Leaves from the Diary of an Impressionist: Early Writings

by Lafcadio Hearn

Strange some of these Arab comparisons of beauty seem, yet they are never uncouth, never commonplace or feeble. 'Graceful her waist as a nabak-branch; elegant her stature as a palm,' says one who had never heard the words of Solomon. Another compares the beauties of Nahous to ostriches, with good effect: 'The girls of the neighborhood of Nahous have made thee sick for love by reason of their cadenced walk; measured their steps are like those of the ostrich.' All the Arabian poets have alternately compared the eyes of their women to those of the wild antelope, the gazelle, or the desert cow—sharing the last mentioned simile with Homer. Nor was the nomad troubadour ashamed to compare the graces of his beloved to those of a fine steed. 'My beauty,' cries El-Acha, 'slenderly graceful as a young mare, lithe of flank! ... the curves of her bosom are as the curves of heaven aglow with light.... Woman enchantress! were she but to lean a moment on the body of a dead man, surely he would arise again!' Another sings of captive maidens beautiful as wild desert cows.' Nabiga, one of the greatest of the early poets, is fond of a similar comparison, but uses also the gazelle as a more graceful symbol: 'She hath gazed upon thee with the gaze of a young gazelle, tame, swarthy of hue, sable-eyed and decked with a necklace of strung pearls.'

But aside from mere poetical comparisons, we find the Arabs had a well-ordinated law of beauty, which even a Greek sculptor could scarcely have found fault with, although more severe in some respects than the Hellenic ideal. The Arab's estimate is based on a consummate knowledge of comparative artistic anatomy, the rare knowledge of an accomplished stockraiser applied to human anatomy, physiology and osteology. So minute, indeed, are the descriptions of female beauty in the old Arabian poets that they can seldom be faithfully translated; the general idea can alone be given. There were recognized laws of beauty for every finger of the hand, every separate toe of the foot. Every dimple had a special name. That of the chin was called nounah; that at the corner of the lips, rababah; the little hollow of the upper lip, immediately beneath the nasal cartilage, djirthimah; the hollow of the throat, between the collarbones, thograh; the dimple of the thumb-joint, near the wrist, kouit. Furthermore, there was not merely one recognized type of beauty; there were several types. A woman was called melihah, beautiful, only if so charming that every time looked at she seemed more graceful than before. A woman was called djemilah if merely pretty,—if seeming to be exquisitely lovely at a distance but only graceful near by. The curve of beauty—the magical line whose secret is popularly supposed to have been known only to the Greeks, was also known to the Arabs, though they did not perhaps ever succeed in expressing it in ivory or marble; and could only find poetical comparisons for it in the undulation of waves or the rounded outlines of the sandbillows. Lips slightly pouting apart, so as to show a pearly gleam within, were also considered a beautiful possession. 'Why are thy lips so sweetly open?1 asks a desert poet of his beloved. 'Eh!' she replied, 'when the fig ripeneth to give its honey it openeth; the rose openeth also when the dew cometh to kiss it.' Complexion was also a subject of æsthetic study,—especially in regard to smoothness and clearness of skin, being compared to ivory rarely, often to the shell of the ostrich-eggs,—a simile used by Mahomet in his description of the girls of Paradise.

Flexibility of the joints was considered essential to womanly perfection; and Nabiga describes a 'delicate hand, whose fingers are like the stalks of the anam that may be tied into a knot, so flexible they are.' A perfectly straight nose was not thought especially beautiful; the Arabs believed aquiline features to indicate a finer human thoroughbredness and force of character. Often the curve of a woman's nose is compared to 'the curve of a fine sabre well-furbished.' Rounded cheeks were held in abhorrence; the nomad considered fleshiness a sign of inferior blood; and 'smooth flat cheeks, like polished silver,' are highly praised. 'She hath no stoutness; sleek she is, and full-hipped' is said of a fine woman by an Arab admirer, who expressed the view of his people that solid flesh, not adipose tissue, should give the line of beauty. 'Flesh firm as the fruit of a ripening pomegranate.' The hair of a woman was indeed one of her chief glories; but a certain thickness, heaviness, and glossiness was demanded, and a poet did not think it ungallant to compare such tresses to the black splendor of his stallion's mane or sweeping tail.

Operating upon a race thus imbued with æsthetic ideas and learned in the minutest details of physical completeness, the law of natural selection could not fail to produce remarkable results. Tribes were proud of special characteristics of beauty, transmitted from generation to generation. Thus the Kodaides were famed for the beauty of foot and leg; the Kindides, for the slender elegance of their flexible waists; the Khozaides, for the graceful delicacy of both upper and lower limbs; the Ozrides, or Beni-Azra, for the eyes of their women not less than their famed liability to die of love. When the poet El-Asmai was asked by Haroun El Rashid to describe in verse the beauty of a slave, he was obliged to cite from the desert Arabs:—

She hath the members of a Kinanide,
The rounded loveliness of a Saidide,
The beautiful eyes of a Hilalide,
The graceful mouth of a Tayide.

Islam, indeed, quenched the creative genius of Arabian poetry; but the pagan songs were sung even to the days of the last Caliph, and when some Commander of the Faithful paid his court poet a thousand pieces of gold for describing a slave, the poet seldom relied upon his own powers of improvization, but simply quoted the words of the ancient nomads,—the tamers of horses and breeders of fine camels,—which had been bequeathed by memory from generation to generation. When Abd-el-Melik, fifth Caliph of the house of Ommaya, wanted to know how to choose a woman for her beauty, it was not to a court poet or learned littérateur that he found it necessary to address his questions, but to a herder of camels,—a desert Arab,—a man of the Beni-Ratafan. The nomad's answer is remarkable; his description is absolutely sculpturesque, with a sculpturesqueness that suggests the bland smoothness, the fluent grace of a fine bronze. Its artistic perfection apologizes for its nudity, and yet we prefer to quote it in the French of the Orientalist who first gave it European publicity:—

'Prends la femme aux pieds bien unis, aux talons légers et délicats, aux jambes fines et lisses, aux genoux dégagés et dessinés, aux cuisses pleines et arrondies, aux bras potelés, aux mains déliées et fines, à la gorge relevée et ferme, aux joues rosées, aux yeux noirs et vifs, au front beau et ouvert, au nez aquilin et fier, à la bouche et aux dents fraîches et douces, à la chevelure d'un noir foncé, au cou souple et moëlleux, au ventre effacé et gracieusement ondulé.'

'But where,' asked the Caliph in astonishment, 'can such a woman be found?'

The other replied: 'Thou mayst find such a one among the Arabs of unmixed blood and the Persians of pure race.'

Neither must it be forgotten that for those desert beauties 'Kohl was the best of adornments and water the most excellent of perfumes.'