Moorish Literature | Page 9

in his breast."[40]
The second style of modern Arabic poetry is the "Kelamel hazel." It
comprises the pieces which treat of wine, women, and pleasures; and,
in general, on all subjects considered light and unworthy of a serious
mind. One may find an example in the piece of "Said and Hyza," and in
different works of Mr. Stemme cited above. It is particularly among the
nomad Arabs that this style is found, even more than the dwellers in
cities, on whom rests the reproach of composing verses where the study
and sometimes the singularity of expression cannot replace the
inspiration, the energy, and even the delicacy of sentiment often found
among the nomads:
"The country remains a desert, the days of heat are ended, the trees of
our land have borne the attack of Summer, that is my grief.
After it
was so magnificent to behold, its leaves are fallen, one by one, before

my eyes.
But I do not covet the verdure of a cypress; my sorrow has
for its cause a woman, whose heart has captivated mine.
I will
describe her clearly; you will know who she is; since she has gone my
heart fails me.
Cheika of the eye constantly veiled, daughter of
Mouloud, thy love has exhausted me.
I have reached a point where I
walk dizzily like one who has drunken and is drunk; still am I fasting;
my heart has abandoned me.
Thy thick hair is like the ostrich's
plumes, the male ostrich, feeding in the depressions of the dunes; thy
eyebrows are like two nouns [Arab letters] of a Tlemcen writing.
Thy
eyes, my beautiful, are like two gleaming gun barrels, made at
Stamboul, city defiant of Christians.
The cheek of Cherikha is like the
rose and the poppy when they open under the showers.
Thy mouth
insults the emerald and the diamond; thy saliva is a remedy against the
malady; without doubt it is that which has cured me."[41]
To finish with the modern literature of the northwest of Africa, I should
mention a style of writings which played a grand rôle some five
centuries ago, but that sort is too closely connected with those
composing the poems on the Spanish Moors, and of them I shall speak
later. It remains now to but enumerate the enigmas found in all popular
literature, and the satiric sayings attributed to holy persons of the
fifteenth century, who, for having been virtuous and having possessed
the gift of miracles, were none the less men, and as such bore anger and
spite. The most celebrated of all was Sidi Ahmed ben Yousuf, who was
buried at Miliana. By reason of the axiom, "They lend but to the rich,"
they attributed to him all the satirical sayings which are heard in the
villages and among the tribes of Algeria, of which, perhaps, he did
pronounce some. Praises are rare:
"He whom you see, wild and tall,
Know him for a child of Algiers."'
"Beni Menaur, son of the dispersed,
Has many soldiers,
And a false
heart."
"Some are going to call you Blida (little village),
But I have called
you Ourida (little rose)."

"Cherchel is but shame,
Avarice, and flight from society,
His face is
that of a sheep,
His heart is the heart of a wolf;
Be either sailor or
forge worker,
Or else leave the city."[42]
"He who stands there on a low hill
All dressed in a small mantle,

Holding in his hand a small stick
And calling to sorrow, 'Come and
find me,'
Know him for a son of Medea."
"Miliana; Error and evil renown,
Of water and of wood,
People are
jealous of it,
Women are Viziers there,
And men the captives."
"Ténès; built upon a dunghill,
Its water is blood,
Its air is poison,

By the Eternal! Sidi Ahmed will not pass the night here, Get out of the
house, O cat!"
"People of Bon Speur,
Women and men,
That they throw into the
sea."
"From the Orient and Occident,
I gathered the scamps,
I brought
them to Sidi Mohammed ben Djellal.
There they escaped me,
One
part went to Morocco,
And the rest went down into Eghrès."
"Oran the depraved,
I sold thee at a reasonable price;
The Christians
have come there,
Until the day of the resurrection."
"Tlemcen: Glory of the chevaliers;
Her water, her air,
And the way
her women veil themselves
Are found in no other land."
"Tunis: Land of hypocrisy and deceit,
In the day there is abundance
of vagabonds,
At night their number is multiplied,
God grant that I
be not buried in its soil."
Another no less celebrated in Morocco, Sidi Abdan Rahman el
Medjidont, is, they say, the author of sentences in four verses, in which
he curses the vices of his time and satirizes the tribes, and attacks the
women with a bitterness worthy of Juvenal:

"Morocco is the land of treason;
Accursed be its habitants;