The Literature of Arabia | Page 2

camels; there is no mention of money or
jewelry. When a wager is made the stakes are a hundred camels. The
commercial spirit of the Arabian Nights 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 naiveté. 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