Moorish Literature

by René Basset

  Political relations also existed between those of the Moors who remained in Spain as converts and such as had fled from persecution and carried to the populations of the north of Africa the hatred of the Spanish Christians. Thus we find among the popular literature of the Magreb the same legends, but edited in Arabic. Only a small number has been published.56 Whether in one language or the other, editing does not offer anything remarkable. The stories have been developed, after the traditions of the Mussulmans, by the demi-littérateurs, and by that means they have become easier and more accessible to the multitude.

  It is thus that a literature in Spain sadly ends which, during seven centuries, had counted historians and poets, philologists, philosophers and savants, and which the Christian literature replacing it can possibly equal in some points, but never surpass.57

  PREFACE

  The Moorish ballads which appear in this volume are selected from a unique department of European literature. They are found in the Spanish language, but their character is oriental; their inspiration comes from the Mahometan conquerors of northern Africa, and while they exhibit a blending of Spanish earnestness and chivalry with the wild and dashing spirit of the Arab, they present a type of literature which is quite unparalleled in the Latin and Teutonic countries of the Mediterranean basin.

  Spain is especially rich in ballad literature, infinitely richer than any other civilized nation. These ballads take various forms. By Cervantes and his countrymen they are styled romances, and the romance generally consists in a poem which describes the character, sufferings, or exploits of a single individual. The language is simple; the versification, often artless though melodious, is seldom elaborated into complexity of rhyme. But the heroic Moor is set before us in the most vivid colors. The hues and material of his cloak, his housings, his caftan, and his plumes are given, and quite a vocabulary is exhausted in depicting the color, sex, and breed of his war-horse. His weapons, lance, scimitar, and corslet of steel are dwelt upon with enthusiasm. He is as brave as Mars, and as comely as Adonis. Sometimes he dashes into a bull-ring and slays wild creatures in the sight of fair ladies and envious men. He throws his lance of cane, which is filled with sand, so high that it vanishes in the clouds. He is ready to strike down, in his own house, the Christian who has taken from him and wedded the lady of his choice. He is almost always in love with some lady who is unkind and cold, and for her he wanders at times in dark array, expressing his sombre mood in the device and motto which he paints upon his shield. Some of the ballads picture love more fortunate in the most charming manner, and the dark tortures of jealousy are powerfully described in others. The devotion of the Moor to his lady is scarcely caricatured in the mocking language of Cervantes, and is not exceeded by anything to be found in the history of French chivalry. But the god of these ballads is Allah, and they sometimes reveal a trace of ferocity which seems to be derived from religious fanaticism. Nor can the reader fail to be struck by the profound pathos which many of them express so well. The dirges are supremely beautiful, their language simple and direct, but perfect in descriptive touches and in the cadence of the reiterated burden.

  Beside the ballads of warlike and amorous adventures, there are sea-songs, songs of captivity, and songs of the galley slave. The Spanish Moor is seized by some African pirate and carried away to toil in the mill of his master on some foreign shore, or he is chained to the rowing-bench of the Berber galley, thence to be taken and sold when the voyage is over to some master who leaves him to weep in solitary toil in the farm or garden. Sometimes he wins the love of his mistress, who releases him and flies in his company.

  All these ballads have vivid descriptions of scenery. The towers of Baeza, the walls of Granada, the green vegas that spread outside every city, the valley of the Guadalquivir, and the rushing waters of the Tagus, the high cliffs of Cadiz, the Pillars of Hercules, and the blue waves of the Mediterranean make a life-like background to every incident. In the cities the ladies throng the balconies of curling iron-work or crowd the plaza where the joust or bull-fight is to be witnessed, or steal at nightfall to the edge of the vega to meet a lover, and sometimes to die in his arms at the hands of bandits.

  There is a dramatic power in these ballads which is one of their most remarkable features. They are sometimes mere sketches, but oftener the story is told with consummate art, with strict economy of word and phrase, and the dénouement comes with a point and power which show that the Moorish minstrel was an artist of no mean skill and address.

  The authors of the Moorish romances, songs, and ballads are unknown. They have probably assumed their present literary form after being part of the répertoire of successive minstrels, and some of the incidents appear in more than one version. The most ancient of them are often the shortest, but they belong to the period when southern Spain under Mahometan rule was at the height of its prosperity, and Arabian learning, art, and literature made her rank among the first countries in Europe. The peninsula was conquered by the Moors in the caliphate of Walid I, 705-715 A.D., and the independent dynasty of the Ommiades was founded by Abderrhaman at Granada in 755 A.D. It was from this latter date that the Spanish Moors began to assume that special character in language, manners, and chivalric enthusiasm which is represented in the present ballads; the spirit of Christian knighthood is here seen blended with Arabian passion, impetuosity, and impulsiveness, and the Spanish language has supplanted, even among Mahometan poets, the oriental idiom. We may roughly estimate the period in which the Moorish romance flourished as comprised in the years between 1100 and 1600 A.D.

