Moorish Literature | Page 8

Thou alone art good.?The dam, perfidious thing,?Precipitated his muddy Legions,?With loud growlings.?No bank so strong as to hold him in check.
"He spurred to the right,?The bridges which could not sustain his shock fell?Under his added weight;?His fury filled the country with fear, and he?Crushed the barrier that would retain him."
As to the class of declamatory poems, one in particular is popular in Algiers, for it celebrates the conquest of the Maghreb in the eleventh century by the divers branches of the Beni-Hilal, from whom descend almost the whole of the Arabs who now are living in the northwest of Africa. This veritable poem is old enough, perhaps under its present form, for the historian, Ten Khaldoun, who wrote at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth, has preserved the resum�� of the episode of Djazza, the heroine who abandoned her children and husband to follow her brothers to the conquest of Thrgya Hajoute. To him are attributed verses which do not lack regularity, nor a certain rhythm, and also a facility of expression, but which abound in interpolations and faults of grammar. The city people could not bear to hear them nor to read them. In our days, for their taste has changed--at least in that which touches the masses--the recital of the deeds of the Helals is much liked in the Arab caf��s in Algeria and also in Tunis. Still more, these recitals have penetrated to the Berbers, and if they have not preserved the indigenous songs of the second Arab invasion, they have borrowed the traditions of their conquerors, as we can see in the episode of Ali el Hilalien and of Er-Redah.
The names of the invading chiefs have been preserved in the declamatory songs: Abou Zeid, Hassan ben Serhan, and, above all, Dyab ben Ghanum, in the mouth of whom the poet puts at the end of the epic the recital of the exploits of his race:
"Since the day when we quitted the soil and territory of the
Medjid, I have not opened my heart to joy;?We came to the homes of Chokir and Cherif ben Hachem who pours upon thee (Djazzah) a rain of tears;?We have marched against Ed-Dabis ben Monime and we have overrun his cities and plains.?We went to Koufat and have bought merchandise from the tradesmen who come to us by caravan.?We arrived at Ras el Ain in all our brave attire and we mastered all the villages and their inhabitants.?We came to Haleb, whose territory we had overrun, borne by our swift, magnificent steeds.?We entered the country of the Khazi Mohammed who wore a coat of mail, with long, floating ends,?We traversed Syria, going toward Ghaza, and reached Egypt, belonging to the son of Yakoub, Yousof, and found the Turks with their swift steeds.?We reached the land of Raqin al Hoonara, and drowned him in a deluge of blood.?We came to the country of the Mahdi, whom we rolled on the earth, and as to his nobles their blood flowed in streams.?We came to the iron house of Boraih, and found that the Jewish was the established religion.?We arrived at the home of the warrior, El Hashais:?The night was dark, he fell upon us while we slept without anxiety,?He took from us our delicate and honored young girls, beauties whose eyes were darkened with kohol.?Abou Zeid marched against him with his sharp sword and left him lying on the ground.?Abou So'dah Khalifah the Zemati, made an expedition against us, and pursued us with the sword from all sides.?I killed Abou So'dah Khalifah the Zemati, and I have put you in possession of all his estates.?They gave me three provinces and So'dah, this is the exact truth that I am telling here.?Then came an old woman of evil augur and she threw dissension among us, and the Helals left for a distant land.?Then Abou Ali said to me: 'Dyab, you are but a fool.'?I marched against him under the wing of the night, and flames were lighted in the sheepfolds.?He sent against me Hassan the Hilali, I went to meet him and said, 'Seize this wretched dog.' These are the words of the Zoght Dyab ben Ghanem and the fire of illness was lighted 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