ROMANCES,
BY
I. D'ISRAELI.
LONDON: Printed for CADELL and DAVIES, Strand; MURRAY and HIGHLEY, Fleet-street; J. HARDING, St. James's-street; and J. WRIGHT, Piccadilly. 1799. [Price EIGHT SHILLINGS in Boards.]
CONTENTS.
A POEM on Romance Page i
MEJNOUN and LEILA, the Arabian Petrarch and Laura
Part I. 1
Part II. 78
Part III. 109
Part IV. 150
LOVE and HUMILITY, a Roman Romance 209
THE LOVERS, or the Origin of THE FINE ARTS
Part I. 251
Part II. 279
ERRATA.
Page 12, last line, for
elements,
read,
element.
21, ditto, for
follow,
read,
following.
26, 18, for
hymenial,
read,
hymeneal.
161, 4, for
soft-heated,
read,
soft-hearted.
182, 5, for
then thou didst kiss me,
read,
twice didst thou kiss me.
182, 7, for
then thou didst swear,
read,
twice didst thou swear.
A POETICAL ESSAY ON ROMANCE AND ROMANCERS.
The allegorical birth of ROMANCE.—The Arab 81.—The Oriental Nations 91.—The Spanish Historical Ballads 99.—The Minstrel Troop 111.—The Squire Minstrel 121.—Gothic Romances, their Refaccimentos and Moral Allegories 141.—The latter exemplified in Melusina and Raymond 159.—In Alexander the Great and Sebilla 171.—Close 191.
THE fairest child of fairest mother born,
LOVE, whose soft day in listless joy was worn,
Satiate with bliss, and in disturbed repose
Unquiet, ruffled all his bed of rose.
ENNUI, Hell's negro! fat, and grinning, prest
Her viewless iron thro' his heaving breast,
Her dancing furies swim along the gloom;
Their lethal lips respire the' Azotic room
Azotic gas
is the late term for mephitic or nonrespirable air, from two Greek words signifying
privative
and
life,
as this air destroys life. Dr. Thornton's Medical Extracts, Vol. I. p. 8.
.
His folded arms receive his bending head,
And his light feet in heaviness are spread;
Nor wakes, nor sleeps, but turns a half-clos'd eye
And views imperfect things, and just can sigh.
He plucks his pendulous wings, and, yawning, blows
A plume in air, or twirls a leaflet rose.
The GRACES calls, and blames the sister race,
And sullen tells how neither is a Grace;
Their fingers, half in anger, pinch his cheek,
And kiss the MAN-CHILD, till his murmurs break.
Haste to my mother, cried the wayward boy,
And tell I perish with unvaried joy.
Returning now, the gliding GRACES move,
And lead a nymph, by BEAUTY sent to LOVE;
Her feeling face the heart's quick pulses changed;
Her steps, so volatile, each Grace arranged;
Ere from her lips the' harmonious words have flown,
The Graces whispered every tender tone.
She winds round LOVE with her intactile arms,
Flies with the child, and as she wills she charms.
She touch'd the morning-dews to diamonds light,
And wove her silver threads from moons of night;
Her feet were powdered o'er, with stars 'tis said,
And stars, in fillet-light, adorn her head.
Two crystal pearls her crimson mantle bears;
The tint a virgin's blush, the gems two virgins tears!
Lo! as she passes where the summer-wood
Hangs with it's leafy screens, some shadowy flood,
Strange MUSIC sounds! each INSECT VOICE is there;
The piping gnat, the pittering grasshopper:
The humming dorr, the cricket's merry glee;
The INSECT-HANDEL too, the rich-toned bee
When there existed in this nation a genuine vein of gothic poetry, Nature, to the eye of the poet, presented one vast scene of magical inchantment; it was in the age of Drayton, of Jonson, and of Shakespeare. An old bard, in describing the diet of OBERON, gives him a very appropriate band of musicians at his table.
But all the while his eye was serv'd,
We cannot think his ear was starv'd.
But that there was in place, to stir
His ears, the PITTERING grashopper;
The merry cricket, puling flie,
The piping gnat's shrill minstrelsie:
The humming dorr, the dying swan,
And each a chief musician.
I copied these lines to have an opportunity of reviving the felicitous word PITTERING—so imitative of the peculiar shrill and short cry of the grashopper; which is
pit, pit, pit,
quickly repeated. This word however is not to be found in Johnson. I have also introduced in the first Romance another obsolete term, SCATTERLING, used by Spenser for a vagabond. We have lost a great many exquisite and
picturesque expressions,
through the dullness of our lexicographers; and have impoverished the
natural graces
of our language. Some neologisms have their merit; but to revive the dead, is a greater merit.
.
Her flying hand with warm illusion turns
New earths, new heavens, a world where fancy burns;
Sails, without ships, a shadowy sea adown,
Builds, without hands, on clouds, a peopled town;
Her bloodless fights, her feasts that know no cost,
Her storms, where often wrecked, she ne'er was lost;
All these and more, as shift the' inconstant hues,
The little god with infant tremor views.
He shakes his feathers in the wavering flight;
Now shoots a smile, now drops a tear more light.
Her arm soft serpented the clinging boy,
And her eye quivered with a finer joy.
With laughing eyes the' awakened urchin flings
Light o'er her dazzling face his trembling wings.
His purple lips her neck of silver prest,
His soft hand rov'd within her softer breast.
Thy name!—he cries, his humid eyelids shine—
Thy voice is human, but thine art divine!
She, softly parting his incumbering wings;
(To smiling LOVE more lovely smiles she brings)
My name is FICTION; by the GRACES taught;
To LOVE, unquiet LOVE, by BEAUTY brought.
She said, and as she spoke, a rosy cloud
Blush'd o'er their forms, and shade, and silence shroud!
Thro' heaven's blue fields that pure caress is felt,
A thousand colours drop, a thousand odours melt!
O'er the thin cloud celestial eyes incline,
(They laugh at veils, too beautifully fine!)
His feeling wings with tender tremors move;
His nectared locks his glowing bosom rove.
Their rolling eyes in lambent radiance meet,
With circling arms, and twined voluptuous feet;
LOVE SIGHED—Heaven heard! And Jove delighted bowed,
Olympus gaz'd, and shiver'd with the God!
'Twas in that ecstafy, that amorous trance,
That LOVE on FICTION got the child, ROMANCE
The seminal hint of this allegory lies in a very juvenile essay in prose, on Romances, where ROMANCE is defined,
the offspring of Love and Fiction.
That essay has been inserted in the
Encyclopedia Britannica,
entire, without additions; and without my knowledge; and I cannot but reprobate so unjust a proceeding, in thus compelling a writer to become responsible for a copious article, without at first consulting with him on the propriety of improving the effusions of his youth.
.
From that blest hour on EARTH, the Beauty glow'd
And sought with social Man, her dear abode;
With all her MOTHER'S SORCERY paints each dream,
With all her FATHER'S SOUL makes LOVE the eternal theme!
With her the ARAB at the evening's close,
Oft soothes the way worn traveller's repose.
By storied Love the social circle caught,
All lean, abstracted in the charm of thought;
Lo! Memory pauses from the toiling past,
The hovering bandit, and the sickening blast;
All, all forgot! E'en Toil neglects to rest
When human passions touch the lonely breast;
Their heavy hearts the sprightly rapture hail,
Charming the desert-wildness with—A TALE
Colonel Capper, in his Travels across the Desert, says,—
"I have more than once seen the ARABIANS on the Desert sitting around a fire, listening to their tales with such attention and pleasure; as totally to forget the fatigue and hardship with which an instant before they were intirely overcome.
Mr. Wood, in his journey to Palmyra, notices the same circumstance.
"At night the Arabs sat in a circle, drinking coffee, &c. while one of the company diverted the rest by relating a piece of history on the subject of love or war, or with an extempore tale."
!
And oft, in PERSIAN bowers (as evening falls)
On TURKISH platforms, in TARTARIAN halls:
In HARAMS rich, while vexed and sad she sighs,
Each languid queen on tissued sofas lies,
While state-grieved visiers strike their thoughtful head;
Then, then they call some wild INVENTOR'S aid;
The' assembly gather round—with Fancy's skill
He plans his lov'd ROMANCE, and all is still
In Persia, India, Tartary, Arabia, it has ever been one of their favourite amusements to assemble in the serene evenings, around their tents; or on the platforms with which their houses are in general roosed; or in large halls, erected for this purpose, in order to amuse themselves with traditional narrations. Professed story-tellers are of early date in the East. At this day, men of rank have generally one or more male or females among their attendants, who amuse them and their women when melancholy and indisposed; and they are generally employed to lull them asleep. Richardson's Dissertation on the Eastern Nations; Second Edition.
!
Oft where the' ALHAMBRA'S gorgeous towers have blaz'd
The Moorish dame her pale eyes, trembling, rais'd;
For there on palfreys, rich with silk and gold,
Her Saracens their factious lances hold.
(Fraternal wars, Granada's annals tell,
And tenderest loves with dire remorses dwell!)
She flies, with fainting pulse and bloodless face,
Her lover knight, the murderer of her race!
GRANDA held, with many a Moorish song
(ROMANCES OLD) a mute delighted throng.
I read and I believed!—in earliest youth
Each tear was genuine and each fiction truth
The ALHAMBRA was a sublime specimen of Saracenic architecture, combining the gigantic in its outline, and delicacy in its minuter parts. It was a gorgeous magnificence, of which the timid and chastised architecture of Greece can yield no sensation. It has been often described; its bath surrounded by flowers, and orange trees; its marble courts; its ceilings and walls incrusted with the most intricate fret-work, gilded and painted; its fantastic mosaic; its court of colossal lions; its vast length of colonnades; its columns of virgin marble; its fountains, its glittering floors, and its delicious gardens; these form some of its romantic features.
The "
Historia de las Guerras civiles de Granada
" I read at an early period, and at a time when I could most enjoy it, for I believed it to be an authentic history. It is however a considerable romance, relating the civil wars of the two Moorish factions in Spain. It is embellished with numerous
Romances Antiguos;
the word
romance,
in Spanish and French, means
ballad,
of the same species of our rude ballads preserved in the "Reliques of Ancient Poetry." These romances are however more elegant, and two have been translated by the editor of the "Reliques." Often on the plain before the towers of the Alhambra, must many a maiden have beheld the man she loved, become the destroyer of her race; or her own relatives pursuing with fire and sword the family of her lover. In composing these lines, I had in my mind one of these romances, where a very delicate circumstance is ingeniously conceived by the poet. In "
la fiesta de San Juan,
" while the Moors assemble to joust in the plain before the Alhambra, Xarifa and Fatima, who had not been together for some time, are at the window of a turret. Xarifa exclaims to Fatima, Sweet sister, how thou art touched by love! Thou wert wont to have colour on thy cheek, and thou art now pale! Thou wert wont to talk of our loves, and thou art now silent. Come nearer to the window, thou wilt see the lovely Abindarraez; his splendid equipage, and his gallant air. Fatima replies, if I am pale, it is not that I am touched with love; if I have lost my colours, alas! have I not a just cause? Has not that Alabez killed my father? pointing to a knight on the plain.
No eftoy tocada de amores
Ni en mi vida los tratara;
Si se perdiò mi color
Tengo dello justa causa,
Por la muerte de mi padre
Que aquel Alabez matara,
.
What festive band that valley's echo fill,
While half the village rushes down the hill?
Oh! 'tis THE MINSTREL TROOP! with many a LAY;
And harpers, jestours, mimics, crowd the way.
Wild artists they, of versatility!
Learned in LE GUAY SABER, and skilled in GLEE.
One strides a snowy steed; and waves his hand!
(Grave Coryphaeus of a laughing band!)
Around his neck a tabour lightly flung
Depainted fair, with gold and azure hung;
One thrums a harp, and one a psaltry shakes,
The sweet-toned vielle, the merry rebeck wakes.
Mark THE SQUIRE MINSTREL with his smiling mien,
And robe voluminous of Kendal green;
A vermil cincture round that verdure spread;
Like Spring's soft rose he loves, as green and red!
His graceful harp dependent from his breast,
And from its argent chain the honoured wrest.
A tabour rich, whose plates of silver bear
The blazoned arms of many a pupil dear.
Polished his chin, his hair refulgent glows;
Shine the white clasps his gorget proud that close.
Ah view the broidered napkin's meaning art!
A true-love-knot, a D, and flaming heart!
What beauty's eye, who DAMIAN views, can err?
It marks him yet, poor youth! A BATCHELOR
Le Guay Saber,
or the gay science, was the felicitous expression of the Troubadours, to designate, what we now term, the
belles lettres;
their agreeable effusions in verse and prose.
Lay
is an old word signifying
complaint; lays
were generally amatory poems of an elegiac, or querulous kind. The word
glee
(says bishop Percy), which peculiarly denoted their art, continues still in our language, expressive of a strong sensation of delight. The
harp
differed from the
santry
or
psaltry,
in that the former was a stringed instrument, and the latter was mounted with wire. A
vielle
was something like a
guitar
—a minstrel on horseback is thus described,
Entour son col porta son tabour
Depeynt d'or et riche azur.
A learned antiquary tells me that
the Squire Minstrel
was not known among the early minstrels. A character of this kind however appeared at Kenelworth before Queen Elizabeth. Bishop Percy is my authority for this description.
His long Gown of Kendal Green with his red girdle, emblematic of the spring. His silver
tabour,
in which are engraven the arms of those to whom he had taught his arts, as an affectionate remembrance! The
wrest
is the key or screw with which he turned his harp, which every squire minstrel wore, hanging by
"a fair flaggon chain of silver."
Out of his bosom was seen a lappet of his
napkin
(or handkerchief), edged with a blue lace, and marked with a true-love-knot, a heart, and a D for
Damian,
being a
batchelor.
An old writer says,
"
minstrels
do easily win acquaintance any where."
They had indeed frequently at their command the prince's ear, and were always near his person. Fontenelle, says,
"
Les Princesses et les plus grandes Dames y joignoient souvent leurs faveurs. Elles etoient fort foibles contre les beaux Esprits.
!
'Twas Fancy's prime! and lettered PRINCES then
Would give as monarchs, while they felt as men;
More dear the secret bliss which BEAUTY gave,
Touched by the prayer of an harmonious slave!
Diviner fablers, warm with epic rage,
With gorgeous LEGENDS wrought their gothic page,
Towers, lakes, and gardens, fays and paynims rose;
The fine deliriums of romantic prose.
Oh gothic muse! each child of fancy blest,
Drank sweet nutrition from thy milky breast;
To Albion's shores thy family have roved,
And every brother genius, met and loved
The poetical student is well acquainted with this intercourse. Ariosto was the father of Spenser, and Milton kept his majestic eye on the solemn Tasso, and the Italian bards borrowed largely of those
"gorgeous legends,"
those old romances of gothic origin, which have been the nutriment of the true poet in his youth. Milton's affection for
"these lofty fables and romances, among which his young feet wandered,"
is well known. Johnson was enthusiastically delighted by the old Spanish folio romance of Felixmarte of Hircania, and other romances of chivalry. Collins was bewildered among their magical seductions. It merits observation, that the most ancient romances were originally composed in verse, before they were converted into prose; no wonder therefore that the lacerated members of the poet have been so cherished by the sympathy of poetical minds. Don Quixote's was a very agreeable insanity.
.
What hand may dare thy sealed fountains break,
And lost to fame, thy sleeping Homers wake?
I hear a voice! and Bourdeaux's gold-haired knight,
Labouring thro' clouds of dust, stalks beautiful in light!
Lord of EACH GRACE! lo WIELAND'S measures swell
The tones of SOTHEBY'S enchanting shell
Of these old romances some writers of learning and taste, have employed their leisure in giving them a rejuvenescence, which has been grateful to some modern readers. In these
refaccimentos
Count
Tressan
has proved eminently successful. The
Oberon
of
Wieland,
lately familiarised to the English reader by the version of Mr.
Sotheby,
is a
refaccimento
of the old romance of Huon of Bourdeaux. Wieland's characteristic excellence, is the graceful; and in voluptuous scenery he has perhaps never been exceeded; all his various tales and multifarious compositions respire exquisite delicacy, and a refined imagination. His genius seems elegantly described by a critic in the Monthly Review, who says of him, that
"the
youngest
of the
Graces,
not the
highest
of the
Muses,
besought for him of Apollo the
gift of song.
"
I cannot but lament, that the great, or little personage, who gives his name to the poem, scarcely ever appears in it.
.
Oh vain who deem their miracles are lies:
Profound their seas, and deep their pearl-beds rise;
And they a wholesome intellect who breathe,
Admire the doctrine hid with art beneath
Ma voi, ch' avete gl' intelletti sani,
Mirate le Dottrine che s'asconde
Sotto queste coperte alte e profonde.
BERNI.
All the writers of these gothic fables, lest they should be considered as mere triflers, pretended to an allegorical meaning, concealed under the texture of their fable. Even Tasso was placed in a severe dilemma, to prove that his epic poem was a pious allegory! It happened however sometimes that the ingenuity of the writer contrived to extract from his romantic adventures some moral design. Of these I have selected two as specimens.
.
When RAYMOND broke his oath, and (fatal zeal!)
Dared with his sword's point pierce the gate of steel!
His MELUSINA (tender woman!) there
He views in marble fount, with streaming hair,
Her right hand guide a comb; the wave's light trail
Flashing its fine spray from A SCALY TAIL!
With horrid force the FISHY-WOMAN laves,
And o'er the vast saloon she dashed the spumy waves.
Lo RAYMOND sickens at the' unhallowed sight,
And starts, abhorrent of that magic rite.
Thy fate, oh simple man! shall LOVERS fear,
And learn A WOMAN'S SECRET to revere
In the old romance of Melusina, this lovely fairy, though to the world unknown as such, enamoured of Count Raymond marries him, but first extorts a solemn promise, that he will never disturb her on Saturdays. On those days the inferior parts of her body are metamorphosed to that of a mermaid, as a punishment for a former error. Agitated by the malicious insinuations of a friend, his curiosity and his jealousy one day conduct him to the spot she retired to at those times. It was an obscure place, in the dungeon of the fortress. His hand stretched out, feels an iron gate oppose his passage; nor can he discover a single chink, but at length perceives by his touch a loose nail; he places his sword in its head and screws it out. Through this hole he sees Melusina, in the horrid form she is compelled to assume. He repents of his fatal curiosity; she reproaches him, and their mutual happiness is for ever lost! I must observe, that when this romance was written, however marvellous it appears to us, it was doubtless considered in that age, as an
authentic history.
If any beautiful woman was an adept in astronomy, or distinguished by her sagacity and cultivated mind, she was immediately reported to be a
fairy;
and if she was ugly or deformed, she was sometimes burnt as a
witch.
!
When MACEDON'S PRINCE his PERCEFOREST pursued
In British land, along the' inchanted wood,
The monarch vows, each knight in parting vows,
One place shall only yield one night's repose,
Till they rejoin—the adventurous KING at night
Enters the fair SEBILLA'S castled height.
The beauty loved, and her voluptuous eyes
Smile at his vow, and dart their witcheries.
Wreathed by her arms, for ten revolving suns,
Each o'er the' inconscious prince uncounted runs.
The tenth the incantation broke! He flies
And "casts one longing lingering look" and sighs.
He meets his peers, and blames their loitering way,
Making such little speed, since YESTERDAY!
But they returning from the sorcerer's soil,
Swear ten revolving suns have seen them toil!
Too late the prince those witching eyes would blame
That broke his vow, and lost ten days of fame.
So tells the FICTION, BEAUTY'S magic blaze
Melts years to months, and months dissolves to days
This adventure is related in the extensive romance of Perceforest, of which I have seen an edition in six folios▪ The title opens thus,
"The most elegant, delicious, mellifluous, and delightful history of Perceforest, king of Great Britain, &c."
the most ancient edition is that of 1528. The present adventure is finely narrated, but too long to be inserted here. Alexander the Great is accompanied by a page, who with the lady's maid, falls into the same mistake as his master. They enter the castle with deep wounds, and issue perfectly recovered. I will give the latter part, as a specimen of the manner.
"When they were once out of the castle the king said, Truly, Floridas, I know not how it has been with me; but certainly Sebilla is a very honourable lady, and very beautiful and very charming in conversation. Sire, (said Floridas), it is true; but one thing surprises me, how is it that our wounds have healed in one night; I thought at least ten or fifteen days were necessary. Truly (said the king), that is astonishing!—Now king Alexander met Gadiffer, king of Scotland, and the valiant knight Le Tors. Well (said the king), have ye news of the king of England? Ten days we have hunted him, and cannot find him out. How, said Alexander, did we not separate
yesterday
from each other? In God's name, said Gadiffer, what means your majesty? It is
ten days!
—Have a care what you say, cried the king. Sire, replied Gadiffer, it is so; ask Le Tors. On my honour, said Le Tors, the king of Scotland speaks truth. Then said the king, some of us are enchanted. Floridas, didst thou not think we separated yesterday?—Truly, truly, your majesty, I thought so; but when I saw our wounds healed in one night, I had some suspicion that WE were
enchanted.
"
!
A pupil wild in fancy's viewless choir,
Such strains once touch'd me with diviner fire;
Dear lost companions! Time, too long, has stole
From ye, thro' idle years, my truant soul.
Once more your heights are mine! I tread once more
Your fairy road, and build a little bower;
From a delirious EARTH avert mine eyes,
And dry my fruitless tears, and seek FICTITIOUS SKIES!
If with THE FEW these labours light may plead
To snatch me from THE POPULACE WHO READ;
Should not their TASTE my various page offend,
Wanting that polish which themselves can lend,
Not slight the honour my weak hand shall seize,
For TRIFLES are NOT TRIFLES, when they PLEASE!
MEJNOUN AND LEILA, THE ARABIAN PETRARCH AND LAURA.
ADVERTISEMENT.
AMONG the literary treasures of a learned and valued friend
FRANCIS DOUCE, Esq. of Gower-street.
, has been long admired a Persian Manuscript, splendidly illuminated. The universal language of painting had so far rendered it intelligible, that our eyes had instructed us, it was a history of Love. It was, at length, inspected by two competent judges; Sir John Kennaway, whose urbanity of manners claims the remembrance of his friends, and Major Ouseley, a studious Orientalist of taste. We now found that it contained the Loves of
MEJNOUN
and
LEILA,
whose story (told by different poets) is as popular in the East, as the loves of Abelard and Eloisa, or those of Petrarch and Laura, are in the West.
The learned M. de Cardonne, the late king of France's oriental interpreter, discovered in the Royal Library a copy of this Romance, and has given a skeleton of the story
In the Bibliotheque des Romans for July 1775.
. It was meant perhaps but to gratify the curiosity of the learned; it has no exhibition of character, no description of scenery, no conduct of the passions. But I could perceive in the simplicity of analysis and a tale with little involution of fable, something which might be made to delight the imagination—a Maniac and a Lover! Vehement genius at variance with the tenderest domestic feelings! Cherishing the social duties, yet still violating them by the fatal energy of an unhappy passion! The catastrophe involving the fates of himself, and of all whom he loved! The local descriptions were susceptible of some novelty. In a word, I discovered a new Petrarch and Laura; but two fervid Orientalists, capable of more passion, more grief, and more terror. Instead of the petty solitude of the Valclusa of Petrarch, an Arabian desert opened its numerous horrors; instead of the cold prudery of the Italian Laura, I have the resolute ardour of the Arabian Leila; and instead of a poet, so elegant and delicate, that his passion some suspect to have been only a fine chimera, I have a Lover whose sincerity every one acknowledges, since he is distracted with his passion!
N.B. The NOTE on the HAIR OF WOMEN at page 20, is further carried on at page 146.
MEJNOUN AND LEILA, THE ARABIAN PETRARCH AND LAURA.
PART THE FIRST.
WHERE YEMEN, or Arabia the happy, borders on Arabia the desert
"From the singular local situation of Arabia, the inequalities in the nature of its lands are indeed very remarkable. On one side are frightful deserts, and on the other fertile and delightful vales."
Niebuhr's Travels through Arabia, Vol. II, p. 320.—Sir William Jones observes, that
Yemen
signifies
verdure
and
felicity.
In sultry climates the freshness of the shades, and the coolness of the waters, are ideas almost inseparable from those of happiness.
, among the BEDOWEENS, or pastoral Arabs, Ahmed Kais was a distinguished Schieck. His numerous tents were stretched through many a green valley, while his innumerous herds told their master was now old, and in peace with the world. Ahmed in youth had been the most enterprising and predatory adventurer; Want had conducted him to Opulence, and Valour to Power: but in his Opulence there was no avarice, and in his Power there was no tyranny. His former life had consisted but of two kinds of days, the days of council and the days of combat; the hospitable man now found no other than festal days. Unknown to fame during his erratic youth, when his virtues became stationary, his magnanimous soul diffused itself in the domestic enchantments of peace; nor with the penurious feeling of age, was he negligent of that creative benevolence, that prodigality of mind, which is felt by the next generation. Old as he was, he still planted young trees; and, full of glory, he still sought for solitary spots to open new fountains. He was described by the poets to be bountiful as the rains of spring, warm as the sun, and cheerful as the moon; the heart of Ahmed (they said) has espoused the whole Earth, and when he dies she will wail in widowhood.
Ahmed, without offspring, sighed to perpetuate himself in his descendants; and mourned to think that the populous felicity his princely and solitary hand had created, should be dispersed with his last breath. At length he had a son, the solitary hope of his tribe. To this cherished child he sought to give all that instruction can communicate, and all that humanity can feel. He invited the ingenious and the learned to his tent. Shewing his boy to his people, he would exclaim, Enter, ye sages, and bring your instruction; it is the only tribute we claim from sages; or tell me where the prince can discover a sage, and majesty shall prostrate itself before wisdom!
The revered name of the Effendi Lebid, the Persian student, reached the ear of the Arabian chief. Lebid had chosen the tranquillity of retirement; and when his name became every where celebrated, his person was unknown. He might have been seated with indolent glory in the chair of the royal Medrasseh
An Academy.
at Ispahan, but he preferred to interrogate Nature in a sublime Solitude. In the plains of Shinaar he had accurately measured a degree of the great circle of the earth; on the shores of the Bosphorus he had taught the despised inhabitants the arts of an invaluable fishery, and the voice of population broke along those solitary skies. In benighted deserts he discovered a path for the caravan, by the guidance of a friendly star; and the same eye that traced the course of a star, watched the growth of a flower. He gave to chemistry the alembic which still retains its Arabian extraction in its name. He had composed one of the Moallakat, or poems suspended in the temple of Mecca, and Arabia was delighted by the novelty of his diction, which was a fine unison of picture and of melody; it flowed with the confluent richness of the various tribes of Arabia; and selecting from every dialect its felicitous expressions, he poured an enchantment over every period. He enriched the copiousness of the Arabic, by the delicacy of the Persian, and the fire of the Turkish muse; and received the secret graces and the fine conceptions of his favourite poets, as iron often, attracted by the loadstone, catches some particles of the magnetic influence; and in touching the magnet becomes itself a magnet.
Such was the Effendi Lebid, to whose Persian academy resorted those young Arabians who were ambitious of acquiring Persian literature, and habituating themselves to Persian urbanity. Kais, the son of Ahmed, proved a pupil worthy of the preceptor. About the same time, and nearly of the same age, was there placed the lovely Leila, the only daughter of an Emir
An Emir, distinguished by a green turban, claims his descent from Fatima the wife of Mahomet.
.
The Effendi discovered in these early associated children that facility of disposition which at once characterises genius, and a tender heart. Soon, without rivals in the academy, each was attracted to the other by a mutual admiration. Leila instructed herself by fondly repeating the lessons of Kais, and Kais taught himself to retain whatever charmed Leila. With easy grace the studious youth disclosed the most solemn truths, while the more touching and delicate ideas were discriminated by the quick susceptibility of Leila. They loved to mingle in the same tasks, and in the arts of imagination their gentle spirits perpetuated their finest emotions. The verse of Kais treasured their most delicious sensations; from the wild intonations of Leila he often caught the air he composed; and when they united to paint the same picture, it seemed as if the same eye had directed the same hand.
They saw each other every day, and were only sensible to this pleasure. Their mutual studies became so many interchanges of tenderness. Every day was contracted to a point of time; months rolled away on months, and their passage was without a trace; a year closed, and they knew it but by its date. Already the first spark of love opened the heart of Kais; already he sighed near the intendering form of Leila; already he listened for her voice when she ceased to speak, while her soft hand, passing over his own, vibrated through his shivering nerves.
Endearment was his occupation. He loved to consider himself as her slave, and playfully intreated to be chided by her charming voice. In the winter, as she sat beside him, he burned the costly wood of aloes, and hung around perfumed tapers. The nails of her fingers he tinted with the softest blush of the rose, and drew the dark line of the brilliant surmeh
An impalpable powder employed for this purpose. Lady Montague dislikes the rose colour with which the Orientals tinge their nails.
under her lids; which gave her eyes a shining and tremulous languor. He sprinkled the ottar-gul
Gul is rose; ottar is essence.
, more precious than fluid gold, on her tissued caftan
A robe.
. He pounded rubies to mingle with her rich confection
Mr. Dallaway in his "Constantinople" notices
"the
conserve of rubies,
so called as well from the richness of the other ingredients, as that
pounded rubies
are a part of the composition; so capricious are their preparations in the confectionary art."
p. 140. However absurd this practice appears, it is not improbable it may be derived from something more than caprice. An able chemist assures me that
precious stones have a peculiar acid,
which has been proved by an experiment. How this acid can be extracted by the confectioner, has not yet been explained.
, and infused in her repast the seed of the poppy, that she might enjoy light slumbers, and awake with eyes luminous with pleasure, and a glowing cheek that bore the soft vestige of a soft dream.