  The term Moorish is somewhat indefinite, and is used in Spanish history as a synonym of Saracen or Mahometan. It cannot be called a national appellation, though originally in the Augustan age it was applied to the dwellers in Mauretania, with whom the Romans had first come in contact when the war with Hannibal was transferred from Italy and Spain to Africa. In the present day, it may be applied to all the races of northwestern Africa who have accepted Mahometanism; in which case it would include the aborigines of that region, who live not on the coast and in towns, but in the Atlas Mountain and the Sahara Desert. While these races, all Berbers under different local names, are Mussulmans in profession, they are not so highly civilized as their co-religionists who people the coast of the Mediterranean. They live a tribal life, and are blood-thirsty and predatory. They are of course mixed in race with the Arabians, but they are separate in their life and institutions, and they possess no written literature. Their oral literature is, however, abundant, though it is only within quite recent years that it has become known to America and Europe. The present collection of tales and fables is the first which has hitherto been made in the English language. The learned men who collected the tales of the Berbers and Kabyles (who are identical in ethnical origin) underwent many hardships in gathering from half-savage lips the material for their volume. They were forced to live among the wild tribesmen, join their nomad life, sit at their feasts, and watch with them round their camp-fire, while it was with difficulty they transferred to writing the syllables of a barbarous tongue. The memory of the Berber story-teller seems to be incredibly capacious and retentive, and the tales were recited over and over again without a variation. As is to be expected these tales are very varied, and many of them are of a didactic, if not ethical, cast. They are instructive as revealing the social life and character of these mountain and desert tribes.

  We find the spirit of the vendetta pervading these tales with more than Corsican bitterness and unreasoning cruelty, every man being allowed to revenge himself by taking the life or property of another. This private and personal warfare has done more than anything else to check the advance in civilization of these tribesmen. The Berbers and Kabyles are fanatical Mahometans and look upon Christians and Jews as dogs and outcasts. It is considered honorable to cheat, rob, or deceive by lies one who does not worship Allah. The tales illustrate, moreover, the degraded position of women. A wife is literally a chattel, not only to be boug
ht, but to be sold also, and to be treated in every respect as man's inferior--a mere slave or beast of burden. Yet the tribesmen are profoundly superstitious, and hold in great dread the evil spirits who they think surround them and to whom they attribute bodily and mental ills. An idiot is one who is possessed by a wicked demon, and is to be feared accordingly.

  There are found current among them a vast number of fairy tales, such as equal in wildness and horror the strangest inventions of oriental imagination. Their tales of ogres and ogresses are unsoftened by any of that playfulness and bonhomie which give such undying charm to the "Thousand and One Nights." The element of the miraculous takes many original forms in their popular tales, and they have more than their share of the folk-lore legends and traditions such as Herodotus loved to collect. It was said of old that something new was always coming out of Africa, and certainly the contribution which the Berbers and Kabyles have made to the fund of wonder-stories in the world may be looked upon as new, in more than one sense. It is new, not only because it is novel and unexpected, but because it is fresh, original and highly interesting.

  The fables of these tribes are very abundant and very curious. The great hero of the animal fable in Europe has always been the fox, whose cunning, greed, and duplicity are immortalized in the finest fable the world's literature possesses. The fables of northwest Africa employ the jackal instead of Reynard, whose place the sycophant of the lion not inaptly fills.

  There are a number of men among the Kabyles and other Berber tribes who make a profession of reciting poems, tales, and proverbs, and travel from one village or encampment to another in search of an audience. They know the national traditions, the heroic legends, and warlike adventures that pertain to each community, and are honored and welcomed wherever they go. It was from these men that the various narratives contained in this collection were obtained, and the translation of them has engaged the talents and labors of some of the world's foremost oriental scholars.

  MOORISH BALLADS

  FATIMA'S LOVE

  On the morn of John the Baptist, just at the break of day,

  The Moors upon Granada's fields streamed out in bright array.

  Their horses galloped o'er the sod, their lances flashed in air,

  And the banners that their dames had wrought spread out their colors fair.

  Their quivers bright flashed in the light with gold and silk brocade,

  And the Moor who saw his love was there looked best in the parade,

  And the Moor who had no lady love strove hard some love to gain.

  'Mong those who from Alhambra's towers gazed on that warrior train,

  There were two Moorish ladies there whom love had smitten sore;

  Zarifa one, and Fatima the name the other bore.

  Knit by warm friendship were their hearts till, filled with jealous pain,

  Their glances met, as one fair knight came prancing o'er the plain.

