The Literature of Arabia | Page 2

is wanting in this spirited romance of chivalry. The Arabs had sunk to a race of mere traders when Aladdin became possessed of his lamp, and the trickery, greed, and avarice of peddlers and merchants are exhibited in incident after incident of the "Thousand and One Nights." War is despised or feared, courage less to be relied upon than astute knavery, and one of the facts that strikes us is the general frivolity, dishonesty, and cruelty which prevail through the tales of Bagdad. The opposite is the case with Antar. Natural passion has full play, but nobility of character is taken seriously, and generosity and sensibility of heart are portrayed with truthfulness and naivet��. Of course the whole romance is a collection of many romantic stories: it has no epic unity. It will remind the reader of the "Morte d'Arthur" of Sir Thomas Malory, rather than of the "Iliad." We have chosen the most striking of these episodes as best calculated to serve as genuine specimens of Arabian literature. They will transport the modern reader into a new world--which is yet the old, long vanished world of pastoral simplicity and warlike enthusiasm, in primitive Arabia. But the novelty lies in the plot of the tales. Djaida and Khaled, Antar and Ibla, and the race between Shidoub and the great racers Dahir and Ghabra, bring before our eyes with singular freshness the character of a civilization, a domestic life, a political system, which were not wanting in refinement, purity, and justice. The conception of such a dramatic personage as Antar would be original in the highest degree, if it were not based upon historic fact. Antar is a more real personage than Arthur, and quite as real and historic as the Cid. Yet his adventures remind us very much of those which run through the story of the Round Table.
The Arabs, in the days of romance, were a collection of tribes and families whose tents and villages were spread along the Red Sea, between Egypt and the Indian Ocean. There were some tribes more powerful than others, and the result of their tyranny was often bitter war. There was no central monarchy, no priesthood, and no written law. The only stable and independent unit was the family. Domestic life with its purest virtues constituted the strong point amongst the Arabian tribes, where gentleness, free obedience, and forbearance were conspicuous. Each tribe bore the name of its first ancestor, and from him and his successors came down a traditionary, unwritten law, the violation of which was considered the most heinous of offences. There was no settled religion before the conquest of Mohammed; each tribe and each family worshipped whom they would--celestial spirits, sun and moon, or certain idols. In the account given in Antar of the Council of War, the ancients, or old men of the tribe, came forth with idols or amulets round their necks, and the whole account of the council, in which the bard as well as the orator addressed the people, is strictly accurate in historic details. The custom of infanticide in the case of female children was perfectly authorized among the Arabs, and illustrates the motive of the pretty episode of Khaled and Djaida. War was individual and personal among the Arabs, and murder was atoned for by murder, or by the price of a certain number of camels. Raising of horses, peaceful contests in arms, or poetic competitions where each bard recited in public his compositions, formed their amusements. They were very sensible to the charms of music, poetry and oratory, and as a general rule the Arab chieftain was brave, generous, and munificent.
All these historic facts are fully reflected in the highly emotional tale of "Antar," which is the greatest of all the national romances of Arabia. It would scarcely be possible to fix upon any individual writer as its author, for it has been edited over and over again by Arabian scribes, each adding his own glosses and enriching it with incidents. Its original date may have been the sixth century of our era, about five hundred years before the production of the "Thousand and One Nights."
E.W.

THE EARLY FORTUNES OF ANTAR
At the time the "Romance of Antar" opens, the most powerful and the best governed of the Bedouin tribes were those of the Absians and the Adnamians. King Zoheir, chief of the Absians, was firmly established upon his throne, so that the kings of other nations, who were subject to him, paid him tribute. The whole of Arabia in short became subject to the Absians, so that all the chiefs of other tribes and all inhabitants of the desert dreaded their power and depredations.
Under these circumstances, and as a consequence of a flagrant act of tyranny on the part of Zoheir, several chieftains, among