In summer he blended the Turkish magnificence with the Persian amenity. In his garden he had raised a fountain paved with the verdurous jasper, and adorned with pillars of the red porphyry, and leading up the waters over masses of white marble, they lightly tumbled along, flinging their spray in a soft cascade. Near its cooling murmurs he built a pleasant KIOSQUE
A banquetting or summer apartment.
. The water from the fountain was conveyed into conchs, fixed in the gilded fret-work of the ceiling, and now melodiously chimed along, and now fell dashing from shell to shell. The columns were embellished with moral sentences from the Koran; while through the green trellises he had so thickly woven a living tapestry of vines, of woodbines, of passion-flowers, and the triple-coloured roses of Persia, that the tender obscurity of its chastised light threw over the garden-pavlion something like enchantment. Often our lovers felt there the charm of a delicious reverie, amidst the flowers, the waters, and the shades.
In this retreat he presented her with sherbets covered with snows, and flavoured with the distilled dews of roses; and spread before her those pomegranates whose impalpable kernels dissolved at the touch in a refreshing and dulcet water
Chardin says,
"Il y en a, dont le pepin est si tendre, qu'on ne le sent presque pas sous le dent."
. His garden exhausted the splendid year of the Persian Flora, and through the umbrageous wilderness of flowers the eye could not find a passage to escape. Arbours, fountains, grottos, fruit-trees, and a labyrinth of walks, were all thrown together in a playful confusion. The Zephyrs there wasted a cloud of odours and a snow of blossoms. Beautiful spot! where, while the mind was occupied with meditating on some flowers and fruits, other flowers and fruits rose to the eye, alternating the pleasant thoughts. Beautiful spot! where no other regret was known than the thought of quitting thee!
Seated in the KIOSQUE, they would read the Persian Tales. The tender eyes of Leila were sometimes for a moment fixed on Kais, while a warm modest suffusion coloured his ingenuous cheek. What taste thou hast displayed, Kais, (would Leila say) in the composition of this delicious scene; and how thou charmest me with thy tales! Thou makest my hours so pleasant! Ah! what were life without romances and without a garden! Indeed, Leila, (would Kais reply) I have done little more than borrow those hints from Nature, which to those who study Nature she indicates. The earth has been at once my canvass and my colours; and I have made it my PICTURE. Where I found an amiable scenery, I opened the soliciting luxuriance; where, an embowering shade, I placed a seat; and where Nature wantoned with irregular fancies, I was careful not to baulk the charming caprice: I have drawn no straight lines, no formal squares, no smooth insipidities. The heart, Leila, claims one spot in this universe for its attachment; and let it be an embellished garden, and rich fields of cotton and rice shall never cause me a sigh.—Thou art right, Kais; in a garden it's labours are concealed by its pleasures, and Art, which has touched every thing, never points its visible finger. The senses feel nothing but enjoyment. And I do think that gardens are favourable to lovers; for thou mayest observe how, in thy tales, it is ever in a garden that lovers converse with extreme tenderness.—True, replied Kais; CASHMERE, the land of love, is one wondrous garden. It is haunted by the delicate forms of the PEIRI,
"gay creatures of the elements,"
whose pure natures are created of odorous substances; who vest themselves in the lucidity of light; adorn their heads with rainbow hues; bathe in the dews of the morning; and touch nothing more gross than the vapour of fragrance. It is said, that should a lovely Peiri suffer one drop of her ambrosial saliva to fall on the earth, no human sense could live in the poignancy of its perfume
These PERIES are the SPIRITS of the Persians. Major Ouseley finds it impossible to give an accurate idea of what the Persian poets designed by a PERI; this aërial being not resembling our fairies. The strongest resemblance he can find is in the description of Milton in Comus. The sublime idea which Milton entertained of a fairy vision corresponds rather with that which the Persian poets have conceived of the Peries.
"Their port was more than human as they stood;
I took it for a fairy vision
Of some gay creatures of the element
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i' th' plighted clouds."
Of musk, camphire, ambergris, and similar fragrant substances, the Persians believe angels to be formed, and other creatures endued with uncommon purity of nature. Thus the poets compliment their mistresses on the delightful odours which they diffuse. These aërial beings, called PERIES, are supposed to exist on perfumes alone, and even of Paradise, celestial fragrance is among the chief delights.
The DIVES are comtrasted with the PERIES, and are pictured as hideous in form, and malignant in mind; such indeed is the malignancy of their nature, that they can endure nothing
fragrant.
The DIVES are all males, and the PERIES all females; a compliment to the sex! they reside in the visionary country of JINNISTAN. Richardson, in his curious Dissertation on the Eastern Nations, affords us several fanciful characteristics of this new race of ideal beings.
.—I have heard much (said Leila) of Cashmere; dost thou believe that the place exists?—Assuredly it does; but who equals Leila? I have never seen a Peiri! Thou knowest it is difficult to gain admittance there; a happy man, who once did, gave me this description of the Paradise of Love.
THE LAND OF CASHMERE
Sir William Jones, in his Essay on the Poetry of the Eastern Nations, tells us,
"There is a valley, to the north of Indostan, called CASHMERE; which, according to an account written by a native of it, is a perfect garden,"
&c. The happy temperature of this much celebrated spot, and the country itself, is lately described by Mr. Pennant, in his History of Hindostan. The following florid description, which is not, however, merely fanciful, is composed by a Persian poet. Major Ouseley gives it us in his Persian Miscellanies, p. 175:
"I have seen Irak and India, Khorassan and Persia, but no place equal to CASHMERE in beauty and in excellence of climate. During the whole year, from Cashmere to the borders of Cathay, the air, tempered by gentle showers, has all the mildness of spring; there are flowers and green herbage, plains and running streams; palaces, cupolas, and public buildings, beautiful to view. On every side are rising grounds, crystal springs, and lofty trees, amid mountains covered with nut-trees, apple-trees, and fig-trees. Festivity and pleasure peculiarly abound there. In mirth and revelry the Cashmerians pass away their time on silken cushions. They all wear shawls, whether of illustrious birth or of the lowest class. How shall I describe the lovely damsels of this country! for, in my opinion, the young moon is not equal to them in beauty; with lips sweet as sugar; in stature like the graceful pine, fragrant as jessamine. Whatever side you look at, those nymphs appear like the sun or moon. A thousand secret snares, like the links of a chain, are laid in the waving ringlets of those fair plunderers of hearts. Here are innumerable youths handsome as Joseph; a thousand damsels with pouting lips, fair as Zeleikha."
.
BELOVED CASHMERE! as far as proud CATHAY
Light fall thy odorous showers, thy sun-lights play
Mr. Pennant notices, that the showers in Cashmere fall peculiarly light, as the valley is screened by the heights of the surrounding mountains.
.
Fair EARTH! they break in hills, and scoop in vales!
Fair HEAVEN! whose sparkling azure, Beauty hails!
A music wild thy wandering waters pour
By coral banks, and many a glowing shore
Although
coral rocks
may not be appropriate to the local scenery of this romantic paradise, I give it as one of the characters of Arabian scenery. Niebuhr tells us, that in the course of his travels, he was often astonished by the immense banks of coral bordering the Arabian gulph. Great part of the houses in the Tehama are of coral rock. Mr. Forskal considered every Arab's house as a cabinet of natural history, and as rich in corals as any such cabinet in Europe.
.
O more than India rich, than Persia fair!
Self-pleased, the infant Nature, wantons there!
The waning earth is young in mild CASHMERE,
And a soft summer lights its verdant year!
Gorgeous their Palaces, and light their Domes;
On terraced roofs a TULIP GARDEN blooms;
There oft, till Spring, concealed, the beauties lie,
Then burst their ranks, and seem to burn the sky
Mr. Pennant writes, that
"these roofs are planted with tulips, which in the spring produce a wonderful effect."
.
The emerald verdure, light the BRILLIANT FLOWERS;
Their blue CONVOLVOLUS, a SAPPHIRE pours;
An AMETHYST, their purple VIOLET glows;
A TOPAZED JONQUIL and a RUBIED ROSE
The brilliancy of the Eastern flowers, which has been so luxuriantly described, is founded on reality. The sober Chardin describes Persian flowers by the peculiar
sparkling
of their colours, which renders them even more beautiful than those of India. The author of Caliph Vathek, in his learned and agreeable notes, observes, that Ezekiel, emblematising Tyre, under the symbol of Paradise, describes, by the different
gems of the East,
the flowers that variegate its surface, and particularly by the
emerald,
its
green.
—
"Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; thy carpet was an assemblage of every precious stone; the ruby, topaz, and the diamond,"
&c. ch. xxviii. 13. The same ingenious writer points out, that the Paradise of Ariosto was copied from this passage. Canto xxxiv. st. 49. All the Oriental poets abound with this imagery; one calls the
daisies, eyes of silver;
the
ruby rose
is fixed on its
emerald
stem; and the
violet
is not a flower, but an
emerald
bearing
a purple gem.
I may add, Milton, like Ariosto, seems to have borrowed from the same source, in his Eden,
—The
saphir fount,
the crisped brooks,
Rolling on
orient pearl,
and
sands of gold,
Ran nectar.
.
So bright their paths, the flowers enamel here;
And Light and Fragrance flow along CASHMERE.
In groves of date-trees feed the CIVET RACE,
And each lone vale the LOVE-EYED GAZELS grace.
At morn, they chace their AZURE BUTTERFLIES,
And watch, in walks of flowers, their quivering dies
Sir Anthony Shirley relates, that it was customary in Persia to hawk after butterflies with sparrows; those of Cashmere are very large, and blue, as a Persian poet describes them.
.
Their mimic FLUTES, the NIGHTINGALES, provoke,
Who as they chaunt within the moonlight oak,
With ruffled feathers and delirious throat,
Faint o'er the strain, and die along the note.
So musical the Woodlands of CASHMERE!
So true their BOSOMS, and so true their EAR!
To wake their quiet LAWNS, in forests tall
Is heard a high CASCADE'S romantic fall.
While on their crisped LAKE the CYGNET floats,
Some drop their silken nets from gilded BOATS;
Some race, some hawk, some yield their ivory OAR
To Beauty's hand, an idle wave to pour;
She, as her OARS a little tumult form,
Shrieks at her sport, and thinks the wave a storm.
Thro' SUMMER NIGHTS, to charm the drowsy ear
Their light oars dash the cool LAKE of CASHMERE.
Stretched on silk cushions, sighing servent Rhimes,
Their tender eyes some dear Romance sublimes;
They read, and love, and call their choirs to wake
Sounds which can paint, and Motions which can speak.
Light in some nut-tree, the CASHMERIAN YOUTH
Toils for his MISTRESS there, and sings his truth;
She looks, his garland weaving in a bower,
And paints her soul in every MYSTIC FLOWER
Lady Montague's curious description of a Turkish love-letter, by the use of intermingled flowers, of which each colour denotes the state of the lover's heart, is well known to the reader.
Mr. de Peyssonel in his observations on Baron Tott's memoirs, has given a description of declarations of love, as practised among the Turks, very curious, and less known. He says, reciprocal declarations are generally made in Turkey by means of MAANES or
Enigmatical declarations.
For example, a
pistachio-nut
is sent, called in Turkish,
fistik;
the device which rhimes to it is
ikimuzé bir
IASTIK; that is,
may we both have the same pillow. Uzum, a grape
or raisin; the device is,
senum itchun
IANDUM; that is,
my heart is in a blaze for you. Ipek,
a bit of
silk;
the device is,
seni seuerum
PEK; that is,
I love you passionately.
.
The pleasant land of Love is in CASHMERE,
And NUTS and FLOWERS are all the treasures here.
Who tells the SHAWLED BEAUTIES of those bowers!
Each day their moon-light foreheads, veil'd with flowers
It may be necessary to explain the expression of
"
moon-light foreheads.
"
Major Ouseley tells us, on the expression
"
moon-faced,
"
"that a Persian mistress would be highly flattered by its application; an epithet, however, for which I believe few of our fair countrywomen would thank a lover. Anvàri describes a favourite damsel, with
a face lovely as the Moon.
Another poet, describes a beauty
"
moon-faced,
with looks like the timid glances of the fawn."
As for the expression itself, which may at first appear to us uncouth, I feel it exquisitely. Even without placing ourselves in the situation of an Arab, whose purest delight is that of contemplating the tranquil moon, in the restoring airs of a summer night, who is not sensible that the allusion is made to that
tender melancholy
which the aspect of the moon produces on a pensive feeling mind? and this
tenderness,
how often does the lover behold in the touching seriousness of a beloved female! The
moonlight
is perhaps even more tender than the view of the
moon
itself.
.
Their ebon tresses in fine knots entwin'd,
Or their fair yellow locks that catch the wind.
Those hairy beams, those glowing tresses shed,
A star of beauty round each graceful head;
And as each ringlet like an arrow darts,
All feel, all own, these plunderers of hearts.
They lose their freedom for a LOCK OF HAIR;
A RINGLET chains a captive in CASHMERE
Mr. Price, in his delightful "Essay on the Picturesque," Vol. I. p. 126, second edition, has these fine strictures on the HAIR OF WOMEN. "The hair, by its comparative roughness, and its partial concealments, accompanies and relieves the softness, clearness, and smoothness of the face of a beautiful woman. Where the hair has no natural roughness, it is often artificially curled and crisped. The instrument for this purpose is certainly of very ancient date, as Virgil (who probably studied the
costume
of the heroic ages) makes Turnus speak contemptuously of Eneas for having his locks perfumed, and as Madame de Sevigné expresses it,
frisés naturellement avec des fers.
Vibratos calido ferro, myrrhaque madentes.
The natural roughness or crispness of hair, is often mentioned as a beauty, l'aurée
crespe
crini: capelli
crespe
e lunghe, e d'oro.
In catholic countries, where those unfortunate victims of avarice and superstition, are supposed to renounce all idea of pleasing our sex, the first ceremony is that of
cutting off their
HAIR, as a sacrifice of the most seducing ornament of beauty; and the formal edge of the fillet, which prevents a single hair from escaping, is well contrived to deaden the effect of features.
Haycinthine locks
is frequent among the Arabic poets, and which sir W. Jones delightfully renders
"The fragrant HYACINTHS of Azza's hair,
That wanton with the laughing summer air."
From the Orientalists it passed to the Greeks, and our Milton adopts it.
Hyacinthin locks
Round from his parted forehed manly hung,
Clustering,
but not beneath his shoulders broad.
The term
clustering,
observes the author of Vathek, is given by the
ancients
to that disposition of the curls which resembles the
growth of grapes,
and may be observed on gems, coins, and statues. The following verses of Petrarch on HAIR, are exquisite; Sir W. Jones gives them as an evidence of the manner of the Asiatic poets agreeing with the Italians: one would almost imagine, says he, these lines to be translated from the Persian.
Aura, che quelle chiome bionde e
crespe,
Circondi, e movi, e fe' mossa de loro
Soavemente, e spargi quel dolce oro,
E poi 'l raccogli, e 'n bei nodi l'
increspe.
.
A thousand youths, a thousand damsels pair,
Who by their true love's BLACK EYES sweetly swear
If the reader should find entertainment in the follow-long note, it would be unjust to complain.
The Asiatics have in great admiration BLACK, or DARKCOLOURED EYES, which in their descriptions of a perfect beauty are almost always enumerated among the most powerful and striking charms. The poet Hafez says,
"The impression which
black-eyed
damsels have made on my heart, will never be effaced."
The Houris of Paradise derive their
name
from a
beautiful woman's black eye.
The epithet BLACK-EYED, among the eastern writers, seems to be synonymous with beautiful. The women use artificial means to give a dark appearance to their eyes. Sanson, in his Voyage de Perse, informs us, that they set little value on blue, grey, or hazel eyes; the black alone are admired among the Persians." Ouseley's Persian Miscellanies, p. 123.
It is finely imagined by the author of Caliph Vathek, that Akenside's rich expression,
"In the DARK HEAVEN of Mira's EYE,
might have been suggested by the black eyes of the virgins of Paradise.
In an eccentric dissertation on
cats,
by Moncrief, are the following notices on
blue,
or
grey eyes.
The
eyes of cats
(says our dissertator, in his mock eulogy) were for a long time the objects of female ambition; they could receive no praise more flattering than to discover that they had
bluish grey
eyes; that is,
changing,
like those of cats, or
greenish,
as they commonly have. La Fontaine has given Minerva such eyes.
Tout le reste entouroit la deesse, aux YEUX PERS.
Marot gives
green eyes
to Venus,
Le premier jour que Venus, aux YEUX VERS.
The lord de Coucy, so celebrated for his loves, acknowledges in his verses, that
such eyes
were the secret charms that Madame de Fayel practised on him. These
bluish grey eyes
are those which commonly are of a pale blue, or sometimes of a water-colour, which varies or undulates, with different shades, in the course of the day. The
green eyes
never change their shades. Diodorus Siculus tells us, that Pallas was named by the Egytians,
Glaucopis,
that is, having
eyes of a greenish white.
And Pope's
"blue-eyed maid"
has been censured for being inexact; it should be
"
eyes of a bright citron.
"
Histoire des Chats, p. 127.
It is a custom in the east to TINGE the EYES of women, particularly those of a fair complexion, with an impalpable powder, prepared chiefly from crude antimony. It is of a
purple colour,
and a Persian poet compares it to the VIOLET. The Arabian poets compare the
eyelids of a fine woman, bathed in
TEARS, to VIOLETS
dropping with dew.
Shakspeare has
VIOLETS DIM,
But sweeter than the LIDS OF JUNO'S EYES.
The ancient Greek poets, both Homer and Anacreon, have also alluded to the same cosmetic, since both of them ascribe a
purplish hue
to a
female eye.
When Tasso represents Love as ambushed,
Sotto all 'OMBRA
Delle PALPEBRE—
he allegorically alludes to that appearance in nature which the artifice here described, the impalpable powder, was meant to counterfeit. Caliph Vathek, notes, p. 235.
Winkelman, in his "Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks," writes that
"his researches concerning the mysterious art, said to be practised among the Greeks, of
changing blue eyes
into
black ones,
have not succeeded to his wish. I find it mentioned but once by Dioscorides. Could I have cleared up this art, it would have been a problem worthy to fix the attention of the Newtons and the Algarottis, and have interested the fair sex by a discovery so advantageous to their charms, especially in
Germany,
where
large fine blue eyes
are more frequently met with than
black ones.
"
The same author also notices the GREEN EYES we have alluded to, and gives us the charming line in which the Sieur de Coucy describes the eyes of Madame de Fayel,
"Et SI BEL OEIL VERT, et riant, et clair."
;
Lovely as JOSEPH, when he blush'd to love,
Warm as ZULEIKHA sighed, the boy to prove
Zuleikha is the name of Potiphar's wife, whose amours with Joseph form one of the most celebrated poems in the Persian language. There is a copy of this work in the Bodleian library at Oxford, which I am told is one of the finest in Europe. A Persian poet thus describes this heroine of disappointed passion, with energy:
"ZULEIKHA, one night, impatient and distracted, the twin-sister of Affliction, and to whom sorrow was a familiar friend,
Drank to the very dregs of the cup of wretchedness, and from the burning anguish of passion, passed the night without repose."
Sir W. Jones, in his literal version of his celebrated Ode of Hafez, in his Persian grammar, has,
"I can easily conceive how the inchanting beauties of JOSEPH affected ZULEIKHA so deeply, that her love tore the veil of her chastity."
What an elegant metaphor! he has pleasingly versified the passage,
Beauty has such resistless power,
That even the chaste EGYPTIAN DAME
Sighed for the
blooming
HEBREW BOY;
For her how fatal was the hour
When to the banks of Nilus came
A youth so lovely and so coy!
.
Call'd by a kindling smile, the Lover roves
Rose-dropping bowers, and citron-breathing groves;
But soon he claims a still and lone repose;
The quiet twilight of the curtained boughs.
What can like BEAUTY, SOLITUDE, endear?
The LONELIEST SPOTS are happiest in CASHMERE!
Though many a brilliant charm adorns their Noon,
They love more dear the SOLITARY MOON;
Then half-breathed whispers close their kisses sweet,
And snowy, through the shades, their chacing feet!
Then bursts th' enchantment round!—The wanderers mark
The shining rocks, dim vales, and arbours dark;
Some sit retired, and some in dances bound,
While hollow hills their silver voices sound.
No moonlight scene to Lovers is so dear,
As when its yellow light sleeps o'er CASHMERE.
The Effendi was not insensible to the progress of a passion of which the lovers were too young to conceal the sentiment, and too innocent to fear the indulgence. Age had not chilled the gentle soul of Lebid, he renewed a delicious remembrance of the pleasures of his youth in those of our lovers; and enjoying their happiness, frequently for the remuneration of Kais, he decreed a kiss from the lips of Leila. He recited to them the tenderest tales, where the divine passion of love prevailed over the sense of death.
He thus narrated the tender story of MESRI and DELILAH. Mesri, that affectionate youth, was betrothed to the lovely Delilah. They were the GRACE of the classic SCHIRAUZ; and the tender choir of SCHIRAUZ only sang of them. Already the rich PAVILION flames; the BOWER is festooned, and the HYMENIAL AIR has preluded, to shame the protraction of the half-reluctant maid. On their nuptial day they were sailing on the sea. The crimson veil of marriage covered the face of the maiden; the crimson veil at once tells THE HOUR OF JOY and THE BLUSH OF LOVE
The bridal veil of the Persian ladies is made of red silk or muslin.
. Their friends, their parents, rush to the shore: their choral voices resound hymns of love; and the lute, and the cymbal, and the harp, melt in varieties of harmony. The dancers, toiling to the timbrel, bound along the shore. How the wave laughs joyous to the fanning gale! How the painted bark glides continuous on the water! Never was the sea so smooth, never was the sun so bright! Ah! the songs, the dances cease!—A WHIRLPOOL IS IN THE SEA!—Wheeling the flashing waves, the light bark darts round and round, and drops! THE LOVERS ARE IN THE SEA!—A friend toils to stretch the saviour hand to Mesri.—Alas! the beauty floats on the distant waves! and THE SAVIOUR HAND IS STRETCHED! But MESRI TURNS FROM LAND! He points to his beloved; he cries
"Learn not the tale of love from the wretch who flies his mistress in the hour of danger. LEAVE ME, AND SAVE MY MAID!"
He meets her in the midst of the sea; his arms embrace her on the deep; one farewell gleam played on her opening eyelids. THEY DRINK ONE WAVE ON THEIR BRIDAL BED! The whole world admires the speech of Mesri.
With such tales he nourished their youthful hearts, and taught them the enthusiasm of passion. With the aged Effendi beside them, they would stroll to gather THE FIRST ROSE OF SPRING, and watch its virgin and glowing bud, and gaze in fondness on its maturer bloom, and sigh with the last breath of its departing sweetness.
Among the Persians (observes Major Ouseley) it has ever been the object of elegant luxury to gather the first rose of spring. The ancients ascribed the origin of this sweet flower to the blood of Venus, and to the warmth of her kiss the modern Latin poet (Secundus) affirms the rose is indebted for its glowing tints. Anacreon calls that lovely flower the most excellent of the fragrant tribe, the chief care of Spring, and the delight even of the Gods. Mr. Franklin, in his Tour to Persia, notices a Persian custom under the name of
gul reazée,
or
the scattering of roses,
from the vast quantity of those flowers strewed in the apartments. This ceremony continues a week or ten days; during which time the guests are entertained with music, sherbets, dancing, &c.
With roses they wreathed the hoary head of the Effendi, and his dimmed eyes would then sparkle with a lambent radiance like that of youth. He pressed the young lovers to his heart, and exclaimed, looking on Leila,
"Ah, to whom will the smiling rosebuds of thy lips give delight! Oh sweet branch of a tender plant, for whose use dost thou grow
Sir William Jones.
?"
Are they not mine? would Kais quickly reply, while his young eyes beamed with joy. Yes, they are mine! are they not, Leila?—Yes, the blushing maid replied; thine and the Effendi's.—As Leila stood near Kais, frequently the bloom of her complexion was flushed with a vermil glow, and the Effendi would compare the fair cheek of Leila, as she stood near her lover, to the lily, that, placed too near the rose, is crimsoned by its warm reflection.
The mother of Leila observed that when she quitted the academy of the Effendi, she paced pensively, with reluctant feet; but on the day of her return, she was seen tripping as she went, with opening smiles, and light steps. Leila (she said) will become a celebrated student; to me she brings only a silent form embellished by new graces; in the academy she leaves her whole soul. At length the beauteous Leila seemed to mourn in the tents of her father, and, to concentrate her thoughts, sought a solitude of palm trees. The cautious mother commanded the slaves, who accompanied her, to be vigilant over their mistress, even to her eyes. Ah! the discovery was too easy! All was too faithfully reported to the parents of Leila. They were told how the eyes of Kais were only occupied by the face of Leila, and how Leila never wandered from his side; and that in a magnificent Kiosque they passed their evenings reciting Romances.
The father of Leila was a haughty Emir. The green turban which he wore as the descendant of Fatima, was incessantly before his eyes, and rendered his heart obdurate. He heard with indignation of the affection of our lovers, and considered that the vulgarity of the blood of Ahmed was not yet purified through an age of nobility. Poetry he conceived was a diabolical magic, of which though his sanctity and his ignorance preserved him from the influence, he had heard was potent over the feeble heart of a woman. He recalled Leila; severely reprimanded the sufferer for cherishing an ignoble passion for a poet without a green turban; and asserting that no woman should aspire to be poetical: he added that terrible Persian proverb used on these occasions,
"When the hen crows like the cock, we must cut its throat
Chardin writes,
"Les hommes ont trop de peur de l'esprit des femmes, pour leur laisser rien apprendre, et surtout en matiere de poesie; il y a parmi eux ce proverbe sur ce sujet,
si la poule veut chanter, comme le coq, il lui faut couper la gorge.
Vol. ii. 4to. p. 187.
."
He hired a Dervise to admonish her of the fate of an imprudent passion, and to remind her of her father's green turban; but the pompous admonition was unfelt by the enamoured beauty. The learned doctor was more skilled in genealogy than in eloquence; he received no other reply than the warmest tears, which he persisted to say were no arguments.
Kais, who adored his mistress till her presence had become a portion of his existence, and whose soul beat with the peculiar vehemence of genius, had not been long separated from Leila, when he found himself incapacitated to pursue his studies. He who, at the feet of his master, had stood with his hands folded on his breast, to listen with reverence to his dictates, now voluntarily rejected the studious glories of the Medrasseh. He wandered at times in his mind, and remembered nothing of the college but the affection he felt for the regent. He neglected his food; his whole frame was debilitated, and at times his actions were extravagant: as if awakening from a long reverie, he seemed desirous of escaping from his mental irritation by the efforts of his corporeal powers. The Effendi saw, not without alarm, the energy of his passion; his pulse was accelerated, his nights were sleepless, and his whole frame was shaken by chilly fits or glowing heats, in the variation of his passions. To mention even the name of Leila was dangerous. He sent Kais to his father, and warned him of his passion for Leila, but Ahmed solemnly forbid the alliance. The green-turbaned Emir was haughty for his descent; but Ahmed was haughty because he was glorious without nobility, and derived his renown, not from men extinct in their graves, but from the living men around him.
In vain Ahmed forbid the passion of Kais; his nights only yielded dreams of love, and his voice only repeated amatory verses. Every day he composed some intendering poem, which was soon treasured in the memories of his admiring Bedoweens. As he wandered among his tents, he listened to the recitation of his own verses; the world seemed occupied by his passion. The name of Leila was echoed through a wide extent of country, and the polished poetry of Kais then promised the immortality it has since obtained. His eminence as a poet was known to distant tribes; and in her paternal imprisonment Leila listened with complacency to verses painting her beauties and resounding her virtues; the immortal rhimes wasted his eternal sighs, and as they were carolled by the traveller, to her the whole world seemed to be the witnesses of his affection.
One of his smaller poems, composed about this time, was the following one, in which the Nightingale personifies the Poet:
A PERSIAN ODE TO SPRING.
ALMOND! thy drops of light are hung
Alluding to the
white blossoms
of the almond tree.
,
And the old Earth again is young!
Through the blue rejoicing sky
Oft the laughing echoes fly!
The western GALE o'er BEAUTY flows,
Whispering and kissing as he goes;
VIOLETS that weep with eyes so blue;
The bent NARCISSUS' languid hue;
The MYRTLE, in whose verdurous glow
Hangs a chaste tuft of downy snow;
The JASMINE, from whose pallid cheeks
Rejected Love her death-tint seeks;
Th' ANEMONE'S resplendent breast,
A virgin in a bridal vest!
Say, loitering ROSE, where hast thou been?
Awake thy blush, inflame the scene!
Thee, all our creeping VIOLETS eye,
And kiss thy feet, adore, and die
It is well known that at the appearance of the roses the violets begin to fade.
!
Fair Conqueror, mid thy armed train
An Arabian image. A poet, describing this flower, says, the rose approaches with her
army,
whose beauty is all-conquering. By the figure of
army
is meant the
thorn
of the rose.
—Richardson's Arabic Grammar.
,
Assume thy diadem, and reign!
Queen, hearest thou not thro' every bower
The NIGHTINGALE, thy paramour?
Oft has he lift each leaf and sighed,
Lo! on his wild wing hear him chide!
Odorous GALE, where wouldst thou rove?
Thou bearest the incense of my LOVE;
Ah, cautious in her tresses play,
Then o'er my faint form slowly stray.
O PINE, though tall thy graceful head,
And wide thy stately arms are spread,
Yet know my LOVE is but a FLOWER,
And lesser graces I adore.
