CHAPTER XII.
IN LITERATURE.
SPAIN'S PROSPERITY STIMULATES LITERATURE.—LAVISH PROVISIONS FOR EDUCATION.—CALIPHS PATRONS OF LEARNING.—VAST LIBRARIES EMBODYING THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE DAY.—POETRY ESPECIALLY FOSTERED.—STORY-TELLING.—JEWISH AND MOORISH POETRY CONTRASTED.—JEHUDA HA LEVY.—CHARISI.—GABIROL.—MOSES BEN EZRA.
When we turn to an examination of the position of the Jews and Moors of Spain in Literature, and behold their progress in this department of knowledge, we are not so much surprised as we were when we surveyed the wondrous advance both did make in the department of science, at a time when the rest of Europe was still under the spell of a mental torpor. The great epochs of the world's literature have ever had their origin during times of peace and prosperity. They may continue into turbulent times, and even outlive them, but never can they take root in them. Such an age Spain and its people were enjoying for many years under Moorish sway. The Moors had ended their conquests, and for a while the Jews enjoyed freedom from persecution. Peace prevailed, and prosperity gladdened the heart of man. Hills and dales yielded bountiful harvests. The rich mines of Spain brought to light the treasures of the earth. The long line of coast was crowded with vessels, which restlessly furrowed the oceans, exchanging the products of Europe for the wealth of the Orient. The commerce of the world centered in Spain; there, too, could be found its wealth. The age was ripe for literary activity.
The Jews were the first to open this epoch-making era of European literature. The past had shown that the Jewish mind needs no other impetus for earnest intellectual toil than an age of peace and prosperity, and the present marked no departure from the general rule. The Arab-Moors, sharing the general characteristics of the Jews, did not tarry long behind; as the Jews were mindful of the teachings of their sages, that the crown of learning is the greatest of honors, so did the Moors remember the words of the great Caliph Al Mamum: "They are the elect of God, they are His best and most useful servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties." And so great was the literary zeal of both these races that within comparatively few years there arose a literature upon grammar, lexicography, rhetoric, history, politics, biography, translation, statistics, music, fiction, poetry, law, ethics, theology, philosophy, much of which, despite our boasting of to-day, not only need not fear modern criticism, but is still authority. And it endured for nearly eight centuries, exceeding in duration that of any other literature, ancient or modern, and even after it was crushed, it continued to emit a steady luster through the clouds and darkness of succeeding centuries. Like a flood it overflowed the mountain barriers and went on, widely irrigating the arid fields of Europe.
The provisions for education were abundant. To every mosque and synagogue a free school was attached. Endowed colleges dotted the Saracen Empire, in which free tuition was given to all who were eager for knowledge, and stipends were cheerfully furnished the indigent students. In addition to this, many of the caliphs distinguished themselves not only for their scholarly attainments, but also for their munificent patronage of learning. They assembled the eminent scholars of their times, both natives and foreigners, at their court making it the familiar resort of men of letters, establishing a precedent which the Medicis later turned to excellent use. Above all, they were intent upon the acquisition of extensive libraries. They invited illustrious foreigners to send them their works, and munificently recompensed them. No donation was so grateful to them as a book. They employed agents in Egypt, Syria, Irak and Persia, for collecting and transcribing the rarest manuscripts; and their vessels returned freighted with cargoes more precious than the spices of the East. In this way they amassed magnificent collections—that of Alhakem Second amounted to 600,000 volumes.[26] Our own Harvard cannot reach half that number, even in the nineteenth century, and with the advantage of steam and printing press. Besides these royal libraries, seventy public libraries are named in Andalusia. The collections in the possession of individuals were sometimes very extensive. A private doctor refused the invitation of a sultan of Bokhara because the transportation of his books would have required 400 camels.
The subjects upon which these thousands upon thousands of volumes treat are so manifold, and the authors so numerous—the department of history, for instance, according to an Arabian author cited by D'Herbelot, could boast of 1,300 writers—that even a synoptical review of them would need more space and time than the scope of these discourses will allow, and so we dismiss them with the simple remark that such is their excellence, such the influence they exercised upon the literature of Europe that a careful perusal of the works still extant in the original or in translation will well repay the special student of any of the special branches of literature of which they treat.
The poetry of that period, however, refuses to be dismissed. She bids us halt. She, the queen of literature, is not accustomed to such slight. She was born to rule, she brooks no opposition, and so we pause. And after we have held sweet converse with her minstrel bards, and after we have perused a number of the almost countless volumes devoted to winged words of music and to poetic fancy, we regret not, that she made us pause. No longer do we think her boast an idle one that Spain, during the period that extends from the eighth to the fifteenth century, can show a greater number of poets than all the other nations combined. We need not ask the reason why. Any one acquainted with the extraordinary richness of both the Hebrew and its kindred—the Arabic language—their natural cadence, which lends itself to verse, the ease which both languages afford in passing from prose to poetry, and with the bent of mind of both races, poetical, delighting in figurative speech, in metaphor and allegory and fable, in luxuriant imagery and fanciful romance, any one acquainted with their Oriental predilection for the fairer sex, which could only express itself in languishing idyls or passionate lyric sonnets, any one knowing all this, will not wonder at the vastness of the Jewish and Moorish poetic literature.
The Moors excelled in what was then known as the art of "story telling." They had brought it with them from the East and the enchanting moonlight evenings of Andalusia, and the sequestered, fairy-like gardens, with their shady cypress trees, and their cascades, and their flowering shrubs, and their bowers of roses, and their crypt-like grottoes, all these tended to keep the love for their art alive. With them "this story telling," both in prose and poetry, took the place of theatrical representation. Those of you familiar with one of the many extant prose collections of stories such as "The Arabian Nights," can readily form an opinion of the great charm that branch of literature must have had in the original language for the Moorish people.
Physicians often ordered "story telling" as a prescription for their patients, to mitigate their sufferings, to calm their agitation and to give sleep after protracted insomnia, or to beguile the ennui of the grandees, or to recreate them after their fatigues. The "munshids" or "story tellers" found their vocation a very honored and a very profitable one, and they took great pains to foster that art.