  Zarifa spoke to Fatima, "How has love marred thy face!

  Once roses bloomed on either cheek, now lilies take their place;

  And you, who once would talk of love, now still and silent stay.

  Come, come unto the window and watch the pageant gay!

  Abindarraez is riding by; his train is full in view;

  In all Granada none can boast a choicer retinue."

  "It is not love, Zarifa, that robs my cheek of rose;

  No fond and anxious passion this mournful bosom knows;

  My cheeks are pale and I am still and silent, it is true,--

  For, ah! I miss my father's face, whom fierce Alabey slew.

  And did I crave the boon of love, a thousand knights were fain

  To fight for me in service true on yonder flowery plain.

  And all the love I give to each to give me back again.

  And for Abindarraez, whose heart and valiant might,

  You praise and from the window watch, with rapturous delight----"

  The lady stopped, for at their feet knelt down the well-loved knight.

  THE BRAGGART REBUKED

  "If thou art brave in battle's hour

  As thou art bold in pleasure's rout;

  If thou canst make the lances fly

  As thou canst fling thy words about;

  "If thou canst in the vega fight

  As thou the ladies' eyes canst praise;

  And show on horseback half the skill

  That marks thee in the dance's maze;

  "Meet with the briskness of the joust

  The challenge of the deadly lance,

  And in the play of scimitars

  Be sprightly as in festive dance;

  "If thou art ready in the field

  As thou art nimble on the square;

  And canst the front of battle face

  As though thou flirtest with the fair;

  "If thou dost don thy shining mail

  As lightly as thy festive suit,

  And listenest to the trumpet call

  As though it were thy lady's lute;

  "And if, as in the gamesome hour

  Thou flingest round the rattling reed

  Against the foeman's moated camp,

  Thou spurrest on thy thundering steed;

  "If, when the foe is face to face,

  Thou boastest as thou oft hast done

  When far away his ranks were ranged,

  And the fierce fight had not begun;--

  "Go, Zaide, to the Alhambra go,

  And there defend thy soldier fame;

  For every tongue is wagging there,

  And all, derisive, speak thy name.

  "And if thou fear to go alone,

  Take others with thee to thine aid;

  Thy friends are ready at thy beck,

  And Zaide need not be afraid!

  "It is not in the palace court,

  Amid the throng of ladies bright,

  That the good soldier, by his tongue,

  Proves himself valorous in the fight.

  "It is not there his hands can show

  What in the battle he can do;

  But where the shock of onset tests

  The fearless heart, the iron thew.

  "Betake thee to the bloody field

  And let thy sword thy praises sing;

  But silence is most eloquent

  Amid the courtiers of the King."

  Thus Tarfe wrote, the Moorish knight,

  His heart so filled with furious rage

  That where his fiery pen had passed

  It pierced and rent the flimsy page.

  He called his varlet to his side,

  "Now seek the Alhambra's hall," said he,

  "And privately to Zaide say

  That this epistle comes from me;

  "And whisper, that none else may hear,

  And say that I his coming wait,

  Where Genil's crystal torrent laves

  The pillars of yon palace gate."

  THE ADMIRAL'S FAREWELL

  The royal fleet with fluttering sail is waiting in the bay;

  And brave Mustapha, the Admiral, must start at break of day.

  His hood and cloak of many hues he swiftly dons, and sets

  Upon his brow his turban gay with pearls and amulets;

  Of many tints above his head his plumes are waving wide;

  Like a crescent moon his scimitar is dangling at his side;

  And standing at the window, he gazes forth, and, hark!

  Across the rippling waters floats the summons to embark.

  Blow, trumpets; clarions, sound your strain!

  Strike, kettle-drum, the alarum in refrain.

  Let the shrill fife, the flute, the sackbut ring

  A summons to our Admiral, a salvo to our King!

  The haughty Turk his scarlet shoe upon the stirrup placed,

  Right easily he vaulted to his saddle-tree in haste.

  His courser was Arabian, in whose crest and pastern show

  A glossy coat as soft as silk, as whi
te as driven snow.

  One mark alone was on his flank! 'twas branded deep and dark;

  The letter F in Arab script, stood out the sacred mark.

  By the color of his courser he wished it to be seen

  That the soul of the King's Admiral was white and true and clean.

  Oh, swift and full of mettle was the steed which that day bore

  Mustapha, the High Admiral, down to the wave-beat shore!

  The haughty Turk sails forth at morn, that Malta he may take,

  But many the greater conquest his gallant men shall make;

  For his heart is high and his soul is bent on death or victory,

  And he pauses, as the clashing sound comes from the distant sea;

  Blow, trumpets; clarions, sound your strain!

  Strike, kettle-drum, the alarum in refrain.

  Let fife and flute, and sackbut in accord