Moorish Literature | Page 9

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 r?le 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."
"T��n��s; 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 Eghr��s."
"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;
They make guests sleep outside,
And steal their provisions."[43]
"Deceptive women are deceivers ever,
I hastened to escape them.
They girdle themselves with vipers,
And fasten their gowns with scorpions."
"Let not thyself fall victim to a widow,?Even if her cheeks are bouquets,?For though you are