However, the Arabic Diwan--that is to say, the poetic collection of that nation, goes back to most ancient times. One finds in it verses attributed to the first Hebrew patriarchs and even to Adam[217]; for since the introduction of Islamism, the cosmogony of Moses has become that of the Mussulmans, as it has been ours since the establishment of Christianity. It is there, in this diwan, that the most authentic traditions are preserved: they are all in verse and resemble greatly, as to form and doubtless as to substance, that which the monk of St. André has transmitted to us through the court of Charlemagne. It is the same chivalrous spirit and the same romantic fictions. The Persian poet Firdausi appears to have followed similar traditions concerning the ancient kings of Iran, in his famous poem entitled Shah-Namah.[218] The wonders which reign in these traditions have been transmitted no doubt by the Arabs, with the artifice of rhyme: both have the same spirit. The protecting fairies of the knights, the giant persecutors of ladies, the enchanters, the magic, and all those illusions are the fruits of that brilliant and dreamy imagination which characterizes the modern Orientals. We have enthusiastically enjoyed them in the depths of the barbarity where we were plunged; we have allowed ourselves to be drawn by the charms of rhyme, like children in the cradle, whom their nurses put to sleep by the monotonous sound of a lullaby. Escaped from that state of languor, and struck at last with a gleam of real intelligence, we have compared Greece and Arabia, the songs of epopœia and those of the ballads; we have blushed at our choice; we have wished to change it; but owing to the captivating form always more or less the substance, we have only succeeded in making mixtures more or less happy, according to the secondary mode that we follow.
Rhyme, brought into Europe by the Arabs more than a thousand years ago, spread by degrees among all nations, in such a way that when one wishes to examine its origin with accuracy, one no longer knows whether it is indigenous there or exotic. One finds on all sides only rhymed verses. The Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, French, Germans of all dialects, Hollanders, Danes, Swedes and Norwegians, all rhyme.[219] The modern Greeks themselves have forgotten their ancient rhythm in order to assume our style.[220] If anything could, however, make one doubt that rhyme may be natural to Europe, it is that ancient Scandinavian, in which are written the precious fragments which have come down to us concerning the mythological cult of the Celts, our ancestors, does not rhyme; also it rises often to the sublimity of Eumolpœia.[221] This observation, which makes us reject Arabia, will take us back to India, if we consider that there is plausible presumption in believing that the Phœnicians and the Egyptians who had so much intercourse with the Arabs, did not rhyme, since the sacred book of the Hebrews, the Sepher, that we call the Bible, and which appears to have issued from the Egyptian sanctuaries, is written in cadenced rhyme, as the Zend-Avesta of the Parsees and the Vedas of the Indians.[222]
The outline that I have just sketched confirms, Messieurs, what I have wished to prove to you and which is the subject of this discourse, the distinction that should be made between the essence and the form of poetry, and the reciprocal influence that should be recognized between these two parts of the science. You have seen that wherever rhyme has dominated exclusively, as in Asia among the Chinese, Arabians, Persians; as in Europe among all the modern peoples, it has excluded epopœia and has replaced allegorical genius by the spirit of romantic fictions; you have seen that wherever eumolpique poetry has wished to appear, whether moral or rational, theosophical or philosophical, it has been obliged to have recourse to a particular prose, when the form of poetry has resisted it, as has happened in China for the Kings, in Persia for the Zend-Avesta, in Arabia for the Koran; you have seen that wherever poetry has been preserved purely rhythmical, as in Greece and with the Romans, it has admitted eumolpœia and epopœia without mixture; and finally, that wherever the two forms meet each other with all their modifications, as in India, it gives way in turn to all the different kinds, intellectual and rational, epic, dramatic, and romantic.
Now, what Hindustan was for Asia, France should be for Europe. The French tongue, as the Sanskrit, should tend towards universality; it should be enriched with all the learning acquired in the past centuries, so as to transmit it to future generations. Destined to float upon the (débris) of a hundred different dialects, it ought to be able to save from the shipwreck of time all their beauties and all their remarkable productions. Nevertheless, how will it be done, if its poetic forms are not open to the spirit of all the poetries, if its movement, arrested by obstacles cannot equal that of the tongues which have preceded it in the same career? By what means, I ask you, will it succeed to the universal dominion of Sanskrit, if, dragging always after it the frivolous jingling of Arabic sounds, it cannot even succeed to the partial domination of Greek or Latin? Must it be necessary then that it betray its high destinies, and that the providential decree which founds the European empire, exempt it from the glory which it promises to the French name?
I have told you, Messieurs, in beginning this discourse, that it was in the interest of science alone, that I entered this career: it is assuredly not by my poor poetic talent that I have aspired to the honour of occupying your attention; but by a generous instinct, which, making me ignore many of the considerations which might have arrested me, has persuaded me that I could be useful. I have dared to conceive the possibility of composing, in French, eumolpique verse, which might neither be measured by musical rhythm foreign to our tongue, nor enchained by rhyme opposed to all intellectual and rational movement, and which however might have neither the harshness, nor the discord of that which has been called, up to this time, blank verse.
Many French writers have tried to make verse deprived of rhyme. Some have sought to imitate the measures of the ancients, others have satisfied themselves with copying certain moderns who do not rhyme. Each of them has misunderstood the essential character of his tongue. Vossius alone appears to have foreseen the principles without developing them, when he has said that French verse might be considered as having only one foot.[223] This is exactly true in examining rhythm only in itself, and giving to each hemistich the name of time: but if one considers this one foot, whether hexameter or pentameter, as formed of two times equal or unequal, it is perceived that it participates, through its final, in two natures: the one strong and forceful, that we name masculine; the other soft and languid, that we call feminine. Therefore, French verse having but one rhythmic foot, differs, however, in the style of this foot and can be considered in two relations. Let us take for example the hexameter verse. The rhythmic foot which constitutes it is composed of two equal times distinguished by the cæsura, the last of which is masculine or feminine: Masculine, as in:
Rome, l’unique objet de mon ressentiment!
Rome, à qui vient ton bras d’immoler mon amant!
Feminine, as in:
Rome qui t’a vu naître et que ton cœur adore!