NARCISSUS, bending to the gale,
Thou lookest disconsolate and pale;
How faint thine eye! but her I weep
Has Passion in an eye of sleep!
BASIL, thou art sweet, but soon
The night comes o'er thy beauty's noon;
I grasp thee, and the touch is death;
Withered, and gone thy fragrant breath!
MY MISTRESS has a cheek and form,
The more I touch, the more I warm;
I press, more crimson glow her cheeks!
I kiss, her breath more musky breaks!
Ah, tell me where MY LOVE does stray;
Three days are lost, three days of May!
'Tis this, O ROSE, my grief renews,
To think THREE DAYS in MAY we lose!
Ah, what were SPRING without the ROSE,
The ROSE without the NIGHTINGALE;
Without a crystal cup that glows
With odorous WINE, this vernal VALE!
And what thy BARD without his MAID?
Light of these eyes, warmth of this blood!
The Spring—were but a desert shade;
And choirful Heaven—a solitude
The marriage of the ROSE and the NIGHTINGALE, the incessant theme of Persian poetry, is described, with an eastern luxuriance of imagination, by Dr. Darwin, in his Botanic Garden, Part ii. Canto 4. ver. 309.
I add the following delightful passage from Major Ouseley's Persian Miscellanies:
"The excessive delight which the Persian nightingale derives from the enjoyment of the rose's fragrance, affords a thousand beautiful allulusions and allegories to the eastern poet. To account for this allegorical passion entertained by the nightingale for the rose, and which is the subject of so much beautiful imagery in Persian poetry, we must consider that the plaintive voice of that sweet bird is first heard at the same season of the year in which the rose begins to blow; by a natural association of ideas, they are therefore connected as the constant and inseparable attendants of the spring. It is probable too that the nightingale's favourite retreat may be the rose-garden, and the leaves of that flower occasionally his food; but it is certain that he is delighted with its smell, and sometimes indulges in the fragrant luxury to such excess as to fall from the branch, intoxicated and helpless, to the ground."
The coincidence between the arrival of certain birds and the flowering of certain plants, has been observed by naturalists; and in Attica, the cuckoo always arriving when the fig-tree first appeared, the cuckoo and a young fig were called by the same name. Dr. Darwin conjectures that
"a similar coincidence of appearance in some part of Asia, gave occasion to the story of the love of the rose and nightingale, so much celebrated by the eastern poets."
—Botanic Garden, Part ii. Canto 1. p. 33.
!
At a solemn banquet held in the tents of Ahmed, to celebrate the rising geniuses of his tribe, and at which the Effendi assisted, the Chief presided. Although a military man, he patronized these exercises of genius and intellectual combats, in which Arabia gloried. He sat on an elevated seat, under an umbrageous geous platane, surrounded by the judges. On each side were four copious vases filled with gold and silver; and as he was pleased, and they approved, he put his hands into the vases and distributed his rewards in proportion to the merit of each candidate. To some he conveyed a handful of silver for their encouragement; to others he measured his gold, to excite their emulation; while sometimes he would rise from his seat, and empty, in the rapture of pleasure, an overflowing vase
Richardson, in his preliminary discourse to his Persian dictionary, notices this national assembly held for poetical contests.
. But when the public shouts distinguished Kais among his peers, Ahmed slowly raised his venerable form, a tear glimmered in the old warrior's eye, he stroked his beard, and spoke;—Alas, my friends! why do ye celebrate the glory of my son? Ill is the divinity of poetry obtained, if its inspired possessor is miserable in proportion to his glory. Ye, too cherished sensibilities, whose fine point is agony! ye dwell not with peace! Kais is indeed a nightingale, and Leila his Rose; but ye have seen the minstrel of Spring inhaling to ebriety its fragrant soul; the more mellifluous his pathetic song, the more his bosom leant on the piercing thorns: ah! he sings but to bleed, he leans but to faint; he
"Dies on the ROSE in aromatic pain."
Believe me, my friends, the poet, the tender poet, is like the rich perfume, which, the more it is crushed, the more deliciously yields its odours. Is Kais a superior genius? Envy will darken the path of his glory. Is it not the tree luxuriant in fruit at which we throw stones?—Ahmed, replied the Effendi, the glory of Yemen is Kais. Behold him! a herald of fame arises to immortalise your tribe. Already inscribed in characters of gold, his poems are suspended on the Caaba; and who, having read them, shall dare to place his own rhymes on the same column? The people echoed, Happy, thrice happy Ahmed! the verses of Kais give grace to thy name!—But Ahmed felt as a father, and dropt another tear at the glory of his son.
The acclamations of the people covered the declining face of Kais with one blush, but the pulse of his heart throbbed with a tumultuous sensation. That night the sensibilities of love and fame gave to his bed a disturbed repose, a thousand dreams. Deep in his ear yet resounded the echoes of the multitude, when the glare of the sun dispersed the grateful darkness, and with the darkness his thousand dreams.
The exanimate frame of Kais had wasted in silence. He could no longer suffer separation from Leila, and projected means by which he could be admitted into her tent. Leila, he well knew, loved to be her own almoner, and when her hand relieved, her voice consoled. Misery had sufficiently disguised his features, and Melancholy had shaded his face with a religious semblance; he dressed himself in the humble garb of a Mevleheh dervise, whose practices he had learnt
The Mevleheh Dervises perform a public worship, which consists of dancing and turning on one foot with incredible rapidity, whilst a red hot iron is held between the teeth. Totally exhausted by pain and fatigue, they fall to the ground in a senseless trance. In this ceremony they are accompanied with the softest music, &c.—Dallaway's "Constantinople," p. 129.
, and approached the tent of Leila. To attract the attention of her slaves, he whirled himself with great velocity on one foot, and held a red hot iron between his teeth; and sometimes with the
Neh,
or traverse flute, so musically warbled his wild and enthusiastic notes, that the slaves soon approached him. They pitied his piety and admired his music; till exhausted by pain and fatigue, he fell on the earth, and seemed to faint. They raised the prostrate dervise; and although they well remembered the blooming Kais, they knew not the desponding lover. The dervise said, he was more faint with his toiling march than his pious rite.—Our mistress (said one of the slaves) has commanded us to make her abode the tent of those who have no tent.—Who is thy mistress?—Hast thou not heard of Leila, the beloved of Kais, the son of Ahmed? His verses have resounded in thine ear, or thou hast no ear for verses.—Tell thy mistress I heard one singing the name of Leila in the desert as I passed.—Oh! as for that, they are sung every where; every one who has a heart, soon finds a memory for the verses of Kais.
The slaves returned with Leila, who in one hand held some pillau in a wooden platter, with hot cakes taken from the living embers, and in the other a bardak
They put their water into
bardaks,
or unglazed pots made of a porous earth."
—Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 317.
of fair and gelid water. Presenting the alms to the pilgrim, the dervise turned aside, uttering a profound sigh. Leila looked in his face; she knew her lover, and tears burst from her eyes.—How thou art miserable, oh dervise! she exclaimed, while turning aside she whispered, Beloved Kais! how are thy features altered! thine eye without a beam of beauty, thy cheek without a shade of colour!—I was perishing for one look from thee (he rereplied); couldst thou but feel my fluttering heart, how faithful its pulse! Do I not find thee constant? Speak, speak! calm me with thy assurance.—We are watched (Leila answered):—how terrible is thy suspicion! O Kais! I have heard all thy verses, and thou hast all my sighs. Proceed thy journey, holy dervise (she raised her voice); give a virgin thy prayers, and I will think of thee; 'tis believed the chaste thoughts of virgins are acceptable to Heaven as the prayers of holy men.—In turning away, she presented her hand from behind her; he impressed it with a fervent kiss, and departed, saying, Leila, we shall soon meet again.
This stolen interview restored Kais to himself, and he renewed his invention in another disguise, by which he conceived he might again converse with his mistress. There was, not distant from her tent, a green valley, where the traveller would rest after bathing in its dark grove, where the shining streamlet rolled between banks of oleanders and juniper shrubs. Kais observed at that spot, under the shade of an umbrageous plane-tree, at mid-day, the devout Mussulman, after his ablutions, issue from the grove, spread his carpet, prostrate himself, and, in
"the still small voice"
of piety, repeat his prayers. Here, under the luxuriant canopy of the tree, he raised a temporary shed, placed a small stove, and dealt out his coffee to refresh the passenger. He spread on his table the largest melons and the most juicy pumpkins. All day our coffee-dealer tinkled a tambourine and touched a santoor or psaltery, singing Arabian songs or recounting Persian tales. Never yet had the keeper of a coffee-shed obtained such celebrity; certainly no one was a finer musician. Every one resorted there to drink coffee, to listen to his verses and to his tambourine, and to express their surprise, how such a genius should be content to boil coffee. Alas! every one came but Leila! She, Kais at length discovered, was a captive, and not permitted to wander from the confines of her father's tents. As soon as he knew this, he instantly left his shed standing, with the coffee-stove and the musical instruments, affixing on it an inscription, purporting, that they were left for that person who, though he might not acquire the glory of a musician, was willing to become useful in boiling good coffee.
Nothing remained but the perilous expedient of penetrating into the very tent of Leila. Since his last interview there was a gaiety in his dispositions, which now induced him to assume the character of a perfumer and confectioner. He filled his basket with those delicacies which might serve as bribes for the slaves of Leila. He appeared at the tent. His basket was nicely arranged with perfumed wash-balls, sweet-scented flowers, candied citrons, and crystal phials of ottargul. The first slave he met he presented with a perfumed wash-ball.—And how many aspers, said she, dost thou charge for this ball?—It is thine for thy black eyes! Kais replied, and passed on.—What a handsome perfumer this, cried the slave as she kept her eye on the wash-ball. He met a second, whose taste was attracted by his fruit.—I never saw (she exclaimed) citrons so enormously beautiful and so deliciously candied; ah! they are not for a slave's tooth!—Take them (said Kais); I give them to thee that thou mayest introduce me to the chief slave. I have silks to offer; the Bazár of Cairo has none such.—I am afraid (she replied) thou art more handsome than generous; but I thank thee for thy citrons: I suppose thou meanest to gain a great deal by thy silks? The old slave appeared; she had a ponderous form and a hoarse voice; eyeing the lovely Kais, abruptly she cried, What smiling evil bringest thou? Thy handsome face, thy odoriferous essences, and thy candied citrons, are to bewilder the hearts of young slaves, but me thou shalt not pass. My mistress is not of those who want thy pernicious luxuries. She was proceeding, when Kais held to her a phial of Schirauz glass filled with the ottar-gul. The eye of the old slave glistened at the costly essence.—That is not the true essence, she cried. He crushed the precious phial, and the liquid odour flowed about her dress.—Unlucky boy! she softly murmured, sighing as the full and fragrant incense crept over her senses; her bulky body sunk gently to the earth, half-closing her swimming eyes, her quivering lips yield the feeble cry of a fainting voluptuary. Kais glides into the tent
The Orientalists are peculiarly sensible to all aromatics, but the OTTAR-GUL is their passion. Major Ouseley, with his accustomed elegance, writes:—
"So fond of aromatic and highly-fragrant ointments were the ancients, that many writers have made their excessive indulgence in the use of perfumes the subject of learned dissertations; and this, with many other branches of Asiatic effeminacy, flowed through the surrounding nations, and found their way even into Greece and Rome, from Persia or Assyria, the great source of eastern luxury and refinement. Costly and exquisite perfumes are esteemed the first among Asiatic luxuries, and form magnificent presents."
He likewise tells us, on the subject of ROSE-WATER,—
"So fond are the luxurious Persians of the rose's delightful odour, that they not only sprinkle most profusely the water distilled from its leaves, but having prepared it with cinnamon and sugar, they infuse it with the coffee which they drink. The rose of Schirauz is the most excellent of the East, and the essence of it highly esteemed even in the furthest parts of India; and its pure essential oil, called OTTAR-GUL, or essence of roses, is more precious than gold."
In a charming letter from the Abbé de Lille, written from Greece, where he travelled with M. de Choiseul, he notices this ottar of roses. Sending a phial of this valued odour to a lady, he writes:
"M. de Choiseul entreats your acceptance of a small smelling-bottle of essence of roses. More roses are squeezed into this little phial than could be collected among all THE GARDENS which I have sung."
.
Entering he beholds Leila; she is reciting aloud one of his poems, whose volume, embellished with some fanciful arabesques painted by her own hand, lies unrolled before her. A fine tremor runs through his frame in gazing on her, and it is some moments before he can find a voice, to continue the verse she begins. She starts, she turns, she views her Kais! He tells her all, interrupting his narrative by many an enamouring kiss. The eyes of Kais are brilliant with love; but Leila trembled with sad forebodings, and she lamented how the ardour of genius had, in this instance, prevailed over its sagacity.
Beloved Kais, she cried, thy gay magnificence betrays thy humble concealment; and thou hast been more generous, than ingenious.—But Kais in the presence of his mistress forgets all danger, and Leila, as her eyes dwelt on the long-absent face of Kais, talked of the peril, till her words, in a soft confusion, murmured without meaning.
In the mean while the slaves assemble round their half-fainting chief, who scarcely retains her senses in a reverie of odour. This last munificence explained the mysterious liberalities of the unknown perfumer; they now recollect his features, and the alarm is spread.
The green-turbaned Emir rushes into the tent. He views the amiable Kais supporting Leila; one glance attaches their eyes. The poem, Leila had been reading, lies abandoned with the basket of perfumery. A harsh thunder breaks over the lovers, absorbed in passion; it was the Emir's voice. They awake into consciousness; scarcely has the delicious phantom of happiness taken a form, ere it perishes! Leila shrieks; her slender arms tremble round the neck of Kais, and her face conceals itself in his bosom, while Kais raises a humble, yet firm regard, on the Emir. The green-turbaned despot at first could only indicate his passion by ferocious gestures, and with eyes red with rage, and lips quivering without articulation, his foot violently spurned at the basket of perfumery that lay at the feet of Leila; while his hand grasping the immortal poem, tore the roll, powdered with gold dust, and scattered the perfumed and painted manuscript in the air
The Persians are very fond of elegant MSS. All their favourite works are generally written upon FINE SILKY PAPER, the ground of which is often powdered with gold or silver dust; the two first leaves are commonly illuminated, and the whole book is sometimes perfumed with essence of roses, or sandal wood. The poem of Joseph and Zuleikha (which we have already noticed), in the public library at Oxford, is perhaps the most beautiful MS. in the world; the margins of every page are gilt and adorned with garlands of flowers, and the hand-writing is elegant to the highest degree. The INK of the Asiatics is extremely black, and never loses its colour; and the Egyptian REEDS with which they write are formed to make the finest strokes and flourishes.—Sir W. Jones's Pers. Gram.
.
At length his foaming lips found a voice. Is it then with perfumes that the magnificent Kais bribes? Is it with a song that he deludes a simple virgin? And thou hast dared to steal into the tent of an Emir? Shall the plunderer of caravans pollute, with his impious embraces, the descendant of Fatima? Spirit of Mahomet, wilt thou that our glory end in a foolish maiden, a soul-less being, who has yielded her heart because her ear is musical?
Leila had fallen to the ground; she covered her face with her hands, and her lips touched the sandals of her father. Impelled by sympathy, Kais inconsciously prostrated himself; but with an air of dignity, and in a tone not accordant with his softening words, the suppliant lover spoke:—
Noble Emir! deem not that the passion of thy daughter has been obtained by the incantation of words. Ere I yet knew to give cadence to a verse, our sighs responded; believe me, we are none of those who have spoken of love, ere we loved. Our passion was not kindled by the lightning of a glance, nor maddened by a set of features; it was a pure pleasure, that we first caught from the perfection of mind. Our thoughts mingled, and our hopes rose, ere we felt the distinction of sex; and Leila was as my sister, ere I loved her as my mistress. Is there a passion so invincible as that of love, formed almost in childhood? Nature then adds to our inclinations her own sweet habitudes; and it becomes, as it were, a double passion. And shall a father tear his daughter from an embrace that Nature has made holy?—Descendant of Fatima! Is humility held to be a vice in thy race? Come not the noblest race from the humblest origin? The lovely fountain of Juvencia hides not its head among flowers and sunshine, but amidst rushes and darkness. The great Prophet, like myself, was of an obscure birth; and arrogance never marked the camel-driver. Noble Emir! thy father was a son of peace, my father is a son of war; Honour wreathed thy cradle, Opulence pillowed the bed of my infancy: Thou wert born illustrious, I to become illustrious; the glory of thy race devolved to thee, the glory of mine proceeds from me.—Is the difference essential? Smile but on the son of Ahmed, and behold we are both illustrious.
The haughty Emir disdainfully glanced on the pleading lover, and marking his perfumer's dress, replied,—Deceiver of the eye! thou canst only triumph over a woman: nor honour nor dishonour proceed from the sex, who are born only to dress, to prattle, and to procreate. Robber of the desert! return, for ever return to thy father, and tell him that I have suffered thee to exist.
While the proud father spoke, Kais had gradually changed his supplicatory posture, and when his invective closed, stood before him erect in dignity. He replied but by a silent glance so fraught with a conscious superiority, that the appalled despot shrunk with receding steps into the midst of his people. There he ordered to secure Leila. She lay on the ground abandoned to grief, and uttered a loud shriek. Kais turning towards her, they exchanged glances. Despair writhed the soft features of Leila; her eyes were haggard, and her arms stretched to her lover; passion, pity, and indignation, struggled in the breast of Kais. He grasped her hand; once more he felt it on his lips. Torn from his contending arms, their eyes parted not, till at the extremity of the tent he saw her disappear, and in silent agony he for some time fixed his eyes on that extremity, watching the wavy motions of the tent, and catching every dancing shadow, every undulation of light. His fixed glance was terrible; and one might perceive by its ardour, and the emotions of his gestures, that he still thought he was conversing with the departed Leila.
At length a slow and deep sigh heaved his breast. He struck with his clenched hands his burning temples, that throbbed as he pressed them; he paced vehemently around the tent, and then pausing as if a sudden passion had changed his emotions, he flung himself on the ground; and there more mild, more subdued, more tender, he poured copious tears; and all-conscious of the past scene, he again prostrated himself, and again stretched his suppliant hands. He shuddered, as the horrid silence only returned his melancholy voice: he raised his eyes, and beheld himself in solitude!
Already through the tents of the Emir the fate of our lovers was known. The fame of Kais accompanied him wherever he went, and wherever the poet wandered he found in his admirers, sympathising companions. Scarcely was the event known, than the public anxiety turned entirely on their cherished bard. They assembled in haste, and were divided into little knots of people. Among them was an hoary traveller, who was distinguished by a tuft of plaited hair, which, when it hung loose, trailed on the ground, and he wore it wrapt about his head instead of a turban. What was remarkable, it was not his own hair, but formed of the relics of his friends, from every one of whom he had affectionately collected a handful of hair, which he had interwoven with his own. It was in this manner the traveller had memorised their affections
This singular form of expressing the sensibility of friendship is recorded in Bell's Travels to China, and was employed by an old and virtuous Bramin.
.
Whenever this old man spoke every one was silent; and now being observed to have risen, the little knots of people immediately melted into one crowd, and assembled around him. He waved his hand, and stilled their generous confusion. He spoke.—Let us weep for Leila all our days; for what hope awaits the daughter of a merciless sire? But for Kais we must do something more than weep; for he is so much the unhappier, that he is at liberty to wander. Ah! where will Kais wander? He will lie down in the stony desert, till
"he forgets himself to stone."
But he has all the vehemence of genius: Ah, then, he may grow wild! Kind Heaven preserve the poet from madness!—A hundred voices exclaimed,
"Let us hasten to Kais!"
—Friends (continued the venerable man), if ye crowd around the enthusiast, ye will seem to intrude on his grief; he will gaze on ye as if ye came in mockery; ye will make wildness more wild. Such is the tremulous bosom of genius! when once its generous feelings are injured, it becomes suspicious and misanthropical. Trust me, I was once the companion of a Poet, and I have learnt to reverence the sorrows of divine men. Solitude alone soothes their sublime souls. Would ye heal his hurted spirit? indulge it. Would ye soften his melancholy? let a friend participate it. Would ye console the wretchedness of the sensitive being? let him feel that there is one who has made that wretchedness his own. I am old, but the nerves of my heart are tender as infancy when it first receives the ambient air that wounds it. I too have been a poet; I too have had my griefs. Let me conduct the wanderer to the tents of his father: he will not quit me, though my steps are feeble and the journey long. No, he will not quit me; for he shall take no perception of time, while over the toiling path of the enthusiast my tongue shall spread its innocent deceit in discoursing of Leila and of Nature, the inspirers of his verse!
The hoary sage enters the tent. He views Kais on the ground, his hands covering his face, his arms resting on one knee, while the other was violently writhed behind him; torture and despair were in his attitude. The old man crept along in silence, and stood before him; Kais raised his eyes on the reverend form. He spoke not; the old man was silent. Kais again covered his face with his hands, and the old man sighed. Kais looked in his face, there were tears in the wrinkles of his cheek. Kais stretched his hand to the old man, and their hands were joined.—Is not Age spared in these ruthless tents? said Kais. I have grief enough to make Youth grow old in a day. But what grief is thine, venerable man! that can give to thy pithless age the scalding tear of youth?
The venerable man replied,—Kais, divine youth! I am a lover of thy verses; often have thy emotions made my breast more capacious. And now I see thee, how must I weep for thee! Thou knowest the eyes of age distil not artificial tears; whom has an old man to flatter? We have nothing more to hope: but, Alla be praised! I have not outlived my humanity. It is for Kais I sigh.
Good old man, I thank thee: never till now have I found pleasure in the sigh of an old man. Dost thou know where they have hurried Leila?—The eyes of Kais turned wildly to the extremity of the tent.
Kais, wilt thou accept the consolation of a fraternal heart? Who knows not Leila? Who remembers not thy verses? And much have I to talk of the blooming maid. But rest not in these tents; thy father mourns thy absence.
Thou hast spoken well, said Kais: already had I forgotten my father and my friends! A mild, subdued tone of sorrow expressed his gratitude.—Thou hast spoken well; it befits me not to rest here a helpless sufferer.—Waving his hand, he rose slowly, his eye kindled, and pausing as he stept along,
he cried,—I will hasten to my tents; I will call three thousand faithful Bedoweens; their sabres will fly from their sheaths. Sabres! Ah! what have I said? Leila would never pardon the murderer of her father! The father of Leila may spurn at the degraded Kais; for while he treats me as he treats Leila, shall I murmur? Love has made me like the sandal tree, which sheds sweetness on the axe that wounds it. I thank thee, old man; I will not return to my father: I will sit here, contemned and abandoned.
Indulging the rapid changes of his disordered mind, the old man at length lured him from the tent of the haughty Emir. He talked as he journeyed of Leila and his verses; and through the solaced ear of Kais awoke the finest vibrations of his harmonious heart. Love and glory seemed to accompany the steps of the enamoured poet. The old man one day pulled down his lengthened hair, and telling him at times, as he pointed at the intermingled tresses, of the many histories it remembered him, he entreated a handful from the locks of Kais, that he might still add another relic to the tender memorial of friendship.—I have chosen (he said) a pilgrim's path in life, because it is pleasantly diversified; and I did not choose that the stream of my life should be a stagnant pool, but a river wandering in sunshine and in shade. The occupation of my life has been to acquire the friendship of great and of good men: with every one I found some new talent of the mind, or virtue of the heart; and my intelligence was enlarged, and my emotions became more pure. I have repeated my existence in that of my friend; and I have preferred the passion of friendship to that of love; for Friendship can be participated, but Love has but one object. Friendship is a torch, which will light other torches without wasting itself; but Love, like a sepulchral lamp, is extinguished in the solitary tomb.—Kais sighed, and, after a pause of thought, replied:—I had a HEART, and I could not help loving the most lovely. She was as AMBER, and I but as STRAW; she TOUCHED me, and I shall ever CLING to her
Amber attracts straw; the idea is Persian. Sir John Chardin, in a song he has translated, has a lover who tells his mistress,—The
pale
languor of your complexion is the
amber,
that attracts the
straw.
. Thou canst not blame my affection for Leila. She took my young heart in her hand, and breathed over it; her mind created my mind; and to render me worthy of herself, she first taught me the love of glory. I was once in the bath, and they gave me a piece of scented clay
This is a kind of unctuous clay, which the Persians persume with essence of roses, and use in the baths instead of soap. The application is from Sadi.
. It was more than fragrant. And I asked of it,—Art thou pure musk, or ambergris? for thy scent delights my soul. It answered,—I was but COMMON EARTH till I lived in the company of my ROSE; then every day I became sweeter, till all her aromatic spirit was infused into mine. Oh! had I not lived WITH MY ROSE, I should still have been but A LUMP OF EARTH!
They reach the tents of Ahmed, and the rejoicing Bedoweens crowd around their returning lord, while the old man hastens to the venerable chief to relate the afflictions of Kais. The eyes of the mother of Kais are filled with maternal tears. Ahmed frowned at the ignoble artifice of his son; he starts at the contumely he suffered, and impatiently draws his sabre; but his aged arm trembles with feebleness and anger, and the sabre drops. He calls his son:—Kais! Kais! Hast thou lost the glory of our tribe for a woman? Avenge
me
on an insulting enemy; take the sabre my childish arm can no more wield.
Kais sighed,—I cannot strike at the father of Leila!
Degenerate youth! in the balance of life thou weighest beauty against honour! Thou hast become a METIM
An Arabic term for
The captive of Love;
one who submits to slavery, or the meanest employment, to have an opportunity of serving or admiring his mistress.
. Mahomet! hast thou given me a son to crush thy servant to his grave? What ablution have I neglected? what ramazan have I broken, when I have trod a parched soil with parched lips? I made myself a race, and lo! a son has come like the pestilence of Cairo! I will strike my tents! Disperse, ye happy Bedoweens! seek other vales! for
here
your lord was
born,
and here
first
ye have known
dishonour!
Distraction was in the soul of Kais. The reproaches of his father, and the inalterable affection for Leila, raged with a force equal and opposed. He sunk before him; he embraced his knees: the voice of Ahmed was stifled by his emotions: he raised his hand to repulse his fainting son, but in touching his face, it trembled, and it dwelt there. The mother of Kais bent on one knee to support her son, while one hand was locked in the hand of her venerable hero. The crowded tent was moved. The low hollow murmurs of the sympathising Bedoweens were heard: it was an electrified silence. They gently separate the son from the father and the mother; themselves clung to each other without motion, like a sculptured groupe.
Retired, the sensibilities of Kais assumed all their energy, and the passions divided his soul.
Love,
with seducing blandishment;
Honour,
with a more solemn, but feebler power; and
Glory
obscurely breaking in a distant age. But
Memory,
affectionate memory, awoke that domestic tenderness which is the rival of Love itself. As he thought of his parents, he paused in the tumult of his heart.—Have ye not adored my infancy! (he cried) Have ye not reared me to glory! Was I not the treasured hope of your age? Yes; I was that futurity to ye which can render every passing day even precious to old age. I was the pride of a brave father, the existence of a tender mother; and now shall one passion eradicate all passions?—He recoils from the terrible thought; he hastens to throw himself on the paternal bosom. Leila rises in his reverie, imaged in softness, constant in affection, and celestial in her virgin beauty. He groans, he weeps, and throws himself on the earth.
He sat motionless, and mute, and abstracted. His companions glided into his tent, each studious to win him from dejection; but with various men he was still the same man. There was no life in his fixed and glazed eye, save at times a lingering tear, that, hermit-like, stole solitary from its cell. His mother sat beside him in silence; her eye followed his eye. Sometimes he sat in the vertical sun, insensible of the unmitigated day, till his mother with his favourite gazel followed him; while often, unobserved by Kais, above his head she twined the adorning tamarind, that waved its shade before his tent, with the luxuriant boughs of the Indian fig-tree. The gazel would frequently lift her tender eyes on him; but her looks were unnoticed: she would lick his hand till she awakened him from his reverie; for a moment he fixed his eyes on her, waved his head, and gently turned her away. At times he chaunted incoherent verses, rambling from thought to thought with a wild and pathetic sweetness. Ever he descanted on the eternity of Love, while the sad return of his lay still repeated the ruthless nature of fathers. His melancholy was yet mild, and while his heart bled, it seemed patient.
Another change succeeded. From a total stupor to the passing scene, he awoke to its minutest perception. He not only saw what was before him, but through the vividness of imagination he saw more; of every one suspicious, but most of his suffering mother, ever beside him. He remembers syllables, he meditates on gestures; sometimes a sense of his dishonour stole across his mind; he felt how Love had defrauded him of Glory. Every passion however was transient, but that passion; every object failed to impress his mind, but the image of Leila; to his visionary eye that form was brilliant in the light of the sun, and that form moved among the waving shadows of the moon.
He could no longer support the eye of the world. In his tortured sensations, his language was inhuman. He called his mother the wife of his father, but no relative of her child; and he surlily dismissed his friends, one by one, for capricious, but inveterate dislikes. Sometimes his anger was loquacious, his taunt bitter, his repartee caustic, while at times he was obstinately mute; but his silence concealed not the disorder of his intellect, for then the vacillations of his countenance, and the glistening and rapid movements of his eye, expressed his phrenzy.
Restless even to agony, melancholy even to fondness, romantic even to delirium, the world weighed heavy on his heart; that world he shook off lightly, and, in a quiet despair, stole away from all humanity.
The full moon hung over the tent of Kais in a flood of light. He stole from his tent, listening to his own footsteps. He gazed; nothing moved but the gliding shadows. In the vast silence Heaven and Earth reposed. The moonlight scenery touched his melancholy heart. In its semi-day he views the tall tents, part frosted over by its white beams, part illumined by a yellower light.—Blessed MOON! (cried Kais) in thy reposing light every thing is perceptible, while I am unperceived! Sweet and tempered LIGHT! how thou penetratest my heart! how thou drawest the tears from mine eyes!
