Walau anna ḳarna-sh-shamsi kâna li-maʿsharin * lakâna lanâ ishrâḳuhâ waʾḥtijâbuhâ;
Walâkinnahâ lillâhi yamliku amrahâ * li-ḳudratihi iṣʿaduhâ wanṣibâbuhâ.
The poet Ṭarafâ, to express the idea that the Sun lends or spends his rays, uses the verb to ‘give to drink’ (saḳat-hu iyât ush-shamsi, Muʿallaḳâ, v. 9.), and the same idiom is used of the light of the stars. The word kaukab, which in Semitic generally denotes star, also signifies a well-spring, e.g. ‘and may no well-spring (kaukab) irrigate the pasture’ (Aġânî, XI. 126. 15). Compare a passage in the introduction to the Commentary on the Ḳorân called al-Kashshâf by Zamachsharî (de Sacy, Anthologie gramm. ar. p. 120. 8, text), where the two significations of the word occur close together. To this place belongs also a sentence delivered by Rabbi Ami in the Babylonian Talmûd, Taʿanîth, fol. 7 b. He explains the words al-kappayîm kissâôr in Job XXXVI. 32, thus: ‘On account of the sin of their hands he (God) holds back the rain,’ as by ‘light’ rain must be meant (ên ôr ellâ mâṭâr), and gives the same interpretation of the word ôr ‘light’ in another passage, Job XXXVII. 11, ‘he also loads the cloud with moisture, spreads abroad the cloud of his rain’ (yâphîṣ ʿanan ôrô). But of what fluid the rays of the heavenly bodies are composed is not fixed and determined by the myth. In the Vendidad, XXI. 26, 32, 34, ‘the Sun, moon, and stars are rich in Milk.’ No less frequent is the idea that the heavenly bodies make water.[[760]] This latter view of the Sun’s rays as a liquid is remarkably reflected in the Hungarian language; and I will therefore note some facts relating to the subject, which will be interesting to the investigators of Comparative Mythology. It is especially noteworthy that in old Hungarian the word hugy, which in the modern language means only ‘urine,’ was employed for ‘star.’ In the Legend of St. Francis, an ancient document of the Hungarian language, the Latin stellarum cursus is translated hugoknak folyása 'the flowing of the hugyok.' To the same root belong probably some proper names also, collected by Rev. Aron Szilády (Magyar Nyelvőr, I. 223), e.g. Hugdi, Hugod, Hugus (which should be read Hugydi, Hugyad, Hugyos), which must surely signify ‘shining,’ fényes. The same view of light as a fluid is also preserved in the later language, in which with sugár ‘ray’ the verb ömlik ‘to pour itself out’ is employed, as in many other languages.
F. (Page [113].)
Cain in Arabic.
The names of the first brothers in the Biblical legend of the Mohammedans are Hâbil and Ḳâbil. Even D’Herbelot (Bibliothèque Orientale, S.V. Cabil) explains: Ḳâbil, ‘Receiver,’ as an Arabic diversion of the etymon with which the Hebrew text supplies the name, viz. kânîthî, ‘I have gained or received a man for Jahveh.’ Still we must doubt whether the name Ḳâbil has any etymological foot-hold in this group. Nor can it, as Chwolson supposes, be traced to a transcriber’s error which had been propagated so as to become fixed.[[761]] It is founded on a peculiar fancy of the Arabs for putting together pairs of names. This process may be observed to take place in one of two modes. First, the Arabs are fond of employing in groups of names various derivatives of the same root: e.g. they call the two angels of the grave Munkar and Nekir; the two armies in the story of Alexander Munsik and Nâsik, a sort of Yâjûj and Mâjûj;[[762]] and in the story of Joseph the two Midianites who lifted Joseph out of the pit are Bashshâr and Bushrâ.[[763]] To the same category belong Shiddîd and Shaddâd, the two sons of ʿÂd; Mâlik and Milkân, the sons of Kinânâ.[[764]] This fancy passed from legend into actual life, where it often decided the names to be given to children, e.g. Ḥasan and Ḥuseyn the two sons of ʿAlî, and larger groups, as the three brothers Nabîh, Munabbih, and Nabahân (Aġânî, VI. 101), Amîn, Maʾmûn, and Mustaʾmin the three sons of the Khalif Hârûn ar-Rashîd. The practice is observable not only in the names of contemporaries, but also in genealogical series of names both of prehistoric and of historic times: e.g. Huzâl b. Huzeyl b. Huzeylâ, a man belonging to the ʿAdites (Commentaire historique sur le poëme d’Ibn Abdoun par Ibn Badroun, ed. Dozy, Leyden 1848, p. 67. 1 text); the Thamûdite Ḳudâr b. Ḳudeyrâ (Ḥarîrî, Mak. p. 201); Sâṭirûn b. Asṭîrûn al-Jarmaḳî, builder of the fortress Ḥaḍr, the conquest of which is bound up with a story full of terrific tragedy (Yâḳût, II. 284. 12), etc. An interesting example of such grouping of nouns in modern popular rhetoric occurs in Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (II. 146 of the ed. in two vols.). Secondly, in pairing names, the Arabs are fond of allowing assonance to prevail. So we have Rahâm and Rayâm, Hârût and Mârût, Hâwil and Ḳâwil, (see Bacher, ibid.), Yâjûj and Mâjûj for the Biblical Gôg and Mâgôg. From the last instance it is evident that the inclination to form assonant pairs of names is not foreign to the Hebrews; another Hebrew instance is Eldâd and Mêdâd, and from Talmudical literature Chillêḳ and Billêḳ. The assonance occurs not only at the end of the words, the initial syllable being indifferent, but also inversely in the first syllable, the end of the word being indifferent. An instance of the latter is found in the names of the orthodox survivors of the ʿAd and Thamûd peoples in the Mohammedan legend, Jâbalḳ and Jâbars (or Jâbarṣ, see Yâḳût, II. 2; but certainly not Jabulka and Jabulsa, as Justi writes in the Ausland for 1875, p. 306). Moreover, this love of assonance natural to Arabic writers extends beyond the proper sphere of Arabic legends to foreign parts. An instance is found in the Romance of ʿAntar, XXIX. 72. 10, where two Franks, brothers, slain by ʿAntar, are called Saubert and Taubert. No doubt the writer had heard of Frankish names ending in bert; he had already mentioned a king Jaubert. The tendency to form such assonant names is so prevalent that the correct sounds of one of the two are unhesitatingly corrupted for the sake of assonance. This was the case with Yâjûj and Mâjûj; another well-known instance is the pair of names Soliman and Doliman for Suleyman and Dânishmand. The Biblical Saul is called in the Mohammedan legend Ṭâlût, for the sake of assonance with Jâlût (Goliath).[[765]] It is also noteworthy that the first species of assonance is to be observed not only in personal names, but also in geographical proper names, e.g. Kadâ and Kudeyy, two hills near Mekka (Yâḳût, IV. 245. 15), Achshan and Chusheyn, also hills (ibid. I. 164. 12, and see the proverbs referring to them in al-Meydânî, I. 14. 2); Sharaf and Shureyf, localities in Nejd (Ibn Dureyd, 127. 15.)
This phonological tendency produced also the name Ḳâbil as an assonant with Hâbil. The name Ḳayîn ‘Cain’ was originally pronounced by the Arabs in its Hebrew form, which was particularly easy, because Ḳayn is an old Arabic proper name.[[766]] Through the force of assonance Ḳayîn was changed in the mouth of the people into Ḳâbil, and this form made its way at a later time into literature and became general. Masʿûdî still knows the name Ḳayin, and expressly condemns the form Ḳâbil as incorrect (Les Prairies d’or, I. 62); and he quotes a verse from which it appears that the Biblical etymology from ḳânâ, which is equally applicable to the Arabic language, is known to him:
Waḳtanayâ-l-ibna fa-summiya Ḳâyina * wa-ʿâyanâ nashʿahu mâ ʿâyanâ
Fa-shabba Hâbilu fa-shabba Ḳâyin * wa-lam yakun beynahumâ tabâyun.
They (Adam and Eve) gained the son; so he was called Ḳâyin, * and they saw his growth as they saw it.
So Hâbil grew up, and Ḳâyin grew up, * and there was no dispute between them.