The spirit of Arabian genius, destined in subsequent ages to effect such a revolution in the literary and scientific history of the world, had in the sixth century of the Christian era disclosed no indications of its gigantic powers. No condition of existence could be less suggestive of a capacity for intellectual achievement than that whose main dependence was violence and plunder. The Arab of that epoch had no written records save a few obscure inscriptions in the Himyarite dialect, which have been deciphered by the plodding industry of modern scholars, and are, for the most part, epitaphs. Traditions, modified or corrupted by the vanity or the prejudice of each successive generation, were the sole and uncertain reliance of the chronicler. The power of memory by which these were retained and transmitted from an unknown antiquity seems absolutely miraculous and incredible.
Although destitute of authentic history, and even unskilled in the common arts by which a nation’s glory may be perpetuated, the early Arab excelled in a species of literary composition in which barbarian races have always exhibited the greatest proficiency. A talent for poetry, which invariably attains its highest development among those least exposed to the practical ideas and refined vices of civilization, was considered by the Bedouin as the most noble of human accomplishments. His temperament, his situation, his pursuits, rendered him peculiarly susceptible to the charms of the Muse. His spirit was impetuous, his invention inexhaustible, his imagination riotous, his enthusiasm unbounded. From an abnormally sensitive nervous organization which nature had bestowed upon him, on occasions of prolonged mental excitement often proceeded an hysterical frenzy, a state declared by the most renowned of poets to be indispensable for perfection in his art. The scenery of the Desert; its impressive solitudes; the enchanting illusions of the mirage; the magnificent constellations of the tropical heavens; the life of incessant peril; the exploits of romantic gallantry; the nocturnal excursion,—the surprise, the battle, the retreat, the rescue,—these all stimulated the imaginative faculty of the Arab, and urged him to the cultivation of a talent which might transmit to posterity events whose immortality was at once his personal title to honor, the pastime of his camp-fire, and the glory of his tribe. In the means at his disposal the poet enjoyed a rare, almost a unique advantage. The energy and softness of the Arabian language, its melodious character, the abundance and variety of its metaphors, render it peculiarly available as the vehicle of poetic sentiment. There is perhaps no idiom which lends itself with such facility to the construction of rhyme; for its very prose is frequently musical. The researches of modern philology have brought to the notice of Europe the complexity and perfection of its grammatical construction, the richness of its vocabulary, its boundless scope and graceful imagery. Most appropriately did the old philosopher, Mohammed-al-Damiri, referring to the native eloquence and exuberant diction of his countrymen, exclaim: “Wisdom hath lighted on three things,—the brain of the Franks, the hands of the Chinese, and the tongues of the Arabs.”
The poetry of the Arabs is even more obscure in its origin than the primitive history of their race. Without the assistance of writing, no literature, however popular, can maintain its integrity for even a single generation. Even the phenomenal memory of that people—a gift so universal as not to elicit comment among them, and which was strengthened by the daily rehearsal of favorite compositions—could only imperfectly supply the place of permanent and authentic records. The matter of the Arabian poems was therefore constantly changing, while the subjects and versification remained the same. Their form was generally that of the dramatic pastoral; sometimes the elegiac ode, which offered an opportunity for the enumeration of the virtues of the deceased and, incidentally, of the achievements of his tribe, was adopted. The genius of the pre-Islamitic poet never attempted the epic, which so often profits by the inexhaustible resources of the fabulous; and, although surrounded by an atmosphere eminently favorable to the inspiration of such productions, it does not seem to have had an adequate conception of them. Its representations exhibited to the enraptured listener the stirring events of his adventurous life, which his pride taught him to regard as vastly superior, in all that promotes the dignity of humanity, to the corrupt and inert existence of civilization. The universal possession of the poetic faculty was one of the peculiarities of the Arab nation. Old and young alike seemed gifted with it. The rules of prosody, and even the simplest canons of metrical composition, were unknown. Yet such was the instinctive perception of rhythmical correctness, that the versification of the most humble was characterized by propriety and elegance, qualities which tended to enhance the fierce enthusiasm, the sublimity of thought, the touching pathos, the burning passion, which pervade the noble poems of the Desert. Many of the latter bear a striking resemblance to the Song of Solomon; some are remarkable for their rhapsodies; others for their weighty and sententious wisdom; others again for their sparkling wit and pointed epigrams. The seven poems called Moallakat, “The Suspended,”—a word of doubtful significance so far as its relation to these productions is concerned—have always been considered the masterpieces of the ancient Arabs, and form the principal