He starts; he hears approaching sounds.—'Tis (exclaimed the melancholy and fanciful Kais) but the Zephyr kissing the reverend head of that tall palm-tree that nods, while each solitary leaf finds a voice in such a silence!
Still some footsteps disturb the visionary.—They have tracked me! he cried. He turned round, he beholds his favourite gazel, that had followed him. He kisses her beautiful eyes, he gazes on the sensibility of her physiognomy, he fancies she sighs, and he weeps over her neck.
Tender companion! (he cries) return to the abandoned tent of thy master! O! thou who hast the eyes of Leila, pierce not my soul with thy intendering look; entice me not to return. Domestic beauty! dwell in the hollow and green bosom of the valley: Ah! let not thy form of delicate elegance, thy slender silver feet, thy dark brilliant eyes, lively and timid as thou art, follow an exile; for, trust me, Beauty will perish with Despair for its fellow-wanderer.—Again he embraces his mute friend: a big tear rolled down the brown forehead of the antelope.—Thou weepest! Who weeps for Kais but his gazel? Let us part. Fly me! Thou wert created to live the day of pleasure: mine has closed! The antelope persisted in following the footsteps of his delirious master; and they escape from the pastoral scenes of the happy Arabia, and wander in the stony soil of the desert.
Scarcely had the sun risen ere the wakeful mother of Kais hastened, as of late accustomed, to her son's tent. She enters, and she shrieks. They fly to her from the near tents, and the venerable Ahmed was not among the last.
Miserable being! (cried the mother to Ahmed) behold thy son flown from thy ruthless austerity! Hast thou murdered my child? Yet, yet be kind, and send thy sabre to my bosom. A mother should not survive the loss of her adored child. Alas! all has past for me! I bear no other children in my womb. Hot are the tears that scorch the cheeks of a mother left without offspring; but I weep not. Oh, Ahmed! thou hast given me the grief, that is not relieved by tears.
Fond, despairing woman! feebly exclaimed the old chief, sobbing convulsively, as the ideas of his own austerity, and his son's despair, fell on his mind like repeated concussions. He turned aside to pray to the prophet, but his gestures only were his orisons. Tears welled on his pale cheeks; and all that he was heard to say was, Alla! thou art great! it is now a month I have not seen my son!
And I have watched my son hour by hour! exclaimed the distracted mother.—Yesterday, as I marked the moving vacancy of his eye, suddenly he uttered a scream of laughter, (my heart died within me;) and he turned to me with a bitter smile. My son! I cried, and he turned from me: he turned from me! Kais is delirious! my son is lost! Cruel fathers! ye have not the hearts of mothers: ye have not known what it was to kiss the infant being that formed a part of your existence, that lived on your own bosom. Where wanders my child? Give me my child! Lead me to Kais! Let me perish, but let my child live!
They convey the distracted mother to her tent; while Ahmed instantly sent a messenger to the retreat of the Effendi. Before he could give orders to his faithful Bedoweens to seek after Kais, their zeal had already dispersed them in every direction. Ahmed now withdrew to his tent, to preserve rigid fasts and uninterrupted prayer, that he might win, with the gentle violence of devotion, the prophet, who seemed to have forsaken him.
Scarcely had the Effendi listened to the messenger of Ahmed, than, clasping his hands, he would not suffer him to conclude the recital of his message.—I understand (he cried) more than thou canst relate: prepare thy dromedary! He was silent during the journey; and although the dromedary went on with its painful gallop, several times he complained of the sluggishness of the animal.
He arrives; he falls at the feet of Ahmed. He looks in his face, and gently waves his head. The venerable Chief understood him. Raising him, he exclaimed,—Virtuous sage! speak, enlighten, but do not silently reproach.—Alas! I
only
can
feel
for thee.—Such a son! the flower and the sabre of my tribe Lebid! Is the fault mine, that the green-turbaned Emir is no father? Could I mitigate the immitigable? I have lived a life of honour; could I suffer a day of obloquy? As for myself, my days are but few; yet, if the cold blood that heavily creeps round my heart, could satiate the imperious Emir, I would spill it at his feet, would he but write the contract of my son's nuptials with the blood of the father.
The aged Effendi grasped the hand of the veteran Chief.—We are (said he) both old men, but we will both die for Kais. My heart is feeble now, my head is white, and my eye weeps: but this is not strange; it is the falling of the snow on the hills, that makes the streams flow
An Arabian image, taken from Richardson's Arabic Grammar.
.
END OF PART THE FIRST.
PART THE SECOND.
LET us track the wanderings of the delirious and poetic Kais, with his constant gazel, following, and never preceding him. He conversed with it untired; his feeling heart ever wanted something to be kind to; and if he had not found an antelope in the desert, he would have felt an affection for a sheltering tree.
Poor gazel! (cried Kais, affectionately stroking its fallow back, and smoothing its silvery down) thou lovest to course with me a toiling road; and thy slender feet can creep along in the slow steps of a man unblest. I pray thee, look not so pensively tender with the sweet seriousness of thy black eyes; my heart is so full of sorrow, that thy gentle glance, in ruffling it, makes it overflow. Straining his eye-balls, he turns towards home: he cries,—Cherished Valley! I quit thee; I hurry from thee; I have madly left thee! yet, thou hast my tears. I cannot any more
see
thee, but I weep over thee. Oh!
there
I had friends,
there
I was loved, and
there
—No!
there I
could love no one. Oh! Leila, Leila! soul of my body! I neither fly from thee, nor to thee, but I am tossed in distraction. Sweet native soil! how my heart outjourneys my eye, and how it lingers about thee, while every step removes me still farther and farther into a desert!
To elude his pursuers, he had left the open desert and climbed among the rocks, making himself paths where eagles rested. As yet, mild in his volitions, and yet not insensible to the pointed flint; to the sultry thirst of his parched lips; to the rage of hunger; and to the exhaustion of travel in the grey and briny sands. But every day his withering frame became less penetrable to the terrible elements: his feet acquired the stoniness of the rocks he trod, and he leaped careless, from abyss to abyss, while the torrid sun burnt on his naked head, and his tongue, often hanging from his mouth, felt no thirst. Sensation in him had reached that exquisite degree of pain, in which pain ceases to be felt. Deliriously he sat on the pyramid of some rock, where he seemed to inhabit the solitude of Heaven, viewing nothing but the desert of air.
Yet on earth, the desert frequently was not a solitude. There sometimes he imagined he heard at distance human voices, laughing and mocking at him; and often he raged indignant at their cruelty; nor seemed to know that these were the howlings and shrill cries of assembled jackals, who during the night yielded their most distressful and continued tones
"In the night we were disturbed by the incessant cries of the jackals, which are the most distressful imaginable. They collect in packs amongst the ruins of Ephesus. The foxes of Sampson were jackals, and ought to be so translated wherever they are mentioned in Scripture. Jeremiah, describing the present desolation of the holy city, has this very striking image now verified of Ephesus,—
"Zion is desolate, the foxes walk upon it."
—Dallaway's Constantinople, p. 228.
. At times he viewed, winging the air with a rushing sound, the eagles darting from the crags, that soared and screeched above him; he listened to the ravens hoarsely croaking, while sometimes the clangor of a flock of cranes, closely wedged, was heard sailing in the air. When all was quiet, and his exhausted heart itself reposed, his eye would follow the changeful cameleon, that, sensible of its security, slowly changed its natural colour, while, if Kais approached, it escaped with agility, varying its agitated body with rapid and tremulous hues
Mr. Dallaway describes, in his "Comtantinople," among other picturesque scenery, the cameleon
"basking on the scars, as enjoying perfect security, changing its colour, or escaping with wonderful agility. Perhaps it changes its colour on occasions of fear or anger. The natural colour is iron grey, which it can vary with every shade of brown and yellow."
. Over the plain, bounded on all sides by the horizon, he found no intervening object to rest on, and his eye ached as it passed over a level and shining waste of grey sand and scorched brambles. In the uniform deadness of the dreary landscape, there was no vestige of animation; no bird flew in the empty air; no animal trod; no lizard crawled on the earth; and he felt himself alone in the universe. Yet sometimes was this sultry silence broken, as he listened to a troop of camels, with the tinkling chimes of their bells mingled with the heavy hum of the drowsy songs of the drivers, and swelling in the stillness of the breeze; while sometimes (an object pleasingly picturesque) a caravan took new forms as it wound its slow length along the rocks; at times the whole body disappeared, and then gradually emerged, and then was partly concealed; till the camels, the waggon, and the travellers, alike melted away in the aerial distances.
His nerves are shaken; his ideas, through inanition and fatigue, are confused and bewildered; a fever wastes his adust frame. He grazed on the pale brown herbage of the desert, with his gazel; recited verses at intervals, which marked his unsettled emotions; every where he semed to seek destruction, and could find it no where. At his lucid intervals he examined his form and shuddered; reflecting on the past, he seemed to have performed impossible things; and often he relapsed into delirium, while he reflected he had been delirious.
Meanwhile the Bedoweens returned from the desert in opposite directions; and some assured that they had at times tracked the path of Kais, for they had perceived the small steps of the gazel's slender feet, intermixed with those of its master; but these again they had as suddenly lost. The mother of Kais was wild in her sorrow; Ahmed could not support the presence of his beloved mourner; and he resolved himself to wander with a band of faithful followers till they had discovered the retreat of Kais. Embracing the Effendi, he said,—Thou art not a man of despair, and thou shalt be buried in a valley; for wretches like me, a desert has a charm, for it promises death.—The Effendi pressed his hand, and, without replying, accompanied the unhappy father.
One moon had elapsed, and hitherto the old Ahmed had been only consoled by reciting passages from the Koran, and listening as he journeyed, to the verses of Lebid.
But age, grief, and fatigue, exhausted the frame of the venerable chief. They had now been travelling on the briny fands, and had not seen a tree or a shrub for many days; while, more than once, they had observed the carcase of a camel, and parched adders, stiffened in death. Nothing was heard but their own voices; nothing had life but themselves.—How dead is this earth! (exclaimed Ahmed.) Ah! if I could see but
one living tree
Although Buffon was not so well supplied as ourselves with eastern descriptions, yet genius knows to describe justly with a paucity of facts. He finely observes, in his concise picture of an Arabian desert, that there the traveller
"n'a jamais respiré sur l'ombrage; rien ne l'accompagne; rien ne lui rappelle
la nature vivante,
solitude absolue, mille fois plus affreuse que celle des
forets;
ear les ARBRES sont encore DES ETRES pour l'homme."
—Vol. x. p. 14. 8vo.
.
The air was red and fiery, and the sky sparkled, and the hot sands flew about them. They were now the victims of the most parching thirst. At night they stretch their tunics on the earth, that they might be imbued by the night-dews; and which, in the morning, they pressed to moisten their lips. Still to exalt their sufferings in a long series of thirst, their agitated and torturing imaginations recalled to them the ideas of bursting springs and running brooks, till, in their feverish emotions, they called out to each other in agony. At length they heard waters trickling among some whispering bulrushes. Delicious sound! Some throw themselves on the earth, and some creep along on bended knees among the reeds, and, with difficulty, collect a little water in a large vase. They bring the cooling wave to slake their old master's parched mouth; his eager hand trembles as it holds the precious draught; he bends his hoary head, and dashes it to the earth: the acrid water hung in bitterness on his baffled lips. Both the old men were fainting in the hot blasts, and they administered to them garlic and dried grapes to revive them
The Arabians, when they travel, carry with them garlic and dried grapes, for the purpose of reviving such persons as may fall down fainting from the effect of the hot blasts.—Pagé's Travels.
.
More formidable terrors awoke; the colossal horrors of the desert. Columns of sand, which Nature animated, sometimes stalked with a sublime grandeur, and sometimes appeared to pursue them with celerity. With hearts coiled by fear, and eyes halfcurious and dismayed, they watched these separate whirlwinds. At times they met, they broke, and instantly the convulsed mountains, whose heads were buried in the clouds, dispersed, darkening the heavens, while, at times, the sun seemed a globe of fire in the crimson atmosphere. The little caravan quailed. At length they rejoiced to have reached a new desolation: it was a body of hanging rocks; of which some were broken and spread in vast ruins, while the rude arches shewed only one horrific night. To have entered them might have chilled the heart of a hermit; but they blessed the central darkness which offered them a retreat from the desert-whirlwinds; and some lighting their torches, cautiously entered.
Let me rest here! (exclaimed the feebletoned Ahmed as he grasped the hand of Lebid.) Let the wild lion meet us here, I will grapple with him! Hope is extinct with the spirit of my life. My wife I shall no more embrace; my son I shall never behold. Lebid, my skin is dry, my pulse is weak, and my heart is torpid; a cold thirst has seized on my vitals; I have bled in the field, but, with open wounds, never have I felt a thirst like this. Lebid, I am desperate with misery! the light of the day is hateful to my eyes! I see nothing in this vast space but an immense sepulchre!
Venerable Chief! (replied the Effendi) thy heroic spirit is crushed not by the elements, but by thy passions: thy soul is more desolate than the desert: it is the father who unnerves the warrior.
They had now retreated within these tremendous masses of rock, and had passed several hours in these unhewed temples of Nature, when a Bedoween discovered on a height a kind of bridge formed by the trunk of a tree, so lightly flung across the scarcevisible points of two projecting precipices, that it seemed to hang in the air. Pointing it out to the Effendi, his aged eyes could not perceive it.—Reverend Effendi, (said the Bedoween) you may observe it if you will look on the sky; the bridge is next to the sky.—I see it; it is a fearful height. A bridge there! Despair only could have been its architect! What man is he who wants a passage on that dizzy point?—Be sure (said the Bedoween) it is not of mortal contrivance: I will arm, and watch it.
The pallid moon tinged with a discoloured and uncertain gleam, the vast solitude on the acclivities of the rocks, when the watchful Bedoween heard above him the sound of pacing steps. At length a human voice broke out, chaunting in fantastic measures, while, at times, it liquified the heart with many a pathetic tone. On the narrow bridge, hanging next the sky, a naked spectre-form flitted along; so wan, so woe-begone, so shadowy, it seemed an unblessed spirit. A gazel followed the fading apparition.
The trembling and pale Bedoween hastened to his lord, and described the vision.—I have seen (he cried) a MEJNOUN
This surname, in Arabic, means
a Maniac;
but sometimes an
enthusiast,
and
a man inspired.
—Is not this a proof of the universality of the notion, that
inspiration
is a
species of insanity?
the
Amabilis Insania
of Horace.—The Orientals (observes M. Cardonne) do not consider
madness
as so great an evil as we Europeans; nor is it so liable to reproach: they think that it may only be an error (or, in the language of Dr. Darwin, an hallucination of the mind), or perhaps a gentle inebriation, which, though it troubles the order of our ideas, may soften our pangs as likely as augment them. It is only when insanity is furious, that it excites horror.
!
Thou lookest as if thyself wert bewildered, said Ahmed.
Perhaps, my Lord, I am. I am not longlived, be sure, for I have seen a spirit. 'Twas on the bridge next to the sky! 'Twas a form so transparent the moon-beams pierced it. The tones were not of earth; they were aerial, as the voice of Gabriel to the prophet. A gazel followed. Wondrous! the spirit of a gazel!
Thine eyes are credulous; thou saidst at first he was but a Mejnoun.
True, true, my Lord; he is but a Mejnoun! How came I to think of a spirit? Yet, my Lord, my eyes are not credulous; my ears were witnesses to my eyes. I heard verses from the Mejnoun; and the moon shone so sweetly I could not help weeping.
Be calm and concise.—What verses didst thou hear? inquired the Effendi.
Fine and distracted verses, changing their measures, always beginning, but never finishing. He spoke to the moon, and I looked up at the moon; and my ear drank every sound with such ecstasy that I only remember one verse, which describes the Mejnoun himself:—
I am a SHADE—but GRIEF has given a VOICE!
Alla is great! (exclaimed the Effendi.) Thy son lives, Ahmed; and the Mejnoun is Kais! Well I remember that verse. It
was
but an image of fiction! And now, dear youth! thy genuine tears fall over thy fictitious sorrows, enthusiast of Nature! And hast thou become a Mejnoun? Has thy subtile spirit preyed on itself; and have thy passions, so vehement and vast, flamed into delirium?
The sudden discovery oppressed Ahmed; his lips quivered, the colour left his blanched cheeks, and the word Mejnoun faltered in his throat. He fainted in the arms of an attendant.
The affectionate band assemble at the foot of the rocks which Kais haunted, watching his return in a breathless anxiety. He came stalking over the narrow plank, followed by the gazel with steps as solemn. The moon shone against him, illumining his form, while at his back was a dark sky: he seemed a being not earthly and material.
God of my fathers! (exclaimed Ahmed) it is my son! Aid me, my friends! Let me reach him; let me die at his feet. Shall I see this, and shall I suffer existence?
Let me! (replied the old Effendi, feebly restraining the feeble old Chief) let me listen to him! If he replies not to my voice, and if he knows not this desert, he is delirious: if he knows my voice, and descends not, he is insane
Dr. Darwin, in his Zoonomia, thus distinguishes DELIRIUM from MADNESS.—
"The ideas in DELIRIUM consist of those excited by the sensation of pleasure or pain which precedes them, and the trains of other ideas associated with these; and not of those excited by external or by voluntary exertion. Hence the patients do not know the room which they inhabit, or the people who surround them; nor have they any voluntary exertion when the delirium is complete; so that their efforts in walking about a room, or rising from their bed, are unsteady, and produced by their catenations, with the immediate affections of pleasure or pain. By the above circumstances it is distinguished from MADNESS, in which the patients well know the persons of their acquaintance and the place where they are, and perform all the voluntary actions with steadiness and determination."
.
Ahmed, abruptly interrupting the Effendi, cried,—Follow me, faithful Bedoweens! or I will go alone! I feel I can perform impossible things; what the timid cannot conceive. I will climb, I will perish! His mother shall not again reproach me with leaving her childless!
The gliding shade of Kais, or THE MEJNOUN, as we shall now call him, stood lower among the rocks. He looked down on the valley, unconscious of its objects. His father started, calling on him affectionately. Kais replied not; but, turning to his gazel, patted its downy back, and they both sat down. The Mejnoun broke out into the following soliloquy:
Why were the blue heavens rolled out, and the earth made green, and man an unhappy wanderer? The storm sleeps in the blue heaven, the pestilence sweeps the green earth! Why is not the human fugitive like the fruit-tree; maturing in its cradle, diffusing its blossoms in its native air, and dropping its treasures on the earth that nourishes it. Lo! the tree lives, its planter protects it, his hand will medicate it, his eye will weep over it. But who hath planted thee, MAN, thou tree of evil growth? Are not the FRUITS thou bearest even poisonous to the roots of thy being? and do not thy PASSIONS circulate in thy veins till they consume that existence to which they gave birth? Foolish man! thou thinkest this world made for THEE, when all around thee bears the image of thy fleeting existence! Canst thou dissimulate this idea? Lo! in the PLEASURE thou graspest thou feelest the beginnings of PAIN! Eternal mockery of PLEASURE! repose in the verdant SHADE, and wake with the circling ADDER. Over THE MIDNIGHT BOWER, as they laugh, and drink
"unprofaned wine,"
lo! the invisible PESTILENCE creeps in one little hour, and rages in their nostrils, breathing odours, and hangs on their lips, tinged with the liquid purple! And the morning comes, and the sun shines, and THE CITY IS DESOLATE! Oh! heaven and earth! was this creation made in sport? Who art thou, the CREATOR?
He ceased this delirious rhapsody, and Lebid replied:
This HEAVEN, with its softened beauty before thee, and thou askest where is thy God? This glowing EARTH, rejoicing with painted forms, and thou canst not trace HIM! At one touch was this web of being woven! I look around, and KNOW MY GOD; as when I examine the traces left on the sands, I perceive whether a man or an animal has passed. Behold the ETERNAL'S road! Is it not one path of prodigies? Thine eye can view THE VESTIGES OF THE DIVINITY!
Meditate on all around thee, and question thy soul? Is it not touched by THE HARMONIES OF NATURE? But the great Artist conceals himself, and is only viewed in his work. Art thou, then, not satisfied with the mild glory, so suited and so proportioned to thine eye? Wouldst thou penetrate into the designs of the Divinity? Let MAN, then, ride within the whirlwind, let his HANDS pour out the sunshine, and let his FEET stamp on the unsteady ocean.
Ingenious only in creating thine own infelicity, it is thy reason which renders thee unreasonable, and thy intelligence, unintelligent; or rather, it is thy PRIDE that tells thee, thy reason MUST be the reason of God, and thy capacity, HIS power. Thou hast concluded, that THOU art on the height of this vast chain of creation; thou, who knowest not why the tides ebb and flow, how a blade of grass becomes perfect, and why the dead seed thou throwest in the earth becomes an animated being. Trust me, the Spirit of God is too subtile for the spirit of man.
There was one day a sage who sought to discover the ESSENCE OF THE GODHEAD. He began at morn, and in the evening he still leant, not undelighted by the charm of thought. His friend approached him, and softly stealing him from the dream of meditation, exclaimed,—How long thou hast loitered in the garden of thy mind! what lovely flowers hast thou collected?—The sage replied,—My soul has been flying towards HEAVEN, and for you and my friends I filled my folded robe with celestial flowers, but as I grasped them (for at times I thought I grasped them) I fainted over the too exquisite odours, and my folded robe fell from my relaxing hands, and my collected flowers are for ever dispersed!—It is thus we lose ourselves in researches after THE SECRETS OF GOD. The most curious are not the most knowing. Scarcely do the Sages perceive the Divinity, but Death closes their lips. Yes, believe me, the paths of HEAVEN are only penetrated by the wings of a SERAPH
The latter part of the reply of Lebid, in the allegorical manner of the easterns, describing the too subtile nature of such researches, is taken from
Sadi
's Gulistan. The remaining passage is translated by Major Ouseley from
Nizami,
one of the sublimest of the Persian poets.
.
And canst thou tell (despairing man!) what is to happen to-morrow?
Or that which shall yet remain in obscurity?
Can we tell the man whose affairs Fortune shall direct?
Or him with whose life Destiny shall sport?
Can we point out him who to-morrow shall be brought forth
A lifeless corpse from his habitation?
Or him on whose brow posterity shall place a diadem?
Who knows on this clay, which we now trample under foot,
What blood of heroes may have been shed?
The Mejnoun listened and paused, and still recurring in his mind to his own situation, gave his thought in verse:
As some LIGHT WAVE that finds no calm repose,
Still urged from rock to rock, in MADNESS glows;
Lo! from the wild-infracted passage fled,
It steals in MURMURS to a desert-bed!
So let him FLY, whose soft and hurted mind
Has strove with HUMAN ROCKS—A WORLD UNKIND!
Lebid sought in his mind for some image to soothe the despairing mourner, and replied:
And I have seen, believe the moral tale,
A RENT BOUGH WANDERING with the various gale;
The smiling meads, the laughing vallies fly,
And seek the stream, with faded leaves to DIE.
When lo! a genial earth the plant receives,
And o'er THE PILGRIM breathes A YOUTH OF LEAVES.
So oft some WANDERER PALE, whose hopeless eye
Can see no
oul-loved friends, or sees them fly;
Has found, by Time or Chance, NEW PLEASURES rise,
And felt the refuge sweet, of KINDER SKIES.
The Mejnoun listened till, in his intense attention, he ceased almost to breathe: it seemed the voice and the verse of Lebid. In an awful pause he appeared collecting his returning ideas. The verses were consolatory, and the voice was cherished. The tenderest associations of thought melted together at the memory of Lebid: for yet the hermit's heart was not dead to the emotions of friendship; the latent fires of his soul were but covered, and wanted but the lightest air to be awakened.
Surely (he exclaimed) that voice is the voice of Lebid!—A soft shower of tears covered his face. He leant from the rock: in the still and unwavering light of the moon, shone palely the venerable form of his friend and his master. He rushed down the rock, murmuring and exclaiming, in sweet and tender tones, as he went: he reaches the plain, and throws himself at the feet of Lebid.
Lebid stood alone; a little removed behind him was the silent band. The assembly was touched; and a low, tremulous murmur of sympathy just broke the stilness. They sighed at the view of the wan and desolated figure; it was scarcely that of humanity! Of his vestments but a few loose remnants remained, that fluttered as they clung to his skeleton body; his copious tresses, that still covered his shoulders, were matted and clotted; his nails had grown hard, sharp, and long, and with them he had armed himself to tear the birds and the smaller prey, which he hunted and fed on by a natural impulse. His once fine physiognomy was stained with a copper hue, and his expressive dark eyes looked now haggard, and sparkled with an incessant motion.
At the feet of Lebid the Mejnoun first spoke:—Art thou like myself, unblest, A SCATTERLING
SCATTERLING. Spenser is a venerable authority for this word. It means a vagabond; one that has no home, or settled habitation. Johnson says it is
"an elegant word, but disused."
The French express such a character by saying,
qu'il n'a
NI FEU, ni LIEU.
, dropped off from the race of man, to howl along the desert, to sleep on dizzy precipices, and to be invulnerable to the thousand deaths around? Alas! the miserable never die! I once thought Grief had its gangrene, it would spread and kill! In parting from the world let us unite. Thou canst curse an unfeeling world, canst thou not? I will sit beside thee, and I will bless thee. Oh! it is long that I have loved a curser! And I will tell thee all that has passed between Leila and myself; thou knowest not all! Heaven only knows all! It is a wondrous tale, old man, that will melt thy wintery eyes, and make thy heart, while it sits amidst desolation, beat with a human pulse.
Leila lives! (replied the Effendi, straining the Mejnoun to his breast:) She lives to blame thee for deserting the tents of thy father. Yes, Leila lives! continued the Effendi, as he thought the Mejnoun paused, as if doubtful of it.
The Mejnoun still paused; then, with a deep sigh, he exclaimed in the sweetest tone, Ah! Leila, Leila!
The Effendi continued,—and thy father lives!
The Mejnoun starting, raved in voluble passion, and rapidly said:—The tents of fathers are not any more the tents for their children! Nature is weary with repeating simple affections, affections old as this antique world; now she loves to create monsters, to people the world with a hideous race of men, and teaches fathers to be the only enemies of their children!
The old Ahmed, hitherto restrained by his attendants, struggled to get to his son, but his steps trembled, and he fell at his feet. He clung to his knees, and looking on him, as if his heart were breaking, he cried,—My son, behold thy poor father! thy poor father! My son, dost thou not know thy poor father?
Mejnoun gazing on him with a vacant eye, slowly crept away, shuddering; and turning to Lebid, in a low whisper, Who is here? Who is he who talks of my father? It was a cruel mockery to emind me of my father!—Lebid! is my father coming?—be secret! I know to creep to the pinnacle of yon rock; and if my father should come, I would laugh at him on the point of the precipice.—He was retreating among the rocks, when Lebid arrested him, and exclaimed—Mejnoun! thy father calls thee! Scarcely is he thy father, so wasted and so wretched!
If my father is here (replied Mejnoun with a solemn accent), tell him I forgive him! We must never meet. Brings he persecution even in the desert? It will be short! I will say a last prayer to the prophet, and steal away to a glorious abyss! I have kept it for a last refuge; I have at times felt happy when I thought me of that abyss; it is happiness to know how easily we can elude our persecutor: often has my eye measured the tremendous chasm; it is fathomless, and I despair!—His whole frame was now agitated; a liquid fire glowed in his quick and vivid eyes; and a terrible energy was in his gestures. He continued:—Thou seest I am calm! sometimes I think I am mad! Leila! Leila! must I see every one but thee!—His teeth chattered; he howled; he stamped on the earth; he tore a handful of hair from his head. He hastened up the rocks, and was seized by the Bedoweens.
They placed him on a camel; his father and the Effendi followed. During the journey, the complete delirium of Mejnoun seemed to hinder him from any voluntary exertion of ideas or of actions: he did not appear to perceive that he was surrounded by people, or that he was carried on a camel; stretched for hours in reverie, he would at times hold a self-dialogue, seeming to reply to what he imagined some one conversed with him; sometimes he carolled wild, tender verses; and now he shrieked, and now he laughed. Sometimes he attempted to rise and wander; but feeling himself confined by some superior power, he groaned and sunk down, without discerning the violence offered to him.
Thy son is not insane, (observed the Effendi to Ahmed), he is only delirious. His soul is so penetrated with his unhappy passion, that it only exists to that solitary conception, and his ideas are consistent, as they relate to that sole object. Were he a maniac, he would recognise us, and would distinguish the camel on which he is laid; and all his voluntary actions would proceed from erroneous ideas; an hallucination of the mind, in which he would mistake his vivid imaginations for existing realities. Then he would not, as he does now, publicly disclose the inmost emotions of his soul; but, on the contrary, he would be suspicious of those who were near him, in his actions wary, in his designs cunning. At this moment we behold him insensible of the actual scene, and the sole object of Leila concentrating all his faculties and all his sensations.
The old Ahmed waved his majestic head, and without replying, looked in the face of Lebid; as if he meant to say, To me what imports to know whether my son be delirious or maniacal?
The learned Effendi understood him, and continued:—It is the immortal Darwini, the nightingale of Schirauz, who, in his Negaristan
There are many of these Persian anthologies. Saadi, of Schirauz, has composed two of these works, admirable for their moral philosophy. The
Gulistan,
that is, a garden of roses, and the
Bostan,
which means a garden of fruits. They are composed in verse and prose, interwoven with anecdotes, moralities, and political observations. There are also the
Negaristan,
or gallery of pictures, by Jouini; and the
Beharistan,
or mansion of the spring. Of these anthologies, versions are desirable to the curious, and perhaps might render the first steps into the study of the language more pleasant to the Persian student.
, or gallery of pictures, with many a tender period, discourses of the erotic passion. Since now we have discovered the mental hallucination of Mejnoun, it follows, oh, Ahmed! that his disorder is irremediable while his sensations are those of despair; but his malady is not incurable, if his sensations shall be those of hope. Mejnoun must be united to Leila.
The venerable Chief clasped his hands, and raising them to Heaven, on his murmuring lips, died, an orison to the prophet.
END OF PART THE SECOND.
PART THE THIRD.
IN the absence of her lord, and since the flight of her son, the mother of Mejnoun was accustomed to watch in his tent. Her soul was attached to that abode, for it found a solemn and sweet pleasure amidst a scene full of her passion. Even his empty sopha was not approached by her without trepidation; his suspended robe her imagination would embody with his person; and when she touched his instruments of music, and they yielded sounds she once dwelt on with such fond pleasure, a warm moisture filled her eyes, and she sighed intensely at the local recollections around.
She was one day watching at its entrance; afar she descries a cloud of dust her heart bounded against her breast; she calls to her attendants; she strains her eye to discern some object; she views nothing but a moving cloud. Gradually the cloud seems to open; she distinguishes lances gleaming in the glancing sun-beams. She discerns camels. She inquires of all around, Does my lord return? Her fond impatience exceeded the faculty of vision. It was impossible to know whether it were their own Bedoweens, or a caravan of travellers. Some whose eye only passed over the surface of a vast indistinct body, to please their desolated mistress, deemed it was their own party. The troop keep directing their way to the tents in their valley. At length a precursor is viewed; and the breathless Bedoween rushes into the tent, exclaiming—Kais returns! and sunk at the feet of his mistress.
He returns; but to the mother of Kais the return of her son was painful as his absence. She views that cherished son led in without consciousness, and hardly with sensation. His drooping head rested on his bosom, while his haggard looks assured her he was no more sensible to his existence; even at his voice, his beloved voice, she shuddered, as it hoarsely repeated, at intervals, the name of Leila. The old Ahmed approached his desponding wife; he kissed her in silence, while his tears fell with his kisses on her cheek. She looked on him in agony, and turned to her son, and raised her hands to Heaven, and sunk, fainting, into the arms of her lord.
Mejnoun is laid on a couch of Indian silk, placed on a carpet of Persia. His mother suffers no one to attend him; her own hands scatter the rose-water over his disfigured body, disentangle his matted hair, perfume and curl his wavy tresses, vest him with a tunic of the gold-cloth of Cairo, and fill his goblet with the wine of Schirauz. As she knew he was delighted by Persian elegance, the scene was Persian. His tent is hung with the tapestry which the needle painted, suspended by cords of purple silk running through rings of silver and gold, while musk, ambergris, and the wood of aloes breathe in a cloud from the censers. As he was used to be delighted by beautiful plants, she placed around his couch, in vases, some of the most curious and most fragrant shrubs she could obtain; and on the ground, on which his eyes were continually fixed, she strewed fresh flowers and sweet-scented vegetables, that it might bear some slight resemblance to the earth itself in the spring season. She fanned him with branches of odorous herbs; and while the air refreshed him, he would sometimes yield a long-drawn respiration.
Mejnoun at first smiled not, nor seemed conscious of the devoted tenderness of his mother. When a temporary pause of reason takes place, he considers the existing scenery as a dream, while his own lengthened dreams he considers as an existing scene. He scarcely yet believes he has returned to his tent; he touches his mother with curiosity rather than with affection; and slowly paces, at times, around his tent, with an inquiring eye, that seems uneasy at an illusion. Again he relapses into a mild delirium.
It is the philosophic friend, the venerable Effendi, who effects what has baffled the anxiety of maternal inquietude. Seizing all the vacillations of his unsteady heart, and confirming his dubious ideas, he gradually restores him. Mejnoun one day made a silent motion to open his tent. Not without alarm the anxious mother understood him, and trembled, as she imagined it indicated his desire of again escaping from home. Cautiously she opened it a little.—A little more! (exclaimed the recovering maniac in a tender tone) a little more! 'tis Paradise opening, and scattering its balmy airs. How vivid the verdure! how cheering the blue sky! And he gazed intensely on the face of the country, and often sighed.—Rejoice! (said the Effendi to the anxious mother) thy son will soon be restored! The tones of his voice have returned to their natural pitch, and the first desire of his heart is the aspect of Nature. Trust me, he who loves the view of Nature, will not forget his mother!
One day Mejnoun fell on the neck of the Effendi, and wept over the venerable man. A deep respiration laboured in his breast. He pressed the hand of Lebid, and in that pressure told he was conscious of the present scene, and half-remembered the past. He first called for his mother: he sunk at her feet. His father embraced him, and a father's tears filled his eyes. Beloved son! (he exclaimed) return not without an affectionate heart to thy merciless father: thy mother loved thee, and I too loved thee, yet have we acted differently! Console me for the persecution thou hast suffered; teach me to pardon myself! Thy father's heart was once a soldier's; 'tis now timid as the heart of a frightened child. Look mildly on an old man, who was once thy father: despise not Ahmed in his old age. If Love has caused thee all thy sufferings, Love may remunerate thee with all thy joys. My son, smile but on me, and let me die in peace.
Mejnoun, in kneeling to his father, often by tender gestures interrupted the humiliating language of affection. At length he said:—My father, it is not possible! I am only restored to reason, to know all my wretchedness. Leila can never be mine. The pride of nobility has hardened the heart of the Emir. Let me quit a world in which I have ceased to be useful: trust me, I am fitted for a hermitage! I care not for the honour of my friends, and am placable to the insult of an enemy. What is a man, alike incapable of friendship or of enmity?—O, thou desert! thou unshadowy waste! to me pleasant is the abode of thy unrelenting rocks; there I view nothing of humanity, but the far-heard caravan, that sometimes passes on, like some low cloud, hanging heavily over the earth. Yes, my father, I will live without Leila, but I must live in a desert!
Such was the resolve of Mejnoun when recovered from his delirium; but allured by the hope of possessing Leila, while every day confirmed the constancy of her heart, the desert receded from his imagination, as the world opened more prosperously. At first his father attempted to amuse his mind by continued festivals, by the versatility of pleasure; and sought to dissipate his passion by procuring the most beautiful dancing women. Every day he renewed his promise to apply in person to the father of Leila, while he slowly prepared valuable gifts to win the obduracy of the Emir. Hope for the intemperate Mejnoun opens another fountain of his feelings; from a delirious despair, he breaks into a delirious joy; he riots in futurity; his days are vowed to the festivities of pleasure, and his nights to the visions of imagination.
He was now no more surnamed MEJNOUN, but was called by his companions SERGUERDASI, which in the Persian idiom means a Saunterer; or literally, one who does nothing but turn his head, now on one side, and now on another. His eye was now intensely fixed on the pouting lip and the circling cup, and his ear wandered in the shrill joy of the pipe and the tenderness of the lute; but while his cheek glowed with animation, and the blood beat more vitally round his heart, at times his pulse was irregular, and a fever breathed its unnatural heat in his veins. At these moments he composed Anacreontics, like the following one:
A FESTIVE ODE.
Too fond, too fond of odorous WINE,
Of WOMAN'S wanton-rolling eye,
Of MUSIC'S soul-invading sound;
Some cold-complexion'd Sage divine,
Would cloud our pleasure-echoing sky,
And close the laughing eye around.
We like his HEAVEN; our duteous EARTH
With WINE as musk'd, as green a GLADE,
Shall image forth the vision'd bliss.
Lo! ECHO wakes our bower with mirth,
While through yon ROSES' VEILING SHADE
How murmurs light the SWEET-VOIC'D KISS!
As the WINE gurgles in the GLASS,
With wavering HAND and dancing BRAIN,
TIPSY—a MONARCH on my throne,
I bid my number'd SUBJECTS pass!
SOBER'D—'Tis SHEEP that graze the plain,
And I a CAMEL-DRIVER'S SON
When I drink freely, then indeed I am lord of a royal castle, and of a throne: but when I awake from ebriety, then certainly I am only master of sheep and of camels.—Richardson's Arabic Grammar.
!
To day the CLOUDS' LIGHT DAUGHTER fair
The VINE'S BOLD SON in marriage blends
The son of the Clouds espouses the daughter of the Vine,
is a beautiful allusion to the mixing of
water with wine,
and, as Richardson observes, often employed by the Arabians. I have changed the sex; for not only is
wine
more powerful than
water,
but
wine
is likewise emblematic of the fire and warmth of MAN, and
water
of the delicacy and yielding softness of WOMAN. It appears that the Asiatics, as well as the Greeks and Romans, in their usual compotations, diluted their wines with water; and when they committed a cheerful debauch, drank their more heavy wines with a very little water.—See Sir Edward Barry's curious essay on the wines of the ancients.
;
To day a hundred lips are mine!
Boy! to MY LOVE this goblet bear;
If she her purple lip but lends
The rim, I'll drink the KISS in WINE
A Persian poet addresses his cupbearer thus:—Fix a kiss on the brim of the cup, and the wine will then be sweet, as if mixed with honey. And in Mr. Nott's version of Hafez, the Persian Anacreon, we have,—
"While the fair one's ruby'd lip
Flavours every cup we sip."
This playful idea is used by the Greek poets.
It is certain
that the Greeks have largely borrowed from the warm imaginations of the Orientalists. Anacreon alludes to a peculiar cosmetic found among the Persians. See notes on Caliph Vathek, p. 236.—My learned friend, Mr. Richard Hole, has lately published an ingenious essay to trace
the Fables of
HOMER among the
Arabian Nights.
Langhorne has justly observed, that "the genius of every species of poetry originates in the EAST, and was TRANSPLANTED by the Muses of GREECE. In the Philological Inquiries of the learned Harris, he says,—
"Such resemblances prove a probable connection between the manners of the Arabians and those of the ancient Greeks."
p. 354.
!
Ye GIRLS! with flowing steps arrange
The enamouring LABYRINTH OF DANCE;
And wind, and kiss, and fly, and turn;
And lose me in each gliding change!
Ah! while your feathery feet advance,
Aim at my heart the eyes that burn
Major Ouseley describes the Persians as great voluptuaries, who delight in their feasts to unite the pleasures of wine with the charms of music, and to heighten the luxurious enjoyments of the banquet by the presence of some beloved or beautiful object.—We are fond of wine (says a Persian poet), wanton, dissolute, and with rolling eyes; but who is there in
this city
who has not the same vices? We are immersed in pleasure and delight, and are constantly listening to the melody of the lute and the cymbal.—Those who describe Persian feasts relate, that musicians, both vocal and instrumental, attended; handsome pages carried round wine; and singing and dancing women, with
venal charms,
completed the Persian banquet.
!
At length Mejnoun murmurs at the protracted happiness, and suspects the still-repeated promise. They observed a new change in this variable and too-sensitive being. Suddenly he quits his gay society, his face is suffused with faint blushes, and his voice faulters: his eyes are again cast to the earth, his bosom palpitates, he refuses his meals, and, in a few weeks, a wan countenance betrays his nightly fevers. His mother, alarmed at the menaced change of his passions, prompts her venerable lord to the humiliation of personal intreaty; and now, with a reluctance concealed in his own breast, the old hero hastens to the tents of the green-turbaned Emir.
He enters and addresses him:—Descendant of Fatima! deign to unite thy enchanting daughter with my unhappy son: already hast thou heard of the long delirium of the wanderer. Ah! who ever loved like Mejnoun? Behold him restored to glory! Pleasure lights his splendid cheek; his immortal voice renews the verses Arabia remembers; and all our youth call for the union of thy rose with my nightingale. Thou knowest the prophet has made me a fortunate man; the trees I have planted live, the fountains I have opened were never dry. To Leila I will give a hundred virgins; they are the roses of our valley. A thousand armed Bedoweens, each mounted on a white courser; and five hundred camels; and two thousand shepherds; these shall surround her tent. My soul is now meditating to depart, and in the flying hour of Fate, little to me it imports whether I die on a throne or perish in the dust; but parental affection lives beyond the grave; and thou who art a father, wilt not be insensible to the prayer of a father.
Such was the humble solicitation of the magnificent veteran. But the Emir, whose cheek was scorched, and whose blood was acrid with envy, as he listened to the opulence of Ahmed, and whose obdurate heart was puffed up by the pomp of birth, received him with a fierce disdain; tauntingly reproached the spiritless father with the delirium of his son, and with the bitterest mockery an Arabian gives, he added—Imbecile Bedoween, seest thou not that the wrong side of thy turban is out
Bedoween honour is still more delicate than ours, and requires even a greater number of victims to be sacrificed to it. If one schiek says to another, with a serious air, Thy bonnet is dirty, or, the wrong side of thy turban is out, nothing but blood can wash away the reproach.—Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 199.
!
A deep groan broke from the old Ahmed; twice he stroked his beard, and half unsheathed his scymitar; but the thought of still further distressing his son, by the death of Leila's father, thwarted his just vengeance. He quietly sheathed his scymitar, exclaiming,—
"What sort of a man art thou that canst be ignorant of love?"
Thou, oh Prophet! hast witnessed all! In this accursed tent I and my son alike have received eternal ignominy. The passion of glory has died away in the bosom of my son. O, Love! thou jealous passion! that wilt not suffer another to abide with thee!
He returned home humiliated; but, studious to conceal his feelings from his son, this unhappy father entered his tent with a feeble smile on his aged countenance. But the perspicacity of Mejnoun perceived the reception he had suffered; and it pierced his soul when he reflected, that the intemperance of his passion had given dishonour to a venerable heroism, and for ever disturbed the slumbers of an old father's eyes. His soul pined: he for ever abandoned the gaieties of his convivial day, and amid the loneliest spots, composed the most touching gazels
Gazels
are
sonnets.
I do not know whether they derive this
name
from the animal so called, and celebrated for the tenderness of its eyes, and the gentleness and beauty of its form.
. He now talked of returning to the desert.
For the last act of piety and despair, his father proposed a pilgrimage to Mecca. It was a long journey for one of his age, but he would not perform the awful function by proxy; and in the holy house of the patriarch Abraham, he half-hoped to listen to the celestial whisperings of piteous seraphs, or at the tomb of the prophet to behold some miracle, operating on the intellect of his son.—I go (said the aged Ahmed) like the good patriarch with his son Isaac: may
I
be the sacrifice to propitiate Heaven, that has deserted us!
They arrive at the sanctuary: they repeat the numerous prayers, and perform the numerous ablutions, and present the numerous offerings: they kiss the black, gold-embroidered silk, on the top of the sacred caaba; reverently they touch the golden gutters, and drink of the gelid water of the well Zemzem, which in the arid soil suddenly opened for Hagar when in search of water for Ismael. They pace, with the enthusiasm of piety, along the numerous arcades, formed by those vast columns, which suspend a thousand silver lamps, for ever illumined, dimming the eye through the dread stilness with a religious light. They spread their carpets, and tremblingly prostrate themselves before the black stone which the angel Gabriel hewed from the rocks of the Cauther, whose stream rolls in heaven over beryl beds, and whose shores are gold.
One day Mejnoun entered the temple alone. He approached the black stone, and hears from its opposite side the voice of his father fervently supplicating Heaven, and offering his vows, that his son might forget Leila.
Mejnoun heard, and the sullenness of anger, with the ferocity of despair, glared in his distracted eyes. With a horrid impatience he strikes his temples with his clenched hands, while his uncertain feet scarcely enable him to fly. He crawls to a remote aisle, and flings himself on the marble floor.—And have we come here (he cries) to form vows! Those are not mine! How hateful is the voice of fathers! No, Leila! they shall not seduce me! We will despair, but we will laugh at fathers. Thou sufferest: mayst thou not suffer like me! Here, in this holy temple; here, where I seem to feel the Divinity about me; here, I swear, we are united! I was thine; I am doubly thine!—Can Sympathy, at this moment, tell thee of this our sad nuptial? It is the marriage of Despair! and Heaven is here, at once, our priest, our witness, and our perseeutor!
At the close of the day he steals from the temple, and escapes from Mecca. He gains the desert, neighbouring the tents of Leila; a wanderer in the same paths, and in the same delirium! More exanimate than formerly, he cannot climb the precipitous rocks; but crawls and gasps along the hot briny sands. Sometimes he lies stretched, and fancies he shall never again rise. His torn vestments he fastens by thorns; his casual food he picks from the earth, feeding often on a solitary lizard, and grasping the fainting adder, curses, and rejects it.
But Nature, too friendly to despairing men, ceases the violence of sufferance, when its operations tend to annihilation. Mejnoun becomes more mild, for he composes verses: his tender soul attaches itself to whatever surrounds it, and to all that has LIFE the SOLITARY SIGHS. His bewildered spirit addressed itself to a raven in verses which the lovers of this day still repeat, which still give beautiful tears to the beautiful faces of the seraglio, and convey an idea of passion even to the imperial heart of the Sophi. One day he approached a TREE to enjoy its shade: it saluted him, by lowly bending its inoffensive branches; he started, he touched the foliage, and every leaf trembled with animation. At this silent hospitality, this visible sympathy, this endearment of sensibility, the melancholy soul of Mejnoun was touched, and he wept beneath that TREE; but as he perceived that while he continued under it, the branches drooped more and more, he rose from the grateful shade, lest, in the hospitality it offered, it should entirely consume its generous virtues.—Ah! others may come as wretched as myself! (cried Mejnoun) and I would not deprive them of the consolation of A SENSITIVE TREE
There are in Arabia several species of the
Mimosa,
either
trees
or
shrubs.
The
tree mimosa
is so much endeared to the Arabians, that the injuring or cutting it down is strictly prohibited.—Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 359.
!
Urged by the poignancy of hunger, he sought one day for food, and his hand only grasped the tawny and withered herb. He discovered a hunter with a fawn. He pursues the hunter, who, startled by the manspectre, flies; but the feet of Mejnoun were winged by despair, and the steps of the timid hunter relaxed as they flew. He crouches, and supplicates for life; but Mejnoun kneeled to the kneeling man.—I intreat thee, man, (replied Mejnoun) to give me thy fawn, for I perish. The hunter, recovering from his terrors at the mild imbecility of the Mejnoun; claimed for the purchase the diamond on his finger. Mejnoun presented it to him.—To the inhabitant of a desert (said he) a fawn is well purchased by a diamond. Take it, and be proud; let the vanity glitter among the vain! If thou reachest Leila, the daughter of the Emir Amri, ask her who gave thee this ring?—Art thou Kais? inquired the hunter.—I
was
Kais (replied Mejnoun in a solemn tone). The awed hunter prostrated himself:—Heaven (said he) has touched thy lips with celestial fire, and thy brain glows with the delirium of holiness. Thy ring is a sainted relic; in adversity I will kiss it; all that a Mejnoun wears, they say, is holy. My way is remote; canst thou tell me, inhabitant of the desert, the hour of the day?—I do not count my hours (replied Mejnoun), often, indeed, I look up to the heavens to see where the sun is; but what signifies to me in what part of heaven he shines, since pleasure flies me at whatever point he touches. The hunter intreated the blessing of the amorous maniac, who pensively departed with slow steps, looking on, and leading the fawn.
He had obtained the fawn to satiate the violence of appetite; but his lifted hand having rudely touched its budding horns, their exquisite sensibility prompted the beautiful animal to yield a tender insantine cry, which spoke to the heart of the melancholy man. Its slender tongue licked his raised hand, and it fixed its full eyes on its persecutor: the view of the fawn revived the memory of his constant gazel. He sat down and wept over it, and thus, with a romantic sensibility, addressed it:
Beauty of solitude! thou whose mild aspect and delicate elegance can give even to a desert the sensation of peace, thy innocent blood passion never yet inflamed; Shall it distain my hand, my hand which only knows to caress thee? I will court thee by affectionate familiarities: when thou shalt
know
that I love thee, thou shalt lead me if thou wilt; for peace is in thy inoffensive steps. Live, and console my hermit-path! Mine shall be the delightful employment to guard thy branchy horns from the entangling thicket; to gaze on thee till thou understandest me; to repeat the name of Leila till thou shalt remember it. Sweet fawn! what shade is most grateful to thy brilliant eyes? Where loves thy slender elegance to repose? The tall pine-tree, from whence thou strippest the bark? or the wild chesnut on the mountain, to sport with its provoking and polished shell? or the manna-tree, in summer mornings dropping its yellow liquid? or the almond, with silvery or rosaceous blossoms, when its mature fruit, with gentle violence, opens its own shield? or the whiteleaved poppies, whose narcotic diffuses in the air if not culled ere the sun strikes the flowers, and taints the livid face of the gatherer, trembling with the potent opiates he breathes? Trust me, if thou lovest the sweet poppies thou shalt have them. Wilt thou lay thy soft length along in the cotton field? Beware, dear fawn, of the fatal
gulbad samour,
whose flowers poison the wind; and let me folicitously deter thy innocence from the
kerzehré,
that hypocrite of the forest, whose boughs are covered with roses, but whose deleterious dews, while they sparkle on, blasts the earth that receives them
I consulted Chardin for an account of the trees and flowers of Persia. Vol. ii. p. 10. 4to.
I cannot omit noticing a beautiful illumination in the splendid Persian manuscript of Mr. Douce. Mejonoun is represented seated, nearly naked, and feeding a spotted fawn. The whole form of the maniac is squalid, meagre, and famine is in every limb. The antelope is highly finished, with all those minute and exquisite touches which distinguish the brilliant pencil of the Persian painter. The artists of that country excel in the human physiognomy, and the face of the Mejnoun is here pourtrayed with peculiar felicity; it is famished and melancholy, yet the sympathising smile, while it feeds the gazel, is thrown over part of the features, and may be compared to a little sunshine illumining a dark cloud.
.
Thus conversed the fanciful Mejnoun with his fawn. Society not wanting in his solitude, it renewed his gentlest emotions, and a fawn could tame the desperate man. To refresh his fawn, he often eluded the brazen sky and the thirsty sands, and stole to the green borders of Persia, stretching himself on the flowers that richly clothe that vernal soil, while the fawn gamboled among the beds of tulips, anemones, and jonquils
Sir John Chardin thus describes the borders of Persia: The Mazanderan, the most western parts of this country, is one parterre from the month of September to the close of April; the face of the country is covered with flowers. On the northern borders of Arabia the country produces of itself tulips, anemones, &c.; and about Ispahan, jonquils grow spontaneosly, and there are flowers through the winter.
.
In this second flight to the desert his retreat had been undiscovered till he met the hunter, who, hastening to Leila (for the promise given to a Mejnoun he considered as a point of religion), acquainted her with his abode. The disconsolate maiden could not resist the desire of visiting her lover and her maniac, and, with a confidential slave, contrived to escape, for a short time, on horses procured in haste.
Arrived in the desert, they soon became faint in the hot blasts. As they passed by murky and projecting rocks, piled in awful masses, the skies were frequently hid from their eyes, till the landscape suddenly opened on all sides its immense horizon. In the evershifting sands their track was frequently lost, and then they were only guided by a number of pillars erected across the plain in sight of each other
This curious circumstance is noticed by Pocock in his travels through Egypt.
. The sand reverberated the beams of the sun; no breeze refreshed, no shade sheltered, while in the vast glare of light that dazzled their aching eyes, they held a fan of painted feathers before their faces; but their horses slowly proceeded, as the briny sand scorched their hoofs
It is for this reason that camels are preferred to horses, whose tender feet are incapable of travelling in the hot sands.
. At length they discovered an arch hewed in a rock, from whose cleft jutted out a young laurel tree. Here they sat some time, till the slave suddenly exclaimed, Behold! and pointing to one side of the rock, which had been polished into smoothness, Leila viewed her portrait. He lives here! she cried. Perhaps not (replied the slave), perhaps thy portrait is engraven on every rock.
Three hours had elapsed, and Mejnoun appeared not. The slave wailed, often repeating aloud, Unhappy Leila! A fawn appeared as she pronounced the name. They wondered, as they heard a shrill, hoarse voice vociferating, Leila, Leila! The fawn disappeared. The person who had called was in the narrow paths among the precipices, and was heard to say, What induced thee, my beloved, to quit me so suddenly this evening?—'Tis Mejnoun! exclaimed the agitated Leila: support me, I pray thee, I am sick at heart. She sunk into the arms of the slave. The wan form of Mejnoun approached; he perceives two females; he recognises Leila; he loses his voice; a quick suffusion flushed and died away on his pallid countenance; a faint light glistened in his eyes; he bends on tottering knees; he would embrace Leila, but falls before her in extreme debility.
He creeps to her tremulously; he grasps her knees; he rises, he presses her in his arms. He rests his eyes on her face till the recovering beauty returns his glances; inarticulate sounds murmur on their lips; and they touch and tremble.
Vision of the earth! (exclaimed the delirious Mejnoun) canst thou deceive me with substantial forms? I live on deliriously! my life is but a protracted dream. Breathing form! hast thou not a voice? Tell me, quickly tell me, art thou indeed Leila?
I am thy Leila, oh Mejnoun!
thus
to meet thee. I steal from my father's tents to tell thee how I love thee; to win thee from thy solitude; and to hear those songs thou hast composed on myself resounding through Arabia. Ah! beneath my hand how thy heart palpitates! Sweet Love! look not so wildly on me! thou art so woe-be-gone! O! thou who art called Mejnoun, it is for me that sad, that sweet, that sainted name is thine! She broke into a full gush of tears.
She ceased, yet Mejnoun seemed still listening to her voice.—'Tis surely the voice of Leila! (he said in a solemn tone.) We meet not as heretofore! but never sounded thy accents sweeter than in this desert. Formerly we trod on a silent carpet, and sat in a pleasant kiosque, while the jessamines and roses prodigally wasted their aromatic souls in the air we breathed. All then, my love, wasted about us; and above all, Leila, we wasted our hours. O! had we then forgotten we had fathers! we might have lived in this desert, and we should have lived happy! No: I will not think of happiness, it will make me mad! For me, then, hast thou trodden on the scorching sands, and felt the brazen skies of a desert! Romantic maid, I thank thee. Likest thou this perilous assignation? Be cautious, girl; there is temerity in thy attempt. I have seen the eye of the wild lion glare as he passed on; yet fear not, here are no fathers. Ah! if thou wouldst become the tenant of this desert, then would the briers be sweet as the wild eglantine, and the hot sands smooth as the silken carpet!
The bewildered air and the unsteady thoughts of Mejnoun alarmed Leila, and she turned silently to the slave. They had brought some provisions in a pannier.—Will my lord (cried the slave) repose, and taste our refreshments? Anxiety and fatigue have been more sultry to us than the desert; nor has my mistress opened but one pomegranate since sunrise.—Dear Mejnoun! (said Leila with her fascinating smile) our hour is short; share in these meats and these fruits; restore thyself, my love!—His hand was folded in her own, and she gave it the tenderest pressure. That long-lost sensation returning to his soul, his sympathetic nerves repeated emotions that memory had almost forgotten: he sighed; tears started in his eyes; he kissed her hand, he smiled, and said,—Leila, behold me what I once was, behold thy Kais!
They sat down; the slave spread the various refection; consisting of pomegranates, and water-melons, and pistachio nuts, and various-coloured grapes, with plates of rice and the flesh of goats. She had also brought the cooling tamarinds, to express in their beverage; but the bardaks of water she had broken in her haste, and she loudly lamented the want of a sherbet.—Thou art the first, luxurious girl! (cried Mejnoun) who ever mourned for a sherbet in a desert: thou art but young in misery!—Eagerly grasping a handful of fresh flowers which she had also brought, and sighing as the odours reached him, he said,—The scent of flowers from the hand of one we love, Leila, how delicious to the hermit in a desert, who has almost forgotten how flowers smell when they are given to us by a friend!—Leila dropt a tear, and Mejnoun caught the living pearl on a rose, and kissed it off the leaf.
In their rambling conversation they made more questions than they could form answers, and the last hour of this romantic visit was to close. The moon shone in its mid path, and the crystal light warned the slave to commence their shadowy journey. The lovers, reminded of the time, were alike unwilling to separate. They sat retired, and every time the slave came to them, she was remanded back; every time she saw the longlanguishing looks their eyes mingled; but in the eyes of Leila the tears suffused their brilliancy, and they shone like moonlight in the water. At length she cried,—My mistress will perish in the blaze of the sun; consider, my lord, we came but on horses, and I am sure they will die in the sandy waste, and drop us in the desert: my lord, my lord! we maidens cannot live like hermits!
Roused by the clamours of the slave, Mejnoun sustained Leila, he looked on the moon and saw it declining in its blue path.—How shall I live after this! (he cried:) yet let us haste; I will conduct thee to the borders of the desert. Perfection of beauty, Peri of my soul! when we again meet, I shall open for thee the silver gate of Paradise!
They proceeded slowly on their journey, till the slave again exclaimed,—Ah! look, my lord! she pointed to the moon; it was almost extinguished, and glided away on the verge of the sky. Mejnoun reluctantly hurried on; and now they reached the borders of the desert, and stopped to take a last farewell. The dawn already peered above the horizon with its argent whiteness, and the sun now threw an amber-streak, and was on the point of colouring the heaven with its vermilion; part of the mountains before them had the purple hue of the half-illumined night-shadows. They gaze on the beamless sun; they kneel before the soul of the universe; and, clasping their hands, vow an eternal passion. Leila supplicates for his return to his father's tents.—No (replied Mejnoun), I will not live where our fathers live!—Voiceless they embrace, slowly they part, quickly they return: now afar, they wave their hands, and Mejnoun gazed on Leila till her figure melted in the air, and seemed a speck to his eye.
Alone, after this interview, for the first time he perceived the horrors of the desert. Habit had softened the aspect of the surrounding terrors; despair had even endcared them; but the fatal presence of the object in which all his passions centered, again convulsed the volcano of his heart. At times he thought to pursue her, to detain her, to plunge into one abyss, and to find together an eternal rest. His frame betrays the rapid volitions of his heart; flashes of heat are succeeded by chilly fits; thoughts offuscate thoughts; he returns to the spot whence Leila departed. He runs along the sands; his voice howls and shrieks; he tears up the trees by their roots, and flings them in the air; he pursues the wild animals, and satiates the anger of his soul in their murders; he rejoices to make the desert more desert. He tears away the young laurel that jutted from his grottoed rock; once he had taught it to grow there with a little pride; it remembered him of glory. At length he swoons. It was only on the succeeding night that the miserable maniac awoke from his delirium; then faint, he tranquilly gazed on the tranquil moon, and caressed his fawn that laid its head on his knees.—Surely (he cried) it was but in a dream that I have seen Leila! and thus he addressed the sawn:—Sleep by the light of the moon, fair fawn! the moonbeams will not hurt thy dark brilliant eyes. Shall I rhyme thee to sleep. Last night I slept, and I dreamed—. Dear animal! thou too dreamest of the green valley thou hast left, of the flowers thou hast smelt. Ah! happiness is not banished from the cell of the hermit if he has but A DREAM OF LOVE!
He now addressed an ode to the MOON, which related
THE LOVER's DREAM.
CRYSTAL WORLD! thy shadows pour!
LAND where FANCY builds her BOWER!
In thy silver-circle deep
Lies the TREASURY OF SLEEP;
Many a glittering dream of air,
Many a picturing phantom there!
Shades of soft ideas bless;
IMAGES OF HAPPINESS!
Last night, in sleep, my LOVE did speak,
I press'd her HAND, I kiss'd her CHEEK.
Her FOREHEAD was with softness hung;
Soft as the timid Moon when young.
Two founts of silvery light unfold,
With EYE BALLS, dropping liquid gold.
Her BROWS nor part, nor join, their jet
In an anonymous version of Anacreon's ode, in which he directs the painter how to delineate the portrait of his mistress, this idea is finely given:
Then her eye-brows trace with art,
Mingle not, nor wholly part!
Nor is the idea quite lost in Longepierre's languid translation, which I give for the sake of the curious note:
Peignant de ses sourcils les Arcs, et la Noirceur,
Prens garde egalement, que ton pinceau menteur,
Ne les confonde, ou les separe.
This was considered as the principal beauty of the eye-brows with the ancients. They studied to approach them artfully to each other, neither quite joined, and scarcely separated. Theocritus calls a maid—
"The virgin with mingled eye-brows."
Petronius, describing a beauty, says—Her brows were spread on one side to the extremity of her cheeks, and on the other came almost in contact, confusing themselves, and uniting above her nose.—Ovid has—
Arte supercilii confinia nuda repletis.
De Arte Amandi, lib. iii.
The Beauties of the ancients employed a black sparkling tincture for their eye-brows and their lids, and the same practice is in use with all the Orientals.
;
Her TEETH, like pearls in coral set.
Her BOSOM gave its odorous swell,
Each breathing wave now rose, now fell;
And oft the flying blushes deck
With vermil light her marble NECK
A beautiful neck is frequently called by the Greeks a
marble neck.
Those only who are ignorant of the magic of sculpture conceive it a hard and cold image; the beauty of the neck consists in its exquisite white and smooth polish, like that of Parian marble.
.
Ah! union strange of CHASTE DESIRE!
Mixed in her CHEEK were SNOW and FIRE!
My lips a million kisses pour
Her silver-shining BODY o'er
Sadi employs the compound epithet of
silver-bodied;
another Persian poet has,
"
necks fair as silver.
"
.
Lengthening her crisped LOCKS, embraced
The BEAUTY, laughing, round her WAIST;
These snare the soul, these wake the sigh;
I gaz'd till madness fir'd the eye
To the long note on HAIR, in the poem on the land of Cashmere, the following ought to have been joined:
Crisped hair,
though (as Mr. Price observes) a picturesque object, yet
silken hair
is also a favourite one. Anacreon, in the language of the ode just quoted, tells the painter—
"Paint her hair of lovely brown,
Softer than the cygnet's down
;
Then, if paint so fine be found,
Sketch the odours breathing round:
Next one beauteous cheek display,
Where her
glossy ringlets
play;
O'er her ivory brow descending,
Light and shade so sweetly blending."
The ancients never give a description of BEAUTY without dwelling long on the magic of A WOMAN'S HAIR. A volume on this subject might perhaps be collected by one familiar with their compositions. Apuleius enthusiastically says, that
"If Venus herself were BALD, although circled by the Graces and the Loves, she would not please; not even her swarthy Vulcan."
—Petronius, in his portrait of Circe, describes her tresses naturally curling, and falling negligently over her shoulders,
entirely covering them.
—Apuleius, more exact, and with still more delicacy,—Her trailing locks, thick and long, and insensibly curling, were dispersed about her divine neck, softly undulating with carelessness.—Again,
"curling into waves."
Again,—Her thick tresses, softly falling from her head, were arranged about her neck; and insensibly resting on the borders of her vest, above her bosom, then wound their extremities into large curls, while some were drawn up, and hung in a fine knot on the crown of her head. Ovid notices those who platted their braided hair like spiral shells.
Petronius, to give an idea of a perfect beauty, says, that her
forehead
was
small,
and shewed the
roots of her hair
raised upwards. And Lucian makes Thais say of a rival courtezan, How can that stupid soldier, unless he is blind, praise her person? Does he not see that she has
very few hairs,
which, with great art, she draws up on her
large forehead?
!
The soft-clos'd LIPS I view'd awhile,
Just open'd with the tenderest SMILE!
I heard her VOICE; but, too intent,
The DREAM dissolv'd as still I leant!—
Yet, till the day-break lit the sky,
That not one word might ever die,
Repeated o'er and o'er each WORD,
Till SOMETHING LIKE HER VOICE was heard!
Thou friend to LOVE! romantic NIGHT!
Now hang a painted dream like this;
I grasp a SHADOW OF DELIGHT!
A PAINTED DREAM is all my BLISS
The following sonnet, or gazel, from the Divan of Jami, is given by Major Ouseley in his Oriental Collections, p. 187, and from which I derived the idea of this poem:
"Last night my eyes were closed in sleep, but my happiness awake;
The whole night, the live-long night, the image of my beloved was the companion of my soul.
Heavens! how did the sugared words fall from her sweeter lips!
Alas! all that she said to me in that dream has escaped from my memory,
Although it was my care till break of day to repeat over and over her sweet words.
The day, unless illuminated by her beauty, is to my eyes of nocturnal darkness.
Happy day that first I gazed upon that lovely face!
May the eyes of Jami long be blest with pleasing visions, since they presented to his view last night
That object, on whose account he passed his waking life in expectation."
The curious reader will find that the ode already quoted of Anacreon, and other parts of the Teian bard, bear a great affinity with Oriental and Persian poetry. This is no place to conjecture that Anacreon (first produced entire by Henry Stephens) was possibly borrowed from the Persians.
!
Every day his verses became more wild, but certainly not less poetical. The rock he haunted was well known to the hunters; and the gentleness of the Mejnoun had prompted them to repay the sweetness of his romantic songs by leaving provisions in his rocky vault: they also frequently placed there the silk paper and the splendid ink of Persia, with Egyptian reeds. One piously came to supplicate his blessing; another, with purer taste, to intreat for copies of his verses; and each in return promised to be the messenger of his love, and secretly to convey to his mistress the ENVOI he deigned to confide to them. He suffered their presence with patient benevolence, and sometimes soothed his agitated mind with the self-supported love of fame; and imaged in his reveries the sympathies and the applauses posterity has given to him.
END OF PART THE THIRD.
PART THE FOURTH.
NOUFEL, the Iman of Sana, was equally renowned for a passion for poetry and for hunting. Wandering one day near the rock of Mejnoun, this prince listened to his voice; he was touched by its melodious melancholy; and while the poetry indicated the unsteady heart of the poet, the united delirium of his art, his love, and his exile, was more interesting than the regular and courtly measures that fatigued his ear in his palace.
Noufel silently enters into the twilight gloom of the vaulted rock. In its subdued light he views Mejnoun in a recumbent posture: the affectionate fawn was stretched before him, and a manuscript was placed on its soft-breathing body. Mejnoun was in the act of composition: a warm radiance sparkled at times in his hollowed eyes, that often fixed on an opposite portrait of Leila. His extended hand held a reed; he repeated verses till they found cadence; he gave utterance to ideas and to images that perplexed by their variety; his gestures accompanied the passions he described:—such were the deliria of reverie! Often he closed his periods with the tenderest sigh, and with the soft part of the reed often relieved his eye from the tear that clouded.
The sensibility of the prince never slumbered: he feared to rush too abruptly in the presence of a man whose tremulous nerves suffered such a fine irritability. He stole away, gliding on tiptoe, from the vault. Reaching its entrance, he inquired of his hunters, if they knew who was the Mejnoun who haunted this spot?—It is the lover of Leila.—And is the finest poet of Arabia left to perish in solitude! (cried Noufel.) Men of genius! it is thus ye are admired and never consoled!
He bid a hunter blow his horn; but to blow it with a sound so mellow that it should fall, like a remote harmony, on the ear of Mejnoun. He blew, and the tones played lightly among the circling echoes. Mejnoun appeared. Noufel approached him, and taking his hand, smiling, said:—Enchanting poet, eternal lover! behold Noufel! Me, perhaps, thou knowest not, for I am but a prince; but thou art known to me, for thou art a poet. My subjects cherish me, but of thee the world is enamoured. Wilt thou deign to accept my protection? Leila shall be thine; I swear by Alborak, on which the prophet rode to heaven! Is the Emir avaricious? I will offer him treasures. Ambitious? I will give thee dignities. Insensible to kindness? My troops have taught despots to feel. Yes, thou shalt have Leila; and all that I implore of thee is to embellish my court with thy glory. Delight us with the graces of thy splendid verse; instruct us by the wisdom of thy solemn precept.
Mejnoun searched, with an inquiring eye, the face of the Iman; his physiognomy had every waving tender line of sensibility; and as their eyes met, they understood each other. The hope of possessing Leila exhilarated his astonished soul, and he replied:—Thy offer is pure; who but the gentlest of men would court a hermit? Thy amiable soul opens itself to love and poetry. Thou givest me HOPE; it is a sweet aliment to a wounded spirit. Yet HOPE was once my parasite, and flattered, and revelled, and ruined! Yet HOPE is still dear; it is so strange to my feelings; it is a sensation so long forgotten, that scarcely my feeble heart knows how to receive it.
The enthusiast, now at the court of Noufel, received from the sensitive prince new honours every day. He ordered that a
medalla,
or large parasol, should be ever carried before him; the distinction of independent nobility. He prepares an embassy for the Emir, and composes the letter himself, in which he invited his consent by the munificence of his offers, and menaced his refusal by the terror of his arms.
The haughty Emir tore the letter before the face of the ambassador, violently stamped on the fragments, and sarcastically congratulated him on the wisdom of his prince, who proposed creating a distracted lover his chief minister. The Emir summons his tribe; Nousel collects his bands. At length they meet, and, pausing ere they combat, watch the motions of each other.
Mejnoun, two days preceding the battle, dispatched a trusty page to the camp of the Emir. He has orders to enter secretly the tent of Leila, and to prevail on her to fly with him, that a battle might be spared. The page pursues his way with the devoted zeal of a messenger of love. He travels by moonlight, through unbeaten paths: when he meets a stream, he swims across it; a precipice, he leaps over it; a hill, he runs up it; and along the smooth valley he trips so lightly, that at morning his sandals are scarcely wet, and faintly silvered over by the night-dews. He approaches the camp of the enemy, and observed the armed Arabs sleeping in the moonlight. He dexterously shuns the centinels, by creeping under hedges, and often hiding his little body among the tall grass and fringed fern, he reaches the tent of Leila. Gliding in, he views at the farend, the beauty by a solitary lamp, and the holy koran lying before her, on which sometimes she directed her unquiet eyes. The little page is at a loss how to discover himself. He folds his hands on his breast, and kneels; Leila fancies, in the delirium of piety, that the beautiful boy is some winged genii, of whom she had read in the Persian tales. She recovers her understanding in listening to the message. The little page tells her, how he had swam across streams, leaped over precipices, run up hills, and crept unseen in the tall grass.—I cannot do all this (said Leila): it is only a little boy like thyself who can be so secret a traveller. Surely thy beloved lord is still a Mejnoun!
At length, after a week had elapsed in extreme weariness, and they had watched incessantly the motions of each other, the combat commenced. The army of Noufel amounted to a thousand horsemen, that of the Emir was inferior; and they joined with equal valour, but unequal force. They struck sabres against sabres; couched their long lances, and pointed them at, without touching each other's breasts; they wheeled about each other with equal celerity; they uttered loud and shrill vociferations; stood with menacing gestures, and tried each other's sagacity by artful feints: sometimes they mingled with an apparent rage, now pursuing and now flying, as the vigour of their arm prevailed. Clouds of dust were rolled above and around. They combated in this manner for twelve hours, till the troops of the Emir left on the field of battle seven of their companions, who lay motionless, bruised by the fall from their horses. The route then became general; a panic was caught by the Emir's soldiery; and the army of Nousel proved victorious by out-wearying their enemies
In this manner are the bloodless combats of the Arabs, which appear similar to those of the ancient Condottieri of Italy, where a whole day was fought, and a single soldier wounded, often decided the fortune of the day. Niebuhr observes, that an army of a thousand Arabs will take to flight and think themselves routed if they lose but seven or eight of their number. Pagés, in his travels, exhibits a very entertaining narrative of such an engagement: after a running fight the whole day, on one side none were killed or wounded, while these boasted of a triumph for having killed no more than one man, and some camels.
.
The tent of the Emir was surrounded; and Mejnoun yielding the honour of first entering it to his patron, the prince took prisoner the Emir and his daughter. Touched by the beauty of the virgin, he gazes in silent admiration, and thinks that even Mejnoun had not sufficiently inspired his imagination with such a model of beauty. The haughty father stood beside her, nor relinquished the hand of his daughter till the prince, in gently separating them, claimed the right of conquest. Fear, modesty, and grief, were expressed in the variable face of Leila, in tears, in blushes, and in tremors. At the view of so much beauty (more beautiful in its disorder) the feeling soul of Noufel inspired his first action with magnanimity.—Lovely maiden! (he cried) fear not a conqueror who conquers but to restore thee to freedom, to love, and to Mejnoun. For thee, obdurate Emir! in thy misfortune we forget thy pride. Return to thy tents.—The friends of the Emir kneeled to Noufel. The imperious Emir himself was no more proud; his hereditary spirit melted away in tenderness, as his humid eyes rested on his daughter. They embraced and wept; and as he quitted her arms with a paternal sigh, Leila looked on Mejnoun with anger and with grief. Her lover felt the silent indignation, nor ventured to approach her: the victor stood half-mourning his victory.
The character of Noufel was that of a quick susceptibility, and the impulsion of his feelings was instantaneous; but he was vain and volatile, and ever touching the extreme of passion. His heroism was but a temporary ebullition; and that susceptibility which produced his virtues, at times, taking an opposite direction, hurried him into impetuous crimes; crimes which he could at once abhor and cherish: in a word, his heart was more ardent than intrepid. His natural feelings were pure, but they were at variance with the acquired habits of a court; and he was rather a lover of virtue, than virtuous.
The emotions with which Leila affected him, were too powerful for a soul whose extreme softness is only the more dangerous when it tends to a gradual corruption. At first he faintly wrestled with his desires; but as the mind of Leila calmed, every day she became less resistible; and he gazed while his whole frame trembled at the novel graces every day shot forth to his eye; at the harmony of her features, the bloom of her complexion, and the enchantment diffused over her whole person. The tender friendship she felt for the patron of her lover, but the more provoked his ardour; his soul was inflamed by her graceful smile, and dissolved by her intendering tones; and while he listened, absorbed in the melody of her tongue, if he looked up to her eyes, he forgot her voice in their brilliancy. Unhappy Noufel! he felt himself at length so much attached to her, that he now considered that her lover intruded on
his
claims, and at the affectionate caresses of Mejnoun, he writhed in the agony of jealousy. How often suddenly he quitted them, sickening at their happiness, while they, with grateful eyes, thanked him for that hour of delicious solitude which is so necessary for the existence of lovers.—What! (cried the miserable prince,) shall
I
be the slave of Mejnoun? Shall I yield the only happiness I have ever found to the solitary hand of a distracted man? Yes; friendship, justice, and hospitality, tell me this. And what are ye all, ye soft-heated VIRTUES, before the energy of POWER? Shall Noufel be the most wretched in his court? shall he make madmen happy, by rendering himself most unhappy? If this be virtue, it is also folly. A word annihilates Mejnoun; a word for ever unites me to Leila. What! they will call me an impious bread and salt traitor
A bread and salt traitor (he who betrays his host or patron) is one of the most opprobrious epithets by which one Asiatic can express his detestation of another. Richardson's Dissertation.—In despotic countries, indeed, what so dangerous as the violation of private confidence?
! I shall violate the rights of hospitality; the holy rights an Arabian reveres. Ah! what are
rights
to
me
—a lover and a prince! Noufel was not insensible to his own unworthiness, and the pang of guilt was redoubled as he felt the insamy of guilt. Sometimes he resolves to have Mejnoun assassinated, but the diminution of his fame restrained him; and he watches with perpetual solicitude, if he could discover some action in Mejnoun that might prove the disorder of his mind, and the necessity of confinement; but the intellect of Mejnoun was never injured but when he was torn away from Leila. At length Mejnoun complained in gentleness, to Noufel, of his protracted happiness.
Noufel fixes on the day of his marriage. He announces to the court, that Mejnoun on that day becomes his chief minister; and to give publicity to his honours, he commands a nightly illumination in the city of Sana, to precede the splendid banquet which is to solemnise the happiness of Mejnoun and Leila.
The public festivities commenced. Mejnoun composed his epithalamiums, and these were soon retained by the people, who quitted all their occupations, and for a whole week only studied to get by heart his verses. At the corners of the streets were little knots of jugglers, tumblers, dancers, and musicians; while before the shops were placed on tables, spread with aromatic flowers, pyramids of refreshments, with large jars of sorbet, and pomegranate wine. The various crafts were the whole day wandering in processions; carrying before them streamers, dazzling the eye with a thousand colours, and exhibiting the implements of their professions in massy gold; while attended by their musicians, with kettle-drums, fifes, and clarions, they stopped under the balcony of Mejnoun and Leila, and sang hymeneal verses, tossing handfuls of flowers in the air. At night the illumination was general, and the darkest nook of the city seemed to be lighted up by a midnight sun. Every minareh was wreathed with variegated lights; in the vast concaves of their domes shone a thousand lamps of coloured glass; and cords were thrown across, from minareh to minareh, on which the lamps were arranged into letters, forming verses of the koran; and on that night so general was the fanciful illumination, that every house having chosen a different verse, much of the sacred volume might have been read throughout the city in characters of flame
The nightly illuminations of every minareh in the city produce a very singular and splendid effect. Within each of these, the vast concaves of the domes are lighted up by some hundred lamps of coloured glass. The lamps are fantastically disposed in letters and figures. I was not more agreeably surprised by any thing I saw in Constantinople, than the whole appearance of the first night in Rammezan.—Dallaway's Constantinople, p. 82.
In the Persian Tales mention is made of an illumination which was formed of these letters, and were really verses from the koran; and perhaps what might appear as
"fantastic figures"
to Mr. Dallaway, were in reality such verses.
.
The succeeding day the banquet is prepared. Leila comes forth in her bridal vestments, and ere the solemn rite is performed, they partake of the splendid refection. The artificial Noufel has entrusted to his confidential page the infusion of a subtile poison in the wine of Mejnoun. Noufel drinks to the health of the lovers, while the page presents a foaming goblet to Mejnoun. Noufel keeps his eye on
him
who
thinks
himself a bridegroom; and in transport he beholds Mejnoun empty, without taking the goblet from his lips. To conceal the secret pleasure of his heart, his tongue is voluble; his eye, at times, seems convulsed with rapture; an agony of delight writhes his features. The courtiers around (the wretched mimics of their prince) catch the gay extravagance of their master. The pavilion sounds with one undistinguished clash of voices. It was a delight that had terror in it. The prince laughs till his voice shrieks; he moves on his sopha till every limb trembles; each courtier imitates the contortions of his rapture. What he speaks is no more heard in the clamour of their joys. At length they behold him fall from his sopha, lifeless, on the ground. All is the silence of terror.
Mejnoun flies to his friend and his prince: he holds him in his arms. The face of Noufel is blanched and livid; his heavy lids are closed in death; and his feeble accents, fleeting on his quivering lips, painfully tell,—Mejnoun, yield me no pity! the poisoned cup, meant for thee, has reached my own lips. I loved Leila, and my love was terrible, impious! I prepared poison for my guest! Yes, thy prince was thy traitor. He sunk into his arms, and expired in the slow agonies of a convulsion.
An event so unexpected and terrific interrupted the nuptials. The Iman, who on that very day succeeded Noufel, had none of the sensibility of that miserable victim of passion. He had no attachment to poetry and to love, but a great sagacity in politics; and lamenting that a war should ever have been occasioned for a possession so little valuable as that of a woman, sent Leila back to the Emir, with an assurance of his veneration for one who wore a green turban.
Unhappy lovers! what now but a hopeless futurity opens to your existence? Thinking of all ye were to be, how bitter the meditation of what ye are; while the remembrance of perjured and of perished friendship wounds beyond the grave of the traitor! —My soul (cried Mejnoun) yesterday rejoiced in possession, and to day is desolated in ruin! My happiness will not last out a solitary sun. FORTUNE effaces TO DAY what YESTERDAY she had written on her whitest page!
Leila returned to the tents of her father, and Mejnoun relapsed into his former delirious feeling, but with a more deadly hatred of man; and without a friend, he regards himself as a naked sword without a sheath
"Far removed from friends, poor and solitary, like a naked sword without a sheath."
—Richardson's Arabic Grammar.
. Again he flies into the desert, and no one can discover his retreat.
It was some time after the return of his daughter that the Emir received a proposal of marriage from another Emir for his son Ebnselan. The passion of Leila was indeed universally known; but since this last fatal event, and the death of Mejnoun, as it was reported, it was imagined that the beautiful virgin would not resist the passion of a youth who came recommended by the graces of his person and the splendor of his train. Such was the judgment of the two aged Emirs, while the fervors of the gentle Ebnselan, whose passion had been inspired by the verses of his rival, prompted the hope of still winning the affections of one so capable of affection.
But when Leila was acquainted with the resolves of her father, she shrieked, she tore the rich calpuc from her hair, and beating her bosom, accused her parents of cruelty, and Heaven of injustice. By gentle insinuations, and by mild reproaches, they essayed all the avenues of her susceptible heart. She was assured that Mejnoun had ceased to exist; and was she not solicited by the most amiable youth in Yemen? and was the solemn oath of her venerable father to be lightly regarded? Had he not sworn, that if she accepted not the hand of Ebnselan, no hope remaining to perpetuate his family honours, he would refuse nourishment, and close his days by a voluntary death?—Thou hast disgraced us! (he cried:) a childless woman is in our race. Virginity is the glory of the girl, but the shame of the woman. Thou hast turned into a desert the fertile soil, and dried up the fountain of our race.
Long inexorable, the sufferer offered her life, but refused her hand. Day succeeded day, and no messenger from Mejnoun arrived. Her father persisted in his resolution, and ceaseless tears were on the face of her mother. One day they sat near Leila in a mournful silence; the eyes of her mother were fixed on her eyes; Leila could not support the full affection they beamed on her; the invisible atoms of sympathy entered her whole frame; she became what her mother was, and the ardour of her mother's eyes shot to the sanctuary of her pure soul. The tears of her mother often lingered amidst her wrinkled cheeks, and once she sighed heavily: instantly Leila sighed convulsively; she sunk on her mother's lap, and stretched her hand to her old father in silence and in despair; she stretched her hand, and turning aside her face, she wept aloud.
The nuptial day arrives. The virgin, preceded by a splendid retinue, and followed by her mother, her female relatives, and the damsels of her tribe, issues from the tent of her father. It was a rivalry of Arabian magnificence. The most precious gums fumed from silver censers. The bride appeared under a splendid canopy, supported by four men; she was veiled from head to foot; the crimson veil concealing her face was so sprinkled with diamonds that the tears which sparkled on her veil were not distinguishable. Her flowing hair, waving on her shoulders, was dressed with embroidered ribbons, and the long tassels of silk, wrought with gold and silver, reached to her feet; a heron's feather, among tufts of smaller plumes, was fixed on her head, and sometimes gracefully flowed backwards; while the quills of the feathers were set in sockets of gold, and blazed with gems. On either side they flung around scented waters; some waved their silken flyflaps; some played on their tambourines; and many passed on, performing agile feats, and dancing in various attitudes. The women then followed with solemn and processional steps. At length a body of musicians appeared, and as the music played, guns at intervals were fired
Niebuhr notices the firing of guns at an Arabian marriage.
; and as they ceased, the silver voices of the women responded with the joyous cry of,
Lu! lu! lu!
Then succeeded two camels loaded with her dowry, in furniture, and followed by the herds. The procession went on in a slow march, and often paused to receive the salutations of the people.
They approach the tents of the expectant bridegroom. The father and the son hasten to meet them with no inferior pomp. In their retinue are five hundred horsemen, mounted on those fire-eyed coursers
This race of horses is distinguished by the title of
Kochlani.
Curious particulars relating to this breed may be found in Niebuhr's Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. p. 300.—
Eng. Tr.
Among the accomplishments of the great, the truly great Saladin, his historian records,
"that he knew the genealogies of the horses of his Arabians;"
—for which we know that to this hour Arabia is celebrated, observes Harris.—Phil. Inq. p. 334.
, whose nobility of descent and purity of blood, from the stud of Solomon, is proved by a genealogy of two thousand years. His gifts were ambitiously arranged on five camels. The two processions hailing each other, mingled into one.
They enter the ornamented tent of Ebnselan; the contract is ratified before the cadi, who performs the nuptial ceremony. The two families felicitate each other, and the festival spreads along the neighbouring valley. They prodigally scattered their aspers and their sweetmeats among the eager multitude, who shouted as they caught the showery gifts in their extended robe
It is an Oriental custom to throw handfuls of small coin to the populace at public entertainments. Economists sometimes purchase bad money beforehand for such purposes, and are afterwards hissed or applauded by the people in proportion to the real value of their coin.
. Every Arab crowned his head with the splendid red flowers of the mimosa, whose delicacy and brilliancy are reserved for the nuptial day. The sun, at length, set to the desiring eye of the glowing bridegroom, who now was permitted to conduct the beauty to his own tent, and to list the veil from her secret charms.
Ebnselan approached Leila, and tremblingly raised the veil from the face of the virgin. Smiles and blushes were not in that face; tears are on her cheeks and frowns on her brow. His soul shudders, and he drops the veil. Again he returns to Leila, and with tender reproaches in his eyes, would press her to his bosom.—Stay thy hand! (exclaimed the virgin, in a tone more resolute and awful than ever virgin spoke,) audacious youth! thy hand would steal the fruit that has long matured for another. Well thou knowest that Leila is Mejnoun's Leila, and can be the Leila of no other. Thinkest thou that oaths are mockeries? Oaths! are they not registered in Heaven? and are there not MARRIAGES recorded
there,
which on earth are unconsummated? Wilt thou be a serpent in the garden? Thou mayest wind round the tree, poisoning the fruit thou canst not gather. I may fear thee, but we do not love the thing we fear. The injustice of a father has made his daughter a criminal; and I am guilty because I am obedient. Were there not an imbecility in our sex, I had died!—Yet thou mayest still be kind: I am thy bride, come then in kindness to thy bride; come Ebnselan! shall I not bless thy name on our nuptial night? Avert thy face, recoil not, and strike thy scymitar at my virgin breast. Point it here, I will kiss the point.
Ebnselan covered his face with his hands.
I see (continued Leila) thou hast a gentle heart: approach me not, then, and I will live: I will forgive thee that thou art my husband.
Her tones were sweeter, for her heart melted as she looked on the gentle Ebnselan. They restored his spirits; and still hoping, by acts of tenderness, to steal on her affections, he clasped her hand, and gazed on her with eyes dissolved in fondness and in beauty.
Approach me not (again exclaimed the alarmed Leila), rash youth! the rose thou wouldst pluck will raise its viewless thorns against thee. I am the slave of a man forlorn; one who is now perhaps the nightcompanion of the hyaena, and who gasps with thirst where there are no waters. There is nothing but despair about us: my vowed soul is in the desert with Mejnoun; my dreams are restless with his image. Ebnselan, how can I be thine? my king lives in my bosom: should I turn to thee, thou wouldst clasp a polluted woman. No; I cannot love thee and be chaste. Ah! do we love
twice,
when our
first passion
is that of DESPAIR?
Ebnselan was the mild inmate of a mild climate. He had merited Leila, had Leila to choose a lover. He wept silently, and at length assured her, that he would respect the passion of Mejnoun.—Thou mayest see (he said) how I love thee; for I consent to feel the grief of a widower on the bridal night; and mine eyes, while they perceive thy beauties, shall only weep for thy misfortunes. He quieted the convulsed emotions of Leila by a promise to conceal the event of that night. Such was the amiable forbearance of the tender Ebnselan; and often the grateful Leila met him in tears, and would attempt to smile on him, while the sufferer, as he smiled on her, would weep.
Mejnoun, after a long residence in the ruins, among which he had concealed himself, would sometimes stroll into the open desert, and met the traveller. The news of the marriage reached him. The pilgrim told him of it; the voyaging merchant confirmed it; and a hunter, who had been present at the ceremony, minutely described its pomp. All censured the capricious maiden, and all mourned the inconstancy of the volatile sex. At first, the incredulous Mejnoun conceived the tale to be an artifice to withdraw him from his retreat, and often deemed it was a wild notion of his own disordered imagination. Day followed day, and the circumstantial narrative, in all its terrible minuteness, still afflicted his memory. Jealousy and indignation exalted his delirium. He knows nothing of the trials of Leila; of that resistless persecution, when a silent parent perishes before the eye of filial piety; and still less of her inviolate affection, and the not inferior sufferings of Ebnselan. He is alive only to the idea of her union, and in the anger of phrenzy he pictures them happy, and himself scorned. Those who had informed him of their union, well knew the long persecutions she had suffered; but these were as nothing in their mind, while they had the pleasure of forming another splendid accusation of the infidelity of the sex, and could console themselves for disappointments, themselves had received and had merited. Every one added to his account, inconsciously, some little provoking circumstance, such as they themselves had experienced, and such as, they imagined, every perjured woman practised.
All these had been lovers, but not lovers like Mejnoun. Circumstances which excited their laughter jarred on, and were most touching to his soul; an incident, unconnected in their minds, was associated with former emotions by the enthusiast; and an event, which they conceived as common, seemed to him, for a long time, as impossible. He formed the terrible project of disguising himself in the habit of a pilgrim, and concealing a poignard, to enter her tent, and perish with her at the same moment and with the same instrument. He composed the following poetical epistle, and sent it by a hunter:
MEJNOUN in the Desert to the perjured LEILA.
Perfidious! and thou livest another's bride!
And veilest thy guilty head in nuptial pride!
Where is thy vow, in fond devotion given?
It burns upon the chronicle of Heaven!
On that black page where FATE, recoiling, shows
Treasons, impieties, and atheist vows!
Once, once I deemed, I woke supremely blest,
Romantic fondness in a female breast:
Fine seemed the sense, thy pliant spirit caught
A trembling pleasure, and a silent thought!
Our SERIOUS SENTIMENT respired in SIGHS,
Sweetness of HEART, and TENDERNESS of EYES.
How oft, inconscious of the waning hour,
I still recalled thee to the parting bower!
Studious to lose thee in each tangled walk,
So to prolong thy soft, seducing talk!
What MEANING SONGS thou badst my heart apply,
As moved, with secret love, thy talking eye!
Lo! if I BLUSHED on the inflamed snow
Of thy fair cheek, my BLUSHES seemed to glow.
Oft as I SLEPT thy silent hand would strew
O'er me the mantling flowers of every hue;
Once as I woke a loved enchantment spread,
THINE ARM the winding pillow of MY HEAD;
Then faint, my opening LIDS were sealed in bliss,
Closed by the warmth of an ambrosial KISS.
On me in vain would wanton beauties try
The sorcery of a lightly-rolling eye,
As still my heart thy secret PORTRAIT warms,
That wonderous AMULET disturbed their charms.
Oft the keen taunt their frolic-laughter aimed,
For when some maid I called, 'twas thee I named!
Mark SPRING'S green hands, that prodigally rear,
For its LORN BIRD, the VIRGINS OF THE YEAR;
His pensive HEART with LONELY passion glows,
And ALL HE FLIES, and sighs but for the ROSE
You may place an hundred handfuls of fragrant herbs and flowers before the nightingale, yet he wishes not, in his constant heart, for more than the sweet breath of his beloved rose.—A couplet from Jami, a tender elegiac Persian poet.
.
Where, by the KIOSQUE, the fountain flings its wave,
And evening BIRDS with whispering wings would lave,
The sweet-voic'd MUEZZINS from each MINAREH,
Would pour th' EZANN, to chaunt the closing day
The MINAREH is a hollow column annexed to a mosque, with a gallery on the top, from which the MUEZZIN, or crier, calls the five hours of prayer. The EZANN is their vespers. As bells and clocks are forbidden, these criers are appointed for this purpose. The honest Grelot, in his Voyage to Constantinople, describes their effect:—He says, Though it is impossible these cryers should make such a noise with their throats as the bells with their clappers, yet, as there are no coaches at Constantinople, and few of those trades that deafen the ear, their voices being clear and strong may be heard a great way, to the most remote quarters of the city, and into
the fields
adjoining, where I have heard them myself at a considerable distance, and their
voices are very sweet to hear.
.
The VIOLET SUNSET, with ethereal dies,
Voluptuous blushed along the balmy skies
The setting sun produced the richest variety of tints in the opposite sky; amongst them was a lovely violet glow, rarely, if ever, seen in England.—Dallaway's Constantinople.
.
The holy quiet, spread o'er vale and hill,
Told of the SUMMER EVE, that dies so still!
In such an hour, with more than beauty warm,
I gazed, and felt I claspt a seraph form.
My tremulous hand, as thy fine tresses fell,
Led the soft lustres o'er thy bosom's swell;
I kissed its SURFACE, so serene revealed,
Nor deemed ITS WAVES the CROCODILE concealed.
I blest the MOLE'S SOFT SHADOW on thy cheek
Black
moles
on the face have been long considered as a singular beauty in the East. We have only to look into the Persian and Arabian poets for innumerable instances of the enthusiasm with which they admired this fancied elegance. Ornamental
patches
are perhaps a fashion, among others, which were probably borrowed from Asia, for whenever a beauty is highly prized, the ladies substitute some artificial imitation when deprived of the natural charm.
,
Thy CREASED CHIN, voluptuous o'er thy NECK;
Then thy harmonious blood blusht on that cheek,
And wrote the vow ere thou the vow couldst speak.
Twice thou didst kiss me, and in silence held
Our knitted hands to HEAVEN—and HEAVEN beheld!
Then thou didst swear, and raise thy dewy eye,
To fly the world for Love's eternity!
And sweetly whispered in the secret shade—
EARTH shews no MONSTER like A PERJURED MAID!
Why, from the harmonious LIP, and blushing CHEEK,
Did Heaven permit a PESTILENCE to break,
While my hot soul drank up thy dewy eyes,
Thy poisoning kisses, and thy blasting sighs?
Why does not Heaven let instant lightning fly,
And burn, with its own fires, the traitorous eye?
Why does not Perjury, with instant death,
Bepale the lip and close the fictious breath?
Primaeval Solitudes and voiceless Shades!
These
wake thy name, and
those
thy form invades!
Vain flight! when thus the object shunned, we bear;
Incessant artists of our own despair!—
This SUMMER-MOON, so amiably fair!
With THY mild beauty lights the shadowy air;
So soft and silent seems the Power to stray,
As if forgetful of its azure way:
Ah! as I gaze the circle of ITS FACE,
It looks THY tenderness, it moves THY grace.
O! modest, LONELY BEAUTY of the night!
Of LOVERS and of SAINTS the grateful light!
Thou, to the INSPIRED, paintst every vision warm,
Givest voice to Silence, and to Shade a form.
But lo! in more than dreams to THEE I turn,
Weep as I smile, and shiver as I burn;
A dubious being scarce these veins supply,
Life that lives not, and Death that will not die
That Comfort yields not, and yet Hope denies not;
A LIFE that LIVES NOT, and a DEATH that DIES NOT.
Drayton's Epistle from Matilda to King John.
.
Thou perjured! sleepst; I wake! or worse, I dream!
And meet the sun in tears, and curse his holy beam!
I fly my armed tents and social bowers
For THEE, and count on rocks the lingering hours:
More sweet than PLEASURE, and than POWER more strong,
I quit the FAME that crowns my polished song,
And in a DESERT, strangling GLORY'S voice,
I feel the madness and approve the choice.
Yet scorn me not, nor yield a proud relief,
There is a majesty in lonely grief!
Ah! dost thou scorn?—Yes, yes, thou scornst secure,
A hermit-Mejnoun for a paramour!
But Heaven is just! and sure such human pain
Shall give REMORSE when thou wouldst yield DISDAIN!
LEILA to MEJNOUN.
And thou livest! thou livest, Mejnoun! and thy Leila can never be thine! But think not she is another's! Behold me married, yet a widowed virgin! Respect the mysterious avowal.
"Should thy rival be parched with the thirst that consumes him, he shall not taste of the fountain, whose pure waters never ran but for thee. The brilliant pearl is still in its shell, and it is guarded by my life."
But thy rival is gentle: Ah! it is this which afflicts me. Oh! that he were but a tyrant, that I might
complain!
that I could
hate!
Yes, Ebnselan is worthy of
thy
affection. With him I should be
grateful;
but my heart, lacerated from thine, has lost one of its virtues, and it can scarcely feel gratitude for him to whom I owe every thing in life; every thing, but thyself!
How often I dismiss my maidens to sit alone, and as the evening steals over the dusky air, PICTURE THEE in the FORMS that play among the CLOUDS. Then, lost in thought, I seem to view the DESERT thou treadest, the grey sands, the brown rocks; and as a shadow runs along, variable and quick, that shadow to mine eyes is thy restless form. I gaze on some vast mountain; I see thee on its point; then the mountain melts into a VAPOUR, and THOU art for ever snatched from mine eyes! Oh! then I weep and weep! then I feel every thorn that rankles in thy hermit feet; I shrink in every blast that parches thy solitary form. Often as thy tears fall on thy face, be assured mine too is covered with tears. How often do I change the neck-kerchief, wet with weeping! How often do I refuse my meal, when I think thou art without aliment!
Be not, my beloved, unjust to me. Are thy misfortunes greater than mine? I feel my grief cannot
last.
At times my heart is so heavy that I have often fixed on the day of my death.
A poor woman, my love, is confined to her melancholy tent: no intervening object breaks the unvaried deadness: she quietly sits with a viewless serpent round her heart. Then it is I say to myself—Awhile be PATIENT, my soul! the evening of thy departure arrives.
"Patience, Mejnoun, is a plant of bitter growth, but it will bear on its head a sweet fruit."
While thus I am confined to one sad spot, thou, my love, art free to wander. Thou hast liberty, at least, in thy sorrows. Surely liberty moderates grief. I once heard a poor dervise say, that in liberty he forgot his poverty.
I, who have never known what is liberty, imagine it is happiness. Thou inhabitest the mountains, and thou canst change thy mountain as thou choosest; thou wanderest on the plains, and thou canst repose thyself when thou willest. It is true, thou sittest down only to weep; alas! my love! I sit and I weep all day! mine eye views no new object; my feet find no new path; there is no interval to the tremors of my heart! Thou talkest to the echoes: even
this
is something. I would rather talk to an ECHO, in sorrow as we are, than converse with
those human beings
who have
made us unhappy.
How keen is that pang of the tender heart when it finds itself compelled to shut itself up, and can love nothing that surrounds it.
But thou hast, beloved of my soul! that which can give to SOLITUDE a million of sensations, and which makes all its spots a temple of Nature: thou knowest I mean that GENIUS which commands our Arabian hearts. Thy verses are remembered; the whole world sympathise with thy sufferings and thy wanderings. But I am only born to be the means of thy immortality; myself not immortal. I feel, and I think, and I weep like thee; but I must conceal the same sentiments, and stifle the same sighs, and feel my heart break in silence, ere I dare to avow all it thinks!
It will not avail to tell thee
how
I became the wife of another! An unjust father reproached me; a heart-broken mother sat beside me; an amiable youth prayed to me. I had NO FRIEND! A
father,
a
mother,
and a
lover,
they deceived me! Spare, spare the recital, Mejnoun! Ebnselan became my husband!—My father and my mother LIVE! Dost thou curse an affectionate daughter? Believe me, I sought to
die;
but Nature was more powerful than I; and thou knowest how my heart is tender. Canst thou blame a tenderness that makes me
adore thee?
I
feel
for
thee,
I
felt
for
them!
Most miserable of my sex! alike the victim of obedience or disobedience!
Mejnoun, still am I thine! my virgin-soul is thine! Mejnoun, while I
live
I am thine! Oh, Mejnoun! how I love to repeat that tenderest of names!
"I love thee with a thousand souls!"
This epistle gave to Mejnoun the emotions of desponding constancy. In the delirium of passion each period received a tear and sometimes a kiss, and grasping the letter till every syllable was effaced, he held the fragments to his eyes while his memory supplied the passages he could no more distinguish.
Often the tender maniac addressed the echo, and often asked, who was the most unfortunate, himself or his mistress? while often he hated the voice of the echo, because it was his own voice.—Deceitful sympathy! (he cried,) thou repliest to my sighs, thou repeatest my words, and what art thou but air? Hollow is thy heart, and mockery is in thy voice; and yet to the solitary how consoling even the shadow of the human voice! The sense of Leila's sufferings seemed to tranquillize his own, and he paused in the violence of his own emotions while he remembered those of his mistress. Softened into a still melancholy, he flew into an obscure nook; pale and haggard, there sitting whole days immovable, he would have seemed a statue, had he not sighed.
His abode was now not unknown, and many a messenger had come from his father, imploring his return. But Mejnoun was inexorable. The old Chief, amidst his tents, felt himself as desolated as his hermit son; the fond hope of posterity, that solitary hope of age, was extinct; another victim to these unhappy loves, his noble and paternal heart was broken. In the chill of approaching death, the solitary idea which occupied his closing hours was the desire of once more embracing his miserable son. Who but Lebid could prevail with Mejnoun? yet the journey might be fatal to the venerable man. The dying Chief softly grasped the hand of his friend, and looked in his face, and was silent; he suspired the name of Mejnoun in a sigh half suppressed. Lebid that day ordered a camel, and departed for the hermit.
He discovered his dark cavern. He lay there stretched without motion, and in the twilight gloom, the Effendi imagines he views his corpse. He raised a loud cry; as Mejnoun rose he embraced him.
Thou livest yet! (cried the old tremulous man;) thy father perishes! His soul struggles to live a day, that he may yet once more view thee. Is the tenderest passion to disnature thy breast? Mysterious Heaven! permittest thou two human beings to love like these?—Mejnoun! my friend, my child, speak! Thy father, thou knowest not he has been a father to thee; trust me, thou knowest not all. Hasten, and be the vision of his death-bed! Miserable man! I only invite thee to the scene of death! Come, thy cherished hand may yet close his heavy eyes in sweetness.
Mejnoun gazed on Lebid with leaden and spiritless eyes; he fondly listened to him, and quietly followed him. Tears and embraces they exchanged, but words they could not utter.
They journeyed on, till the exhausted Effendi could not proceed. He hung his shrivelled arms around the neck of Mejnoun; his feeble tones died in murmurs on his lips.—Proceed! thy father has not many hours to live! Lay me under this plane-tree: I shall be found; fear not! It is better for me to die under that plane-tree, than be carried home lifeless. It will spare our friends some sorrows; the death of a friend is soon forgotten, but the view of his corpse long startles the memory. Go, my child, remember thou hast a mother still, when thy father dies.
The distracted Mejnoun in vain offers to quit the camel, and to hasten on foot to his tents: but this would have prolonged his journey many days. The old Effendi was now speechless; the camel would not go without its driver; the moments pressed on him.—Shall I leave a dying father here, to hasten to a father who is perhaps dead? exclaimed the miserable man. But he thought of his mother; he remembered the Effendi's words; and stretching the old man under the plane-tree, he placed beside him a bardak of water, and he journeyed, wailing, along the desert.
He reaches his tents: he flies to that of his father: he yet lives! His eyes, halfclosed in the sleep of death, yet open; on his icy lips his voice yet trembles; in the arms of his son a new warmth stays his fleeting existence.
They look on each other a thousand silent things. Mejnoun, as he was turned to his dying father, supported his head; his mother, seated on the couch, laid her face on the back of her son, and moaned.—My father! cried Mejnoun, and could say no more.—My son! (hollowly replied the father,) let me
touch
thee, I have ceased to
see!
I had much to say to thee; (continued, with difficulty, the dying man; the hectic of death faintly gleamed on his face—it came, it past!) I have not seen thee two years, and thou hast come a day too late: thy mother knows what I would say. Mejnoun turned to his mother; her face was raised to him covered with tears, and scarcely knowing what he did, he passed his hand over her face and wiped away her tears.—May Alla preserve (continued the dying man, in tones still feebler) from disastrous love the virtuous and the valiant! O, my son! behold us alike its victims! He laid his head on the arm of his son, and expired.
Mejnoun turns to his lifeless parent, and still tries to recal the voice he can hear no more. He lifts his arm, and it is stiffened; he feels his hand, and no pulses tremble there; he touches his blue lips, and they are as ice; his whole body remained in heaviness, cold in his embrace.
When his parent ceased to exist, he heard of all the proofs and sufferings of his affections; but his heart was wrung with that severest of all agonies; that, which the most affectionate son feels when
he
has broken the heart of the tenderest parent: even Leila was banished from his thoughts.—And why (cried Mejnoun) is the goodness of man known only when it avails not to be known? I ceased to be a son, because I knew not I had a father. Heaven! how mysterious are thy decrees!
Alas! (replied his mother) thou didst cease to be every thing when thou wert only a lover!
He dispatched two messengers; one to search for Lebid, the other to bring news from Leila.
The Effendi had been assisted by the charity of a hermit dervise, who in vain intreated him to retire within his cave, and share his meal and his orisons. No (replied the old man), I will not quit this plane-tree; those that left me here, will one day return to find me: I have friends, holy man, who will not forget me. The dervise who had never known such friends, imagined that the feeble old man was crazed with sorrow; and every day as he brought him refreshments, and still found him there, smiled and said—Trust me, no one remembers a friend in a desert.—If that be true (replied the Effendi), it were best that I should die under this plane-tree. Every day the old Effendi watched, and the messenger found him waiting his coming under the plane-tree.
To the wisdom of Lebid Mejnoun confided the care of his mother and his tribe. His mind had now become associated to the desert; his delirium found repose amid familiar horrors; and he once more returns to his seclusion, where he appointed an interview with the friend he had sent to the tents of Leila.
Day after day elapsed, and still no messenger from Leila arrived. He sat upon the point of a rock that he might discover the expected friend before he reached him. At length he descries one approaching; he ran down the rock and met him on the plain. It was his friend, who when he perceived Mejnoun, approached him with slow steps and heavy looks. The heart of Mejnoun was chilled at the aspect of so melancholy a messenger, and, with a bewildered air, he inquires the fate of Leila? His friend replied but by a profound sigh.—Thy silence well becomes thy tale (said Mejnoun); why is not all for me an eternal silence! Here I have waited, day after day, but to hear of the death of Leila. Could that heart, that tender heart, love as she loved, and live? A thousand times already have I mourned her death; and when the world told me she yet lived, often I was incredulous.
Alas! (replied the friend, rejoicing to observe the calmness with which the Mejnoun spoke) a fixed grief preyed on her soul, and—
Talk not, talk not! (quickly the Mejnoun replied, with eyes that emitted sparks of passion, while his hand rudely repulsed his friend;) did I not commend thy silence? Away! it is dangerous to commend a fool's silence; he will speak at last, were it but to give a fool's thanks. Away! I am sick of all foolery: away to thy world! to thy world, fool!
He paused: his troubled heart was busied with gloomy imaginations; his rapid lips muttered low and inarticulate accents; his eyes were fixed on the earth; he sighed and said:—It is completed! it
was
born, and it
has
died! The flower is gathered; let the leaves, the lovely stem supported, fall and rot on the earth!—He mused; terrible thoughts were in his mind, and the blood sorsook his face.
He shrieks, he rolls himself on the burning sands; his friend approaches and would embrace him; but he hurls him to the earth: he flies up the perpendicular rock. He howls, and the echo multiplies his terrific voice. Some hunters join his friend. Three days they patiently watch at the foot of the rock. On the second day the voice of Mejnoun was only heard at intervals: on the third night, in the gleam of the moon, they perceived the spectre-man descending. The dying form paced, slowly, with tottering steps; every step was audible in the vast silence. Their hearts shuddered. The Mejnoun looked not of this earth, and they dared not approach him. He reached a hillock of sand, and stretched himself in silence. They hasten to the Mejnoun: on his murmuring lips they listened to the name of Leila; and slowly, and hollowly, they heard one vast and feeble sigh, and it ceased to respire. His friend placed his hand on the bosom of the Mejnoun, and his heart no more palpitated.
The last solemn office of friendship was paid by the hands of his unhappy friend and the grieving hunters. Returning to the tents of Ebnselan, he summons the tribe, and tells a tale, often interrupted by his moaning auditors. Even the obdurate Emir, in whose subdued breast no human passion now beat but that of pity, vows a long, sad pilgrimage to Mecca, and thanks the prophet that he is old and will soon die. The gentle Ebnselan rose, and wept, and spoke:—Sad messenger of disastrous love! Another, and a final duty, still remains. Thou knowest not that the dying Leila predicted the death of Mejnoun. He lives, she said, but because I live; and he will die because I shall have died. It was her last prayer, that their ashes should be united. Lead us to his grave: they shall meet, though they meet in death; and over their extinct ashes let me pour my living tears.
The tribe of Mejnoun unite with the tribe of Leila. At the foot of the rock, which the Mejnoun haunted in his delirium, they raise a tomb to the memory of the lovers, and there depositing the bodies, they plant around many a gloomy cypress tree. Lebid lived to compose the verses, which were embossed with golden characters on the black marble. Lebid lived to lament his own fostering of their loves, Ahmed's austerity, and the Emir's haughtiness.
For many successive years the damsels of the two tribes, in sympathising groupes, annually assembled at the cemetery, and planted in marble vases, around the tomb, aromatic flowers and herbs. One night in every year, each bearing a taper, they wailed till the morning the fate of the lovers, and, in parting, prayed their PARENTS to be MERCIFUL IN LOVE. The caravans of Syria and Egypt, which traverse the desert in their way to Mecca, once stopped near the consecrated spot; the tender pilgrim once leant over their tomb, and read and wept. The spot is now only known by tradition. The monument has left no vestige, and the trees no more wave their melancholy boughs; nothing remains but THE HISTORY OF THE LOVERS
The Turks have a great veneration for the dead. Their cemeteries are surrounded with a cypress grove, and inscriptions, with appropriate verses, embossed with raised letters, gilded and contrasted by a black or green ground; a stone chest is placed between them, filled with aromatic flowers and herbs, which are planted there, and regularly cultivated by the females of the family, who assemble in groupes for that duty. This mark of respect is particularly shewn to the dead unmarried young. It is of the highest antiquity amongst the polished and the ruder nations; and surely none can be more elegant and appropriate.—Dallaway's Constantinople, p. 152.
I conclude these notes by observing, that the catastrophe of this Romance has nothing in it extraordinary or violent to the ardent feelings of an Oriental lover. Richardson has observed, that the Arabians and the Tartars, by their attachment to pastoral life, ever favourable to love, and the circumstances peculiar to their roving habits, frequently produce such situations. Many tribes are often encamped together, and the young men of one fall naturally in love with the damsels of another. In the midst of their courtship the heads of the tribes suddenly order the tents to be struck; one goes to the right hand, and one to the left. The lovers are thus separated, perhaps never more to meet; and if we may at all trust to their elegies or their language, those separations have been often fatal.
Dying for love
is considered amongst us as a mere poetic figure; but in eastern countries it is something more; many words in the Arabic and Persian languages which express LOVE, imply also MELANCHOLY, MADNESS, and DEATH.
.
THE END OF MEJNOUN AND LEILA.
LOVE AND HUMILITY, A ROMAN ROMANCE.
ADVERTISEMENT.
A Roman Triumph, and the amour of a Grecian Slave for her Prince, are objects not so remote from our domestic feelings as may at first appear. The Procession to St. Paul's, to commemorate our ever glorious Naval Victories, was so destitute of the picturesque to charm the enlightened eye of Taste, and so wanting of those objects which can communicate, even to the bosom of the simplest citizen, a patriotic enthusiasm, that I could not help meditating on the full, the varied, and the majestic picture of a Roman Triumph.
The situation of Aciloe and his lover in this Romance, is only that in which more than one noble emigrant has been placed. I know one who had taught himself to forget the world in the neat cottage of a farmer; but his sensibility was greater than his fortitude, and, lacerated from all he cherished, he became dangerously ill. By the devoted tenderness of the farmer's daughter, whose natural talents he had refined with exquisite taste, he recovered his health. As he recovered, the farmer's daughter became every day more pallid, more dejected, and at length was menaced with a confirmed marasmus. No one suspected the cause of her visible decay; she never complained. The conversation of the noble emigrant often turned on the splendid history of the French court, and the stern dignity of his own family, allied to the royal blood. The race is marked (let him pardon the expression) with that haughtiness which is the germ of many heroic virtues. He himself would be proud, did not the tenderness of his feelings struggle with his hereditary glory. To all he said, the farmer's daughter listened with too fond an attention; and while the malady of her heart (for the infection breathed in her heart) inflamed itself but the more at such discourse, she felt that,
"The HIND that would be mated by the LION,
Must DIE FOR LOVE."
This situation occasioned "Love struggling with Humility;" and when I composed this Romance, I thought of them.
LOVE AND HUMILITY, A ROMAN ROMANCE.
Paulus Aemilius returning from the Conquest of Macedonia, his Triumph is opposed by Servius Galba.—The heroic Conduct of Marcus Servilius.—THE TRIUMPH.—Behaviour of Galba and his Adherents. The LOVES of the SLAVE Leucothoe, and Aciloe PRINCE of Macedon.
It speaks the sufferings of a female slave,
Who long had brooded, silent as the grave,
O'er love, that rack'd her soul with ceaseless pain.
OBERON, Canto XI. Stanza 62.
THE venerable and sublime Paulus Aemilius now returned from the final conquest of the Macedonian empire. Rome, in awful silence, awaited the decree of the senate for THE TRIUMPH.
The assembled spoils of nations Aemilius had not profaned. The general had only permitted his sons to share among themselves the library of Perseus, the king of Macedon; and they preferred manuscripts to vases of gold. They now returned, neither solicitous nor ambitious of the triumph; they returned but to hasten to their paternal farm, whose smoke, wreathing in their natal air, was to them an object more cherished than the pomp of a triumph. There, sixteen of this hero race subsisted, and the hands of consuls guided the plough. But the glare of splendour, and treasures hitherto unknown, corrupted the army; and the soldiers, in returning to Rome, murmured at the severe justice of Aemilius, who had only combated for his country, and with an affectionate pride, yielded all his labours to the maternal city. Conducted and inflamed by Servius Galba, they mutinied. They ranged the city; they surrounded the capitol; they menaced the tribunes; they contemned the senate; they opposed the voice of the people. It seemed to the Romans, that their soldiers had returned not to rejoice in their victories, but themselves to take possession of Rome.
The voluble and sarcastic Galba calumniated the hoary general. It was then Marcus Servilius rose; Servilius of consular dignity, whose arm had so often triumphed in single combat. He rose, and with the energetic truth of heroism, reminded the Roman people what Paulus Aemilius had performed for them during more than half the life of man. It is not fit (he proceeded) that lily-skinned men, whose unbruised shields are worn only on festal days, and whose tongues are more dangerous than their swords, should dare to talk of generals and of triumphs before you. Oh, my friends! that we had no orators but those whose eloquence were written where their hearts beat! In saying this he flung open his robe, and displayed a breast scaled with scars: the martial exploits of Servilius rushing into their minds, the soldiers bowed, while their shields, in touching each other, gave a solemn sound. Marcus had certain swellings in his body; Galba pointed, and derided.—Thou deridest me (said the whitehaired consul) for what I hold as honourable for me as the wreath of laurel I claim for Aemilius. For you, fellow-citizens! incessantly, by day and by night, I travelled and I fought; and the pain I still receive from these, is to me a sensation of glory. As for Aemilius, I know him well; he will lament this triumph, as an interruption of his return to his farm; for it only delights him, to tread the field of war or the field of peace. But we, Romans, are to be just, even to those who exact not justice; we are to seek the glory, which in vain would conceal itself. Proceed, Galba! collect thy votes! I will follow thee, to note down the degenerate and the ingrate; and may my last accent, be that of reproach to the Roman who votes against the triumph of Aemilius! He ceased. The army shouted, Aemilius is godlike! Servius Galba slunk away, and lost himself among the crowd, and all the tribes decreed the triumph of Aemilius.
And now the soldiers dispersing, mingled with the people: ancient friends had scarcely time to seek each other, and embrace, ere the sound of erecting scaffolds, to view the triumphal march, echoed through the city. The triumph was decreed to last three days
Of Roman triumphs the only detail we have is, I believe, left us by Livy, which Plutarch copied in his life of Paulus Aemilius. In the picture of this triumph I have combined the most striking incidents. Montesquieu, with his happy conciseness, says:
"Romulus and his successors were engaged in perpetual wars with their neighbours: they returned to their city with their spoils, consisting of wheatsheaves and flocks; this filled them with the greatest joy. Such is the
origin
of
triumphs!
to which that city afterwards chiefly owed its grandeur."
.
At length the day arrived, and Rome assembled ere the sun had risen. The people, clad in white garments, hurrying along in masses, now rolling, now floating, looked like the tumult of a sea. The windows and the porches of houses were crowded; some were seated on domes, some had climbed on columns, and some were clinging to slender ballustrades: another Rome seemed hanging in the air! Every thing on which the eye could rest was adorned. Every citizen hung out from his windows carpets of purple and gold, and placed on his walls pictures of value. The streets were strewed with flowers; the temples were fancifully embellished with boughs; the statue of every god was crowned with a garland; and all the air was sweet with the fuming incense from the altars. To the eye, almost deceived, it seemed as if a magic grove had risen in one night. An object, not less interesting than Rome thus ornamented, was the view of all its beauties leaning on the balconies scattering odoriferous flowers, and twining wreaths of laurel for the approaching victor.
And now the lictors marched with their axes and their rods, opening a passage. On the first day of the triumph two hundred and fifty cars were filled with the brilliant miracles of Grecian art; pictures, which, as they passed, seemed like mirrors, to reflect some existing scene of nature; and colossal statues, whose view gave a new conception of humanity, and, as they passed, so finely were the passions chisseled, that they inspired
lovers,
who sighed at their beauty, or awed
votarists
with a religious trembling
This must be understood literally: both in the past and in the present age there have been men who were LOVERS of statues. Coyer, in his Voyage d'Italie, exclaims with equal vivacity and truth:
"Certainement c'est une Providence que les FEMMES de la NATURE, ne valent pas celles de l'ART."
. Soothing and delicious were the emotions of the Roman people on that day. On the second, vast was the crashing sound of the iron wheels of numerous wains, that contained the arms and the armour of the Macedonians; with artful negligence they had loosely heaped the martial instruments, and they rang loudly and glittered confusedly against each other. Helmets and targets, and javelins and shields, and cuirasses, and the points of naked swords, formed a shining terror, while the spectators even trembled at the view of the arms of the conquered. When all these had passed, their terrific sound remained. But they were soon delighted by innumerable vessels holding the coined silver, each supported by four men, oppressed by the massive weight. The procession closed with an exhibition, artfully arranged, of sculptured vases, inestimable for their beauty, and even singular for their value. That day diffused not the pleasure of the former; they had viewed nothing but objects of terror and objects of wealth. It was on the third, and last day, that the human passions were awakened by objects of humanity.
At first they started in terror. The trumpets and the clarions did not sound a flourish, as on a festal day, but blew such a charge as they were accustomed when they excited their soldiers to battle. It was insantly rumoured, and imagined, that the army had again mutinied, and Rome, as if she felt herself in desolation, quaked and quailed to her heart. But soon the modest and regulated steps of the martial musicians turned consternation into confidence and a breathless tranquillity. It was now the Romans securely indulged their eye and their heart.
After the heralds and trumpeters succeeded young men in flaxen robes, with their arms and bosoms bare, leading more than a hundred stalled oxen, whose horns were gilded, and whose backs were adorned with bandelets, interlaced with sestoons of flowers. These victims lashed their long tails joyously; sensible of the pomp, and perhaps thinking it would lead them to their pastures. Then followed beautiful boys, whose chins had yet no down, and their tresses floating luxuriantly on their shoulders, each bearing a vessel of the lustral water. Now marched soldiers, carrying the coined gold and the antique and massy vases from the royal treasures. At some interval the car of Perseus, the conquered monarch, was trained. That regal throne was now a solitude, and nothing was viewed in it but, on the seat, his armour and his diadem. Behind walked the family of Perseus, of whom the most remarkable was Aciloe, his eldest son. The matrons and the virgins of Rome wept as they gazed on his beauty and the intendering melancholy that shaded his touching physiognomy. Muffled in a black mantle Perseus appeared; his head was bare, his hands and his feet clanked with chains of iron. He leant his head on his breast; but those who were near him saw with contempt, and some with pity, his dark eyes suffused with a red flame, and hatred, ignominy, and despair, torturing his horrid physiognomy. Perseus, the coward and the tyrant, who refused the death he was offered.—Thou art not (said an old Roman as he passed), thou art not worthy to be permitted to die
Composing a romance, I was not willing to copy the page of the historian; but Livy, the most picturesque of romancers, describes Perseus more strikingly; his words are to this purpose:
"He resembled one struck by thunder; one, in whom the greatness of his griefs had taken away the very feeling."
!
At length a gayer spectacle charmed. Four hundred crowns of gold, presented to Aemilius from as many cities, or as tributes, or as gifts, now glittered in the air! And now a hollow murmur went along the crowd, the triumphal car appeared, and the people shouted. It was ornamented with a magnificence that seemed the emblem of the genius of its hero: clothed in purple, wrought with golden flowers, the venerable form of Aemilius sat, and extending his right hand, held a laurel branch. There was a sadness in his countenance too penetrating for even the magnanimity of that hero to conceal. That week, the week of his triumph, Pestilence spread her midnight wing over his house; and some had died, and some were dying; and his domestic roof was a tomb. So Fortune wars with man! Tears were sometimes seen on his cheek. The whole army followed with branches of laurel in their hands, some chaunting the culogy of their general, and some pointing at him their sharpest railleries. And thus the triumph of Aemilius closed!
When the procession ended, Servius Galba remained surrounded by a few malicious spirits, who, till the army passed, had hoped the mutiny would again have broken out in the course of the triumph. For some time they gazed on each other in silence and dejection. Galba then addressed them:—What! is the freedom of speech denied a Roman citizen? My friends, this is a scene for us to ridicule; it merits not our anger. And this then is the glory of our tremendous hero? And the great Aemilius is ambitious of becoming the chief actor in a state pantomime? By Hercules! for a handful of sesterces I'll hire you a hero dressed in a lambskin and a sooty face; his
mimi
shall beat our general's. O, Jove! thy tunic was profaned this day! It is this, my friends, which rouses indignation, that the Roman people should bend their supple knee to whomever the senate decrees honours; imbecil and superstitious like Egyptians, we worship calves, when they tell us they are sanctified. I hate the senate, by all the gods, I swear! This senate, corruptors and corrupted; minions of the patricians! Oh! that we had no senate, or, that every citizen were a senator! That day should be marked with white;
that
were a day to thank Jupiter! And, to be sure, the gods are much concerned with the victories of us Romans, who carry our oppression wherever we can lead an army; and who would even take possession of the seats of the gods themselves had they but given us the wings of our eagles!
In this manner Galba and his adherents exhaled their bile, and, retiring from the happy metropolis, that night at supper their falernian wine tasted like gall in their mouth; the bitter thought of envy was in their hearts; that bitter thought which communicates even to the face of man a yellow hue. But, in the city of Rome, they danced in circles, and carolled in chorus; that night no eye was closed in Rome; the streets, blazing with torches, gave a midnight sun; while in the shadowy groves, silvered by a sweet moonlight, murmured many an amorous kiss.
Historians have not informed us of the fate of Aciloe, the son of Perseus. The narrative of love, by an aged female slave, at the distance of fifty years after the triumph of Aemilius, in tracing the progress of a passion, at once most tender and most humble, preserves some part of his secret history. It was thus the female slave addressed her companions:—
YE VIRGINS, instruct yourselves in love as ye listen to my tale. Not mine the pomp of wealth, or the vainer pomp of birth; war had even deprived me of my native valley. Born in Macedon, I scarcely remember the warmth of my natal sun. From youth to age I have lived a slave at Rome; nor have I wished a more indulgent life, for in the arms of a lover, slavery can please.
Ye have heard of Aciloe, the Prince of Macedon. He became the slave of Antonius, and for three olympiads he was my companion. Greece, that had given him birth, had also given him her arts and her beauty; those arts which subdued the souls of her conquerors, and that beauty which, perpetuated by her statues, will tell remotest ages what men peopled that Elysian climate
The beauty of the men in Greece, and their gymnastic contests, were the causes of the excellence of their artists. The personal beauty, the naked elegance of Nature, and the amenity of their soil and their climate, developed and nourished their imaginations, and gave birth to every fine art. Plato describes, with enthusiasm, certain youths who were sent as ambassadors to the Persian court, and exults that no nation could produce such celestial forms. Diogenes Laertius in vain, and powerless language, would paint the enchanting figure of the celebrated Xenophon. This personal beauty formed a distinction between the elevated and the lower ranks. The latter lost their fine forms in labour and misery.—De Pauw, vol. i. p. 107.
. Yes, Aciloe was accomplished! Apollo had melodised his tongue with persuasion, and the music of his happy lyre was various as it was fine; Venus had breathed over him her
"purple light,"
and his complexion was like roses that, bathed in milk, sparkle with the snowy dew; and Minerva had given to his intendering countenance those humid and tremulous eyes whose blue seriousness, to look on, edulcorates the heart.
I viewed the fair-faced youth bending in tasks of strength with an elegance that far other tasks required. They doubled his labours; cruel Romans! tyrannical freemen! they would annihilate princes! as if
princes
were not
men!
I have seen the amiable youth blush at his feebleness; I never heard him murmur in servitude beneath a foreign heaven; his frame, but not his mind, lost its energy: the liberal soul no chain can rivet, no toil can dismay.
But, laborious days and sorrowing nights clouded his spirit, and crushed his too exquisite frame. He sat alone, and heavy and long-drawn were his sighs; his cheeks had lost their downy bloom, and they looked as if their winter had succeeded their spring; the wavering light of his eyes was decaying as the faint flame trembles in the lamp; his flaxen ringlets, glistening like threads of gold, and throwing a soft shadow over his delicate forehead, now neglected, no more danced in wavy curls, but were tangled in despair: his soul sickened with melancholy. I gazed, I trembled, as I traced a pale consumption, like the secret Miner, sapping silently and unseen.
Touched by his misery I felt the injustice of Fortune. I desired to console him; but when I remembered that the slave had been my prince, my heart recoiled with awe. A natural air of majesty breathed in his least gesture; Nature designed him for a prince; his eye commanded, though his tongue was silent.
Has not Nature created some men capable of imparting felicity to a whole people? Oh! were Aciloe (I thought) on his throne, the sun would look cheerful to desolated Macedonia! Such were my thoughts; perhaps the thoughts of a slave: for are not all equals, when they meet in misery? Ah! the miserable want not
respect,
they only claim
compassion!
At length, so much he interested me, that I felt nothing but pity. One day the Prince was winowing corn: already the star of Venus had risen, and half the day's task yet remained: exanimate, he dropt the flail; he sat down, and covered his face with his hands. I approached, with eyes fixed on the ground, and tremulous footsteps: I knelt before him:—Aciloe! behold a Macedonian! Oh, Prince! thou hast yet one faithful subject! He raised his face, flushed with a saint crimson, and wiped away the tear on his burning cheek: he smiled with a tender grace. Ye gods! that first smile which entered my heart, still vibrates on its fibres! As if my mutual labour had inspired him, that evening he seemed to have forgotten Macedon.
Learn, ye maidens! that in the gentle offices of pity, so sweet are the pleasures, we love to repeat them. Beware, my friends! of that soft-souled Power! Pity, ye know, is the sister of Love. Ah! often she betrays us into her brother's power, that volatile boy of heaven, whose smiling eyes are malicious, and whose very sports are cruel. Yes, Love stole from Pity the spark he touched into a flame.
I dared to love Aciloe! I loved, but I resolved to perish, ere I would tell my love.
The earth now seemed for ever to deny me tranquillity, and I sought for it in heaven and in hell. I knew an old woman of Thessaly, she was a great enchantress; she once gave a philtre for a maid, administered by the hand of her lover, who, for ten years, had in vain sprinkled libations of wine at her door, and covered the walls of his house with her cherished name. She drank it, and she loved. But her passion was distracted; her senses were injured; it was a love without modesty; and she expired in the arms of her miserable lover. I preferred the mild rites of incantation. She gave me a waxen image; she told me to call it by the name of him I loved, and to place it near the fire, and as it turned, and melted with the heat, he too would turn and melt whose name it bore. I turned the image; I blessed it as it dissolved, drop by drop; and the next day I sought Aciloe with eager joy; but alas! the heat had not reached him! I told the old Thessalian, and she said,—Unhappy maid! Hell has no remedy for thy love! I had dreams by night: I related them to the augurs, and they told me to supplicate the god of love. What incense breathed, what turtles bled on his altar! I told the augurs that the god was inexorable. Dost thou not see, they replied, that when thou sacrificest, nothing but smoke and vapours are rolled about the altar? Forget thyself, unhappy maid! Heaven is not thy friend!
Yet I could not despair; the pains of love are not without pleasure, yet his pleasures are full of pain. Much I desired, little hoped, and nothing asked
Brama assai, poco spera, e nulla chiede."
A verse from Tasso, so descriptive of a modest passion. It is omitted by Hoole.
.
Have ye not all worshipped the APOLLO of Praxiteles? Has not its enchanting illusion possessed your senses? Surely the god sculptured his own statue! The flexible softness of that marble, where the blood seems moving in the veins; the airy harmony in the proportions, which, to the deceived eye, gives the sense of motion; the celestial smile on those half-opened lips, which makes one incline as if to listen! Softened form of the green spring of life, thine is, eternal youth, the health of a divinity! brilliant, yet tender, as the opening dawn! I have gazed on the sculptured god till I thought it glided in the air! Is not such the statue of Apollo? and such, ye virgins! was the form of Aciloe!
Familiarised to my services, he almost conversed with me as an equal; but often a dignity in his air, and a majesty in his conceptions, separated from his my humbled spirit. Yet he deigned to accept my attentions: I hastened my own labours to conclude his unfinished tasks; and Aciloe was restored to health! He recovered his vivacity; mine sunk as his recovered. The finest form in Nature seemed to start from the remains of its decay: I would have given a treasure for a bracelet of his hair. As I gazed on the shining whiteness of his neck, while a loose ringlet that had fallen from the rest, threw its soft shadow, how often I sighed to weave it round my fingers!
I felt myself perishing. I slumbered in half-awakened dreams; I started in tremors; I was lost in reverie. I rose weary in the morning, as if the night had been a night of toil. I looked on the sun, and it cheered me not; I gazed on Aciloe, and all my senses burned. Oppressed by my own labours, when I toiled for Aciloe, that labour seemed to restore me. Aciloe saw my dejection, and suffered me not to toil. Oh, the change! Now the pining shadow of what I was, Aciloe, warm in health and gratitude, laboured for me! He would inquire the cause of my concealed dejection: I sound no voice, but I selt the blood paint my cheek.
Sometimes my love was not without hope, and I imagined Aciloe had discovered the secret of my heart; but I checked the delightful thought, when I recollected that
Gratitude
is a shade of
Love.
One day from the villa he sent me, by a slave returning to the city, a garland, accompanied by a brilliant painting of the flowers, as he had interwoven them. I knew not which to admire, the creation of Nature, or the work of Art; when each is perfect, Nature touches, and Art charms. I sighed to think that the slowers of Aciloe would die that evening. Looking on the border of the picture, I read this inscription:
"LIVING, we were CHERISHED; DEAD, we still EXIST."
Ah! I exclaimed, how the sympathetic Aciloe can interpret, at a distance, the thoughts of my soul! But a thought more melancholy touched me—that I should soon die after them; and the garland dropt from my cold and slackened hand. Reflecting thus mournfully, I found in the garland this scroll:
"Fade not like these flowers, for no PAINTING
can supply thy loss!
The artist can trace outlines and can catch tints, but he cannot
paint the thoughts
of thy
mind;
he cannot give
another existence
to the
virtues
of thy
soul.
"
About this time I became solicitous of my dress. Would ye agitate the heart of your lover? Be DRESS the unperceived labour of your days. Think of it every morning ere ye rise; vary it with new forms, warm it with new colours. Trust me, one day, ye will observe how the eye of your lover shall linger about you; how all that day, restless in ecstasy, he will mention objects which have the same colour as your dress. That dress remember well. When at some distant day ye shall be estranged from each other, then, to kindle the heart of the cherished traitor, appear in the same dress; be the colours the same, and your smiles the same. Ye will then see how easy it is to wind around an affectionate heart!
As for myself, I was but a slave, and costly ornaments were not mine. I could not wear the purple dye of Tyre, nor the light tissues of the Isle of Cos; nor were my tresses essenced with the Oronthean myrrh. But cheaper colours may enchant, and simpler graces may seduce. Sometimes I was dressed with the lightest azure, beautiful as the serenest sky; or with the palest rose colour, delicate as the youngest of those tender flowers; or with a chaste white, floating redundant on the ground, as if I had thrown over me a woven snow.
I sought to delight him by those tender artifices, which recalled to him the memory of his natal soil. Often he had viewed with rapture, on the winding banks of the Eurotas, the virgins confining their loose drapery, and rejecting their veiling peplos, in their courses, and their games, and their dances: half their impatient bosom peered above their vest, and their naked knee, and their gracile legs, glided with easy grace. I assembled my companions, and taught them the Grecian Dance of Ariadne, or the Labyrinth. I, holding a garland, was their leader, while the large circle, hand in hand, moved slowly around me; then, more animated, they would coil about me, pressing each against the other; I waved my garland, I eluded their grasping hands, I extricated myself by artful feints, and, winding through them, I escaped, and triumphed. Then I yielded my place to the next; and thus all had the same garland, but all had not the same glory. At another time it was a rural dance. I represented Flora, and my hair was starred with roses. I often bade the dance cease, to chaunt the tender hymn of spring; and then each maiden would take a rose from my hair, and when all my roses were despoiled, my hymn closed. But Aciloe was not delighted by our dances. On the banks of my own Eurotas, he said, they inflamed my soul; but a Grecian dance in Rome, only provokes my indignation.
And yet there was a little spot we had discovered, which he cherished: it circled the Palatine hills. After our toiling day, delicious was each evening hour, as wandering there, we saw the flocks obey the call of the shepherd's doric reed. Up the sides of one of those hills climbed the pendent vineyards; along an expansive lake winded green walks, fringed with the arbutus and the myrtle; while, still lower, were the olive grounds, whose gloomy umbrage the setting sun warmed with its roseate hue: above us were groves of pine and silver firs. Here often Aciloe turned away from haughty and imperial Rome, its temples, its amphitheatres, its xysti, and its forums. He turned away, and some natural tears fell as he gazed on the cherished spot. The cherished spot! it was a Grecian scenery, the very semblance of one where he was born. How grateful in a foreign country! he exclaimed, to find a home scene: Rome has not deprived us of
all
our Greece; at least, it yields one spot, which brings me back to the lost earth, where I was cradled!
With hope almost extinct in my bosom, I could no more labour, and my master bade me retire to die. Aciloe often stole to my sick couch; he wept beside me; and the prince tended a slave. How often I thought I viewed the infernal bark on the borders of the Styx; as often would the dulcet voice of Aciloe recal me to existence:—how vital the breath of him we love! If I were extinct, and my lover breathed on my lips, I have often thought it would revive my inanimate corpse.
It was thou, said Aciloe, when death was terrible, for the iron of slavery then first rankled in my indignant soul; it was thou who gently stolest away the thorns of a sick pillow. Thus given, life had its value, though its price was slavery. What is the viewless canker in thy heart? Thy malady is not that of Nature, but that of Passion; for thou hast ever been happy: thou hast never known freedom, and slavery for thee has no pains. It was something sudden that marred thy harmonious nerves, and broke the joy of thy smooth check. When I recovered, it was then thou didst lose thy health. Surely the infection of another's grief is not fatal! By Hercules, I will not accept the existence purchased by thy death! Live then, live! it is thy prince who bids thee live!
As Aciloe spoke, my heart opened, elate with hope; I seemed to listen to the voice of Love. But the awful words—It is thy prince, clouded my spirit: and when I turned to Aciloe there was a dignity, even in his tenderness, that seemed for ever to tell me, I was not his equal.
Yet, thus to have interested my prince, thus to be tended by his hand, gave me a new existence. I was now permitted to wander at will.
It was the third of the Ides that the feast in honour of THE GHOSTS, the
feralia,
was held. Every one hastened to bring some little offering to the memory of their friends. Aciloe and I walked together to the obscure sepulchre of his father Perseus, who had then lately died. He stood beside the grave, He looked towards heaven: he knelt, and kissed the earth; then, clipping some of his silken tresses, he deposited them on the cold tomb. I could not help touching them.—Touch them not, I pray thee! (he cried,) they are sacred to the dead: the manes of our friends are not solicitous of what we present them, it is sufficient if by us they are remembered: nor avarice, nor vanity are beyond the Styx! I stood near him.—And how is it (said he) that thou dost not bring thine offering?—Alas! (I replied,) I never knew a parent; I never had a friend! and when I die, no one will soothe my departed spirit, even with the last gift we present the dead.—Thou errest, (replied Aciloe,) for had I survived thee, I should never have forgotten thou wert my dearest friend. How sweet were those wondrous words! What if he is not my lover (I thought) is he not the semblance? is he not my friend?
But what is friendship when we ask for love? 'Tis like the fragrance of remote flowers, that
aintly touches the senses; or like the beam of the chaste moon, that gives light, but yields not warmth. Still, still I pined: sometimes, to embolden me to tell my love, I thought that a passion for a servant had not made even heroes blush; the superb Achilles was enamoured of his beauteous Briseis, and the regal Agamemnon pre
erred, to Clytemnestra, the more tender Chryseis. How often has the pang of ungratified love made my brain frantic! Then would I hasten to Aciloe, resolved to tell my love, and willing to die: but while my bosom rose and panted in his absence, when I approached him it sunk with timidity; it was chilled with awe. I shivered; I wept; I was silent.
It was now the ambrosial season of the FLORALIA, the festal day of Flora. All invites us then to perfume ourselves with essences, to twine our temples with branches of myrtle, and to wander, gathering the Year's virgin flowers; the more cherished children of her first birth. The
Circensian shows
were now proclaimed. That day some hastened to the
Naumachia,
to gaze on naval combats; some to the
Pentathlum,
to view the Athletae, or wrestlers; some to the
chariot races;
and some to the
Pyrrhic dances.
Rome was happy; our house was a solitude; the very streets were silent. Aciloe and myself remained together.
That day I had studiously adorned myself; my drapery flowed loose, my arms and my knees did not conceal themselves, and my tresses were arranged with a nicer art than became a slave. It was perhaps in honour of the goddess; and yet I thought of Aciloe as I corrected my dress before my mirror. We sat beneath an almond-tree, whose silvery flowers dropped their odour: we were supping, and Aciloe took off his sandals to recline on his couch.
This evening (said he) the world will at least forget us, and let us forget the world! Thou hast done well to braid along thy streaming tresses those sweet violets and that tender lilac.—I sighed, for I thought to myself that I was but a victim crowned with flowers. My bosom palpitated so warmly, that I turned aside in disorder; but perhaps my eyes expressed what my tongue refused. I stole a side glance at Aciloe, and I joyed to behold an eye sparkling with the tenderest fire.
He addressed me by name.—Leucothoe, wilt thou never confide the secret of thy modest soul? Thou knowest the gods have not given to Aciloe the marble heart of a tyrant, but the waxen heart of a slave. Leucothoe, thou takest no food! thou speakest not! Nay, turn not away that sweet confusion on thy cheek. Is my attachment, then, nothing? Mysterious girl! live, if thou wouldst have Aciloe live; and smile if thou wouldst have him happy!
In leaning across the table his lips almost touched my face; his tones so tender and so tremulous, deliciously whispered in my ear, and his warm breath past over my cheek. I trembled with unknown sensations: my respiration was suspended; a faintness crept over my limbs; a dimness fuffused my eyes; a low, tremulous noise wandered in my ears. I felt that I must die or must speak.
I complained of the odours of the almond tree, but I could not finish the feigned murmur; I sought to rise, but my limbs were without motion.
I turned to Aciloe. My voice died on my quivering lips; a gush of delicious tears restored me.—Aciloe! and wouldst thou know my secret misery? 'Tis LOVE consumes me! ambitious Love, that lives on hopeless, and cannot die!
When I finished these hurried words, I hid my face in my bosom. Aciloe heard, Aciloe understood: his lips breathed on my lips, and my trembling bosom rose to meet his bosom. Celestial felicity! O, Love! thou art even the happiness of the gods! Aciloe loved, and never from that hour Aciloe forsook me. Yes, my prince was the slave of his slave! Delicious memory of LOVE! it charms even my old age, and gives to my hoary and snowy head what is dearer than the roses of spring—THE REMEMBRANCE OF GOLDEN HOURS!
THE END OF LOVE AND HUMILITY.
THE LOVERS; OR, THE BIRTH OF THE PLEASING ARTS.
ADVERTISEMENT.
TO illustrate the nature of human inventions, the following little Romance has been composed. The word
invention,
originating in the Latin
inventus,
explains itself—
a finding out.
Invention is neither inspiration nor creation, as some, I believe, still imagine it to be. It is nothing but a
sudden observation,
or a
patient meditation;
and there can exist but
two kinds
of invention; the one
accidental,
struck out from a rapid observation, and the other arising from
combination,
the fruit of long and ingenious meditation. Man creates nothing; he can only imitate, or combine, what he
finds out
in Nature; he can imagine no form, he can produce no notion, of which the model is not in Nature.
From
accidental inventions
man has derived great utility, but never has claimed any glory; but the invention of those arts, or those discoveries, in which he has wrestled with Nature, has agreeably flattered his pride. It will amuse an ingenious mind, to class under these two forms some traditional origins.
In the first, and inferior kind of inventions, may be ranked the following:—A Tartarian hunter, wanting some wadding, observes a stone covered with some flakes resembling loose threads; but when he fires his piece, he observes that the gunpowder had no effect on the wadding. He returns to his village, consults his curate, and, half-terrified, conceives he has about him some bewitched stuff. They throw it into a large fire; it does not burn, and they take it out entire. Such was the accidental origin of the
asbestos,
called the incombustible linen. Of the same class is that of
glass:
some merchants in the sandy deserts rest their cauldrons on blocks of nitre, and kindle a fire; the nitre dissolving in the flame, and mixing with the sand, produces a transparent friable substance, which is
glass.
In the city of Tyre, a dog seizing on the fish Conchilis, or
Purpura,
his lips were observed to be tinged with that glowing
"rosy red,"
and it received its name from the town and the fish, for it was called,
The Tyrian purple.
Children playing in the shop of a spectacle-maker, with convex and concave glasses, arrange them in such a manner that the church steeple appeared to have removed itself near to them. Their loud acclamations excite the curiosity of their father. The man of science looks through the glasses the hands of children had arranged, and he discovers—the
telescope!
Accident alike discovered gunpowder, printing, and the quinquina; the latter, perhaps, more salutary than either of the former. Such has been the origin of many useful inventions, but in which the inventor could lay no claim to ingenuity.
The second class ennobles man; his dilated soul traverses through earth and heaven, and he almost aspires to the energy of a sublime Creator. The ancients have recorded, that the exquisite combinations of
music
derived their origin from a philosopher who stood listening to the strokes of a hammer on an anvil. It was by meditating on the knolls of old oak trees, and the pavements of London, that that sublime edifice, the
Edystone,
was raised in the tumultuous breast of the sea by its great artist. The fact is recorded, with great simplicity, by himself; and these knolls, and these pavements, from whence he first stole the hints, are engraven in his singular work. One evening in the cathedral of Pisa, Galileo observed the vibrations of a brass lustre, pendent from the vaulted roof, that had been left swinging by one of the vergers. The pensive eye of Genius meditated, and its soul struggled with vast ideas. Hence he conceived the notion of measuring time by the medium of a
pendulum,
and thus
invented
the clements of motion and mechanics. The origin of
gravitation
is perhaps more sublime, since the accident was more trivial. The charming art of engraving owes one of its branches to the meditation of a studious prince. Rupert perceiving a soldier scraping and cleansing his fusil, on which the nightdews had fallen and had rusted, he combined its effects, and from these conceived
mezzotinto.
I will add two others, which are extremely interesting. Jonas Moore, employed to survey the fens, noticed that the
sea
made a
curve line
on the beach; and from this circumstance be borrowed the hint, to keep it effectually out of
Norfolk.
A French bead-maker observing, that the water which had washed those small fish called Bleaks, was filled with luminous particles of a silvery bue, and deposited a sediment possessing the lustre of the most beautiful pearls, formed from it the
pearl essence,
which, with melted isinglass, is blown into thin glass globules, and produces
artificial pearls.
Reflecting on the origin of human inventions, I combined many recorded traditions, all of which wear a natural air of truth. I imagined a little tale, in which, placing two primitive human beings in Arcadia, the mutual desire, and the necessity of reciprocal pleasure, would naturally give birth to the agreeable arts. Some difficulties arose in this little sketch, but the completion of my design was of more consequence than an attempt to overcome one or two improbabilities. The judicious reader will easily detect and forget them. The indulgence of a reader is one requisite in this species of fictions.
THE LOVERS; OR, THE BIRTH OF THE PLEASING ARTS.
AN ARCADIAN ROMANCE.
PART THE FIRST.
IN a valley of Arcadia Amaryllis was a shepherdess; on the rocks above, Lycidas was a goatherd. Their situation approached that of primaeval solitude; never had they observed other human forms than their old fathers and mothers, whom they visited at the full moon, when their flocks were guarded by the silence of sleep.
In the luxuriant valley Amaryllis conducted her sheep, while Lycidas pursued his capricious goats on the rocky clifts. Amaryllis found her companions like herself, timid and docile; they rather followed her, than she them. Often had she measured her height with the old ewes, and discovered how she increased in stature.
Lycidas was vigorous as the goats he chaced; he flew fearlessly along the points of clifts, and stood on one foot, at the edge of a precipice, to snatch the wild goat hanging at the perilous extremity. Amaryllis frequently observed him above her with a tremulous delight; and imitating his voice, found that her tones could not, like his, fill the hollow hills. Ah! there, she thought, is one like myself, whose strong feet outleap a goat! Lycidas looked down sometimes on Amaryllis, and thought, there is one like myself, whose soft look is more tender than the eye of a lamb!
One day the shepherdess, at the brink of a river, was bathing a lamb; while Lycidas, leaning from a rock above, watched the transparent water-drops trickling on its snowy coat, and hanging her fingers with pearls. The lