantry of the mediæval knight of Europe. He sought for the complete possession of his chosen mistress, and was eager to earn it by multitudes of chivalric deeds; but he could not have understood the sentimentalities of the Troubadours. The systematic fantasies of the "Courts of Love" would have seemed cold follies to Arab chivalry--as indeed they are, though they have led to something better. In generosity, in magnanimity, the Arab knight far surpassed his European brother. Hospitality was a point of honor to both. As to the noble Arabs of those days, when any one demanded their protection, no one ever inquired what was the matter; for if he asked any questions, it would be said of him that he was afraid. The poets have thus described them in verse:--

"They rise when any one calls out to them, and
they haste before asking any questions;
they aid him against his enemies
that seek his life, and they return
honored to their families."

The Arab was the knight of the tent and the desert. His deeds were immediately known to his fellows; discussed and weighed in every household of his tribe. The Christian knight of the Middle Ages, living isolated in his stronghold, was less immediately affected by the opinions of his class. Tribal allegiance was developed in the first case, independence in the second.

Scholars tell us that the romance of 'Antar' is priceless for faithful pictures of the times before the advent of Muhammad, which are confirmed by all that remains of the poetry of "the days of ignorance." To the general reader its charm lies in its bold and simple stories of adventure; in its childlike enjoyment of the beauty of Nature; in its pictures of the elemental passions of ambition, pride, love, hate, revenge. Antar was a poet, a lover, a warrior, a born leader. From a keeper of camels he rose to be the protector of the tribe of Abs and the pattern of chivalry, by virtue of great natural powers and in the face of every obstacle. He won possession of his Ibla and gave her the dower of a queen, by adventures the like of which were never known before. There were no Ifrits or Genii to come to his aid, as in the 'Thousand Nights and a Night.' 'Antar' is the epic of success crowning human valor; the tales in the 'Arabian Nights,' at their best, are the fond fancies of the fatalist whose best endeavor is at the mercy of every capricious Jinni.

The 'Arabian Nights' contains one tale of the early Arabs,--the story of Gharib and his brother Ajib,--which repeats some of the exploits of Antar; a tale far inferior to the romance. The excellences of the 'Arabian Nights' are of another order. We must look for them in the pompous enchantments of the City of Brass, or in the tender constancy of Aziz and Azizah, or in the tale of Hasan of Bassorah, with its lovely study of the friendship of a foster-sister, and its wonderful presentment of the magic surroundings of the country of the Jann.

To select specimens from 'Antar' is like selecting from 'Robinson Crusoe.' In the romance, Antar's adventures go on and on, and the character of the hero develops before one's eyes. It may be that the leisure of the desert is needed fully to appreciate this master-work.

THE VALOR OF ANTAR

Now Antar was becoming a big boy, and grew up, and used to accompany his mother, Zebeeba, to the pastures, and he watched the cattle; and this he continued to do till he increased in stature. He used to walk and run about to harden himself, till at length his muscles were strengthened, his frame altogether more robust, his bones more firm and solid, and his speech correct. His days were passed in roaming about the mountain sides; and thus he continued till he attained his tenth year.

[He now kills a wolf which had attacked his father's flocks, and breaks into verse to celebrate his victory:--]

O thou wolf, eager for death, I have left thee wallowing in dust, and spoiled of life; thou wouldst have the run of my flocks, but I have left thee dyed with blood; thou wouldst disperse my sheep, and thou knowest I am a lion that never fears. This is the way I treat thee, thou dog of the desert. Hast thou ever before seen battle and wars?

[His next adventure brought him to the notice of the chief of the tribe,--King Zoheir. A slave of Prince Shas insulted a poor, feeble woman who was tending her sheep; on which Antar "dashed him against the ground. And his length and breadth were all one mass." This deed won for Antar the hatred of Prince Shas, the friendship of the gentle Prince Malik, and the praise of the king, their father. "This valiant fellow," said the king, "has defended the honor of women.">[

From that day both King Zoheir and his son Malik conceived a great affection for Antar, and as Antar returned home, the women all collected around him to ask him what had happened; among them were his aunts and his cousin, whose name was Ibla. Now Ibla was younger than Antar, and a merry lass. She was lovely as the moon at its full; and perfectly beautiful and elegant.... One day he entered the house of his uncle Malik and found his aunt combing his cousin Ibla's hair, which flowed down her back, dark as the shades of night. Antar was quite surprised; he was greatly agitated, and could pay no attention to anything; he was anxious and thoughtful, and his anguish daily became more oppressive.

[Meeting her at a feast, he addressed her in verse:--]

The lovely virgin has struck my heart with the arrow of a glance, for which there is no cure. Sometimes she wishes for a feast in the sandhills, like a fawn whose eyes are full of magic. She moves; I should say it was the branch of the Tamarisk that waves its branches to the southern breeze. She approaches; I should say it was the frightened fawn, when a calamity alarms it in the waste.

When Ibla heard from Antar this description of her charms, she was in astonishment. But Antar continued in this state for days and nights, his love and anguish ever increasing.

[Antar resolves to be either tossed upon the spear-heads or numbered among the noble; and he wanders into the plain of lions.]

As soon as Antar found himself in it, he said to himself, Perhaps I shall now find a lion, and I will slay him. Then, behold a lion appeared in the middle of the valley; he stalked about and roared aloud; wide were his nostrils, and fire flashed from his eyes; the whole valley trembled at every gnash of his fangs--he was a calamity, and his claws more dreadful than the deadliest catastrophe--thunder pealed as he roared--vast was his strength, and his force dreadful--broad were his paws, and his head immense. Just at that moment Shedad and his brothers came up. They saw Antar address the lion, and heard the verses that he repeated; he sprang forward like a hailstorm, and hissed at him like a black serpent--he met the lion as he sprang and outroared his bellow; then, giving a dreadful shriek, he seized hold of his mouth with his hand, and wrenched it open to his shoulders, and he shouted aloud--the valley and the country round echoed back the war.

[Those who were watching were astonished at his prowess, and began to fear Antar. The horsemen now set off to attack the tribe of Temeem, leaving the slaves to guard the women.]

Antar was in transports on seeing Ibla appear with the other women. She was indeed like an amorous fawn; and when Antar was attending her, he was overwhelmed in the ocean of his love, and became the slave of her sable tresses. They sat down to eat, and the wine-cups went merrily round. It was the spring of the year, when the whole land shone in all its glory; the vines hung luxuriantly in the arbors; the flowers shed around ambrosial fragrance; every hillock sparkled in the beauty of its colors; the birds in responsive melody sang sweetly from each bush, and harmony issued from their throats; the ground was covered with flowers and herbs; while the nightingales filled the air with their softest notes.

[While the maidens were singing and sporting, lo! on a sudden appeared a cloud of dust walling the horizon, and a vast clamor arose. A troop of horses and their riders, some seventy in number, rushed forth to seize the women, and made them prisoners. Antar instantly rescues Ibla from her captors and engages the enemy.]

He rushed forward to meet them, and harder than flint was his heart, and in his attack was their fate and destiny. He returned home, taking with him five-and-twenty horses, and all the women and children. Now the hatred of Semeeah (his stepmother) was converted into love and tenderness, and he became dearer to her than sleep.

[He had thenceforward a powerful ally in her, a fervent friend in Prince Malik, a wily counselor in his brother Shiboob. And Antar made great progress in Ibla's heart, from the verses that he spoke in her praise; such verses as these:--]

I love thee with the love of a noble-born hero; and I am content with thy imaginary phantom. Thou art my sovereign in my very blood; and my mistress; and in thee is all my confidence.

[Antar's astonishing valor gained him the praise of the noble Absian knights, and he was emboldened to ask his father Shedad to acknowledge him for his son, that he might become a chief among the Arabs. Shedad, enraged, drew his sword and rushed upon Antar to kill him, but was prevented by Semeeah. Antar, in the greatest agony of spirit, was ashamed that the day should dawn on him after this refusal, or that he should remain any longer in the country. He mounted his horse, put on his armor, and traveled on till he was far from the tents, and he knew not whither he was going.]

Antar had proceeded some way, when lo! a knight rushed out from the ravines in the rocks, mounted on a dark-colored colt, beautiful and compact, and of a race much prized among the Arabs; his hoofs were as flat as the beaten coin; when he neighed he seemed as if about to speak, and his ears were like quills; his sire was Wasil and his dam Hemama. When Antar cast his eye upon the horse, and observed his speed and his paces, he felt that no horse could surpass him, so his whole heart and soul longed for him. And when the knight perceived that Antar was making toward him, he spurred his horse and it fled beneath him; for this was a renowned horseman called Harith, the son of Obad, and he was a valiant hero.

[By various devices Antar became possessed of the noble horse Abjer, whose equal no prince or emperor could boast of. His mettle was soon tried in an affray with the tribe of Maan, headed by the warrior Nakid, who was ferocious as a lion.]

When Nakid saw the battle of Antar, and how alone he stood against five thousand, and was making them drink of the cup of death and perdition, he was overwhelmed with astonishment at his deeds. "Thou valiant slave," he cried, "how powerful is thine arm--how strong thy wrist!" And he rushed down upon Antar. And Antar presented himself before him, for he was all anxiety to meet him. "O thou base-born!" cried Nakid. But Antar permitted him not to finish his speech, before he assaulted him with the assault of a lion, and roared at him; he was horrified and paralyzed at the sight of Antar. Antar attacked him, thus scared and petrified, and struck him with his sword on the head, and cleft him down the back; and he fell, cut in twain, from the horse, and he was split in two as if by a balance; and as Antar dealt the blow he cried out, "Oh, by Abs! oh, by Adnan! I am ever the lover of Ibla." No sooner did the tribe of Maan behold Antar's blow, than every one was seized with fear and dismay. The whole five thousand made an attack like the attack of a single man; but Antar received them as the parched ground receives the first of the rain. His eyeballs were fiery red, and foam issued from his lips; whenever he smote he cleft the head; every warrior he assailed, he annihilated; he tore a rider from the back of his horse, he heaved him on high, and whirling him in the air he struck down another with him, and the two instantly expired. "By thine eyes, Ibla," he cried, "to-day will I destroy all this race." Thus he proceeded until he terrified the warriors, and hurled them into woe and disgrace, hewing off their arms and their joints.

[At the moment of Antar's victory his friends arrive to see his triumph. On his way back with them he celebrates his love for Ibla in verses.]

When the breezes blow from Mount Saadi, their freshness calms the fire of my love and transports.... Her throat complains of the darkness of her necklaces. Alas! the effects of that throat and that necklace! Will fortune ever, O daughter of Malik, ever bless me with thy embrace, that would cure my heart of the sorrows of love? If my eye could see her baggage camels, and her family, I would rub my cheeks on the hoofs of her camels. I will kiss the earth where thou art; mayhap the fire of my love and ecstasy may be quenched.... I am the well-known Antar, the chief of his tribe, and I shall die; but when I am gone, histories shall tell of me.

[From that day forth Antar was named Abool-fawaris, that is to say, the father of horsemen. His sword, Dhami--the trenchant--was forged from a meteor that fell from the sky; it was two cubits long and two spans wide. If it were presented to Nushirvan, King of Persia, he would exalt the giver with favors; or if it were presented to the Emperor of Europe, one would be enriched with treasures of gold and silver.]

As soon as Gheidac saw the tribe of Abs, and Antar the destroyer of horsemen, his heart was overjoyed and he cried out, "This is a glorious morning; to-day will I take my revenge." So he assailed the tribe of Abs and Adnan, and his people attacked behind him like a cloud when it pours forth water and rains. And the Knight of Abs assaulted them likewise, anxious to try his sword, the famous Dhami. And Antar fought with Gheidac, and wearied him, and shouted at him, and filled him with horror; then assailed him so that stirrup grated stirrup; and he struck him on the head with Dhami. He cleft his visor and wadding, and his sword played away between the eyes, passing through his shoulders down to the back of the horse, even down to the ground; and he and his horse made four pieces; and to the strictest observer, it would appear that he had divided them with scales. And God prospered Antar in all that he did, so that he slew all he aimed at, and overthrew all he touched.

"Nobility," said Antar, "among liberal men, is the thrust of the spear, the blow of the sword, and patience beneath the battle-dust. I am the physician of the tribe of Abs in sickness, their protector in disgrace, the defender of their wives when they are in trouble, their horseman when they are in glory, and their sword when they rush to arms."

[This was Antar's speech to Monzar, King of the Arabs, when he was in search of Ibla's dowry. He found it in the land of Irak, where the magnificent Chosroe was ready to reward him even to the half of his kingdom, for his victory over the champion of the Emperor of Europe.]

"All this grandeur, and all these gifts," said Antar, "have no value to me, no charm in my eyes. Love of my native land is the fixed passion of my soul."

"Do not imagine," said Chosroe, "that we have been able duly to recompense you. What we have given you is perishable, as everything human is, but your praises and your poems will endure forever."

[Antar's wars made him a Nocturnal Calamity to the foes of his tribe. He was its protector and the champion of its women, "for Antar was particularly solicitous in the cause of women." His generosity knew no bounds. "Antar immediately presented the whole of the spoil to his father and his uncles; and all the tribe of Abs were astonished at his noble conduct and filial love." His hospitality was universal; his magnanimity without limit. "Do not bear malice, O Shiboob. Renounce it; for no good ever came of malice. Violence is infamous; its result is ever uncertain, and no one can act justly when actuated by hatred. Let my heart support every evil, and let my patience endure till I have subdued all my foes." Time after time he won new dowries for Ibla, even bringing the treasures of Persia to her feet. Treacheries without count divided him from his promised bride. Over and over again he rescued her from the hands of the enemy; and not only her, but her father and her hostile kinsmen.

At last (in the fourth volume, on the fourteen hundred and fifty-third page) Antar makes his wedding feasts.]

"I wish to make at Ibla's wedding five separate feasts; I will feed the birds and the beasts, the men and the women, the girls and the boys, and not a single person shall remain in the whole country but shall eat at Ibla's marriage festival."

Antar was at the summit of his happiness and delight, congratulating himself on his good fortune and perfect felicity, all trouble and anxiety being now banished from his heart. Praise be to God, the dispenser of all grief from the hearts of virtuous men.

[The three hundred and sixty tribes of the Arabs were invited to the feast, and on the eighth day the assembled chiefs presented their gifts--horses, armor, slaves, perfumes, gold, velvet, camels. The number of slaves Antar received that day was five-and-twenty hundred, to each of whom he gave a damsel, a horse, and weapons. And they all mounted when he rode out, and halted when he halted.]

Now when all the Arab chiefs had presented their offerings, each according to his circumstances, Antar rose, and called out to Mocriul-Wahsh:--"O Knight of Syria," said he, "let all the he and she camels, high-priced horses, and all the various rarities I have received this day, be a present from me to you. But the perfumes of ambergris, and fragrant musk, belong to my cousin Ibla; and the slaves shall form my army and troops." And the Arab chiefs marveled at his generosity....

And now Ibla was clothed in the most magnificent garments, and superb necklaces; they placed the coronet of Chosroe on her head, and tiaras round her forehead. They lighted brilliant and scented candles before her--the perfumes were scattered--the torches blazed--and Ibla came forth in state. All present gave a shout; while the malicious and ill-natured cried aloud, "What a pity that one so beautiful and fair should be wedded to one so black!"