source from which our ideas of their attainments in the art of poetry must be derived. Popular credulity ascribed the name of these compositions to their presumed suspension in the Kaaba as evidence of the triumphs of their authors over all competitors; the more rational conjecture, however, connects the title of Moallakat with a necklace or pendant, of which each poem formed a jewel, a figurative mode of designating literary works among Orientals, and one especially affected by poets and historians. The entire body of tradition, combined with facts accumulated by subsequent writers of every race and creed, does not afford such a thorough insight into the public and domestic life, the prevailing sentiments and prejudices, the habits and customs of the inhabitants of the Peninsula, as do the Moallakat. They enable us partially to reconstruct the political and religious systems of the early Arabians, and to establish, by comparison, their identity with the conditions of modern existence, in localities where the sword of Islam has never been able to exterminate the detested practice of idolatry. They place before us, in all its impressiveness, the silent majesty of the Desert, its dazzling sky, its waves of quivering vapor, its interminable waste of sand; they pass in review the indolent life of the camp, varied only by a nocturnal alarm or by some daring intrigue; they relate the exciting scenes of the foray; they delineate with erotic freedom the charms of the lovely Bedouin maid; they describe the fate of the female prisoner whose captivity was often the result of artifice or barter; they rehearse the midnight march under the starry firmament, which in the florid language of the East “appeared like the folds of a silken sash variously decked with gems.” Nor is the excellence of the Moallakat confined to mere description. The proud boast of exploits not unworthy of the Age of Chivalry, which, in fact, received its inspiration from this source; the sacred duties of a lavish hospitality; the rare qualities of a favorite horse or camel; the absorbing passion of love, its perils and its pleasures; the Herculean feats of virile manhood,—these were the chosen themes of the Arab poet. His verses abound in moral precepts and philosophical apothegms, conveying lessons of worldly wisdom which recall, in both their phraseology and their profound acquaintance with human nature, the Suras of the Koran and the Proverbs of Solomon. In addition to maxims of a moral tone, scattered through these productions, they exhibit, on the other hand, much that is repulsive, cruel, and barbarous. Epicureanism is, however, the prominent characteristic of the Moallakat, as, indeed, it is of all primitive Arabic poems which have descended to us. The charms of wine and women, and an indulgence in the pleasures of the banquet to the extreme limit of bacchanalian revelry, are everywhere celebrated with a license worthy of the grossest couplets of Catullus and Martial. In the relation of scenes of intrigue and midnight assignation, often laid in the camp of a hostile tribe, where discovery would have led to instant death, the adventurous spirit of the lover is deemed worthy to rank with that which sustains the hero in the front of battle. The most fulsome adulation characterizes the homage tendered by the ardent lover to the object of his idolatry. Modern fastidiousness would not tolerate the descriptions given by the poet of the physical perfections of his lady-love in all their circumstantial details; though translations exist, they are mere paraphrases; and the voluptuous images of the poet’s fancy still remain discreetly hidden in the obscurity of the original idiom.
There is much similarity and repetition in Arab poetry, which the interpolations and substitutions inevitable among a people dependent for the preservation of their literature upon oral tradition will hardly account for.
The existence of the Bedouin was bounded by a narrow horizon, the Desert was his world. Its familiar objects and localities, which never changed; the deeds which they recalled; the hopes which they inspired; the memory of ancestral renown with which they were associated, suggested the topics of his song. The haughtiness which was one of his most offensive characteristics, and forbade his permanent alliance or his intermarriage with other races, strengthened the feelings of reserve which had been a national peculiarity for countless generations. His ideas, his aspirations, his joys, his sorrows, evoked by the monotonous circumstances of his environment, were little subject to deviation during the course of centuries. While his religion was a compound of all degrees of fetichism, idolatry, and astral worship, his poetry was original, pure, artless, and natural. His aptitude for versification was disclosed by the most trivial occurrences of life. A rhyming stanza, which set forth an appropriate sentiment, was often the reply to an ordinary question. Where allusion was made to an historical incident, the speaker was often challenged to confirm his statement by the recitation of an original verse, or by an apt poetical quotation, as the most reliable authority. The quick perception of the Arab was shown by his ability to finish instantly a couplet corresponding in sense and measure with a line repeated by a competitor. Its general similarity to all others renders the assignment of any Arabic poem to a certain epoch impossible, for the natural taste has never varied, and a composition that was popular three hundred years before the Hegira would be equally acceptable to-day to the mountain tribes of Central Arabia.
In the opening lines of most Arabic poems, and in those of the Moallakat especially, there is a dearth of individuality, and a common resemblance which would almost suggest that they had been written by the same person. The purity of style which characterizes the latter was, however, universally admitted; they were the recognized standards of grammatical correctness; they were consulted whenever a dispute arose concerning the meaning of a word or the construction of a sentence in later authors was in doubt; and among Mohammedans the authority of those Pagan compositions was never entirely superseded even by that of the Koran, whose sublimity of thought and elegance of diction were reverently ascribed to the direct inspiration of God.
We owe the survival of the Moallakat to the capricious taste of some self-appointed critic, who selected them from a number of poems with which he was familiar; and, through his arbitrary choice, we are deprived of the opportunity of forming an opinion of the others which his rejection has tacitly pronounced inferior. We know nothing of his qualifications for such a task, and are even ignorant of his name; but, from the remaining fragments of these productions, we may safely conclude that some of them, at least, were as fully entitled to preservation as the seven more fortunate ones which have descended to posterity.
It is a remarkable fact that no Arabic poem shows traces of Hebrew influence or contains ideas borrowed from either the Scriptures or the Talmud. The wealth and political power of the Jews; their intimate association with the nomadic tribes of the Peninsula; a close similarity of traditions, customs, and language, produced no perceptible effect upon the prehistoric literature of the Arabs. The Hebrews of Arabia, nevertheless, had their poets, whose productions, on the other hand, exhibit a marked coincidence of thought and style with those of their Arab kinsmen. Their sentiments are lofty and admirable, their language pure, and their merit, while inferior to that of the Moallakat, is still far from contemptible. The Book of Job, which has no apparent connection with the rest of the Scriptures, has been pronounced by competent critics a translation of an Arabic poem.
Improvisation, a talent possessed only by those endowed with unusual readiness of perception, a lively imagination, and an inexhaustible command of language, was practised with great success by the itinerant poets of Arabia. From their auditors, a couplet happily applied, by the inspiration of the moment, to some well-known event, elicited far more applause than efforts, however meritorious, which had cost days of arduous labor. This art of extemporaneous composition, which, when thoroughly developed, implies the possession of extraordinary mental ability, carried into Europe by the Moslems, and long employed by the troubadours, now survives only among the lowest class of the Italian peasantry. It is, in our day, most difficult to determine what degree of authenticity may properly be ascribed to the poetry of the ancient Arabs, none of which ascends to a higher antiquity than two hundred years before the Hegira. The unreliability of oral tradition, the variety of dialects, the frequent substitutions of modern phraseology, the bad faith, interpolations, and mistakes of unscrupulous commentators, the corruption and suppression of passages through tribal prejudice—all of these causes have had their share in effecting the gradual deterioration of the grand and stirring poems of Arabia.
It is impossible for us to appreciate the influence exercised by those who had attained to eminence in the poetic art over their imaginative and passionate countrymen. The Arab bard was without exception the most important personage of his tribe. Wealth, rank, beauty, personal popularity, military distinction alike paid tribute to his genius. To his talent for improvisation and versification, he often united the threefold character of statesman, warrior, and knight-errant, and thus became the model of his associates, the idol of the fair sex, and the terror of his enemies, who were as sensitive to the poisoned shafts of his satire as to the keenness of his sword. The most famous of these rhyming paladins, and the author of one of the Moallakat, whose life and achievements have been made the subject of a romance which approaches more nearly to the nature of an epic than any other production in the Arabic language, was Antar. By instinct and training a Bedouin, he was, however, of Arab blood only on his father’s side, his mother having been an Abyssinian slave. According to the custom of his country, he shared her lot until his bravery in battle induced his father to emancipate him. His amatory exploits, as well as his daring enterprises against the enemy, made him the admiration of the fiery Arabian youth. It was the regret of Mohammed, often expressed, that he had never seen this knight-errant of the Desert, who shrank from no danger, however appalling, who redressed the wrongs of woman, who restored the property of the plundered, and whose favorite maxim was, “Bear not malice, for of malice good never came.”