Nideh, the Druze girl down stairs is ready with another song. She is rocking little Sheikh Fereed in his cradle, and says:
In your cradle sleep my boy,
Rest from all your labor;
May El Hakim, heaven's God,
Ever be your neighbor!
It makes me feel sad to hear a poor woman praying to a man. This El Hakim was a man, and a bad man too, who lived many hundred years ago, and now the Druzes regard him as their God. But what difference is there between worshipping Hakim as the Druzes do, and worshipping Mary and Joseph as the Greeks and Maronites do. Laia says the Maronites down in the lower part of this village sing the following song:
Hillû, Hillû, Hallelujah!
Come my wild gazelles!
He who into trouble falls
On the Virgin Mother calls;
To Damascus she's departing,
All the mountain monks are starting.
Come my priest and come my deacon,
Bring the censer and the beacon,
We will celebrate the Mass,
In the Church of Mar Elias;
Mar Elias, my neighbor dear,
You must be deaf if you did not hear.
Sit Leila sings:
I love you my boy, and this is the proof,
I wish that you had all the wealth of the "Shoof,"
Hundreds of costly silken bales,
Hundreds of ships with lofty sails.
Hundreds of towns to obey your word,
And thousands of thousands to call you lord!
Katrina is ready to sing again:
I will sing to you,
God will bring to you,
All you need, my dear:
He's here and there,
He is everywhere,
And to you He's ever near.
People say that every baby that is born into the world is thought by its mother to be better than any other ever born. The Arab women think so too, and this is the way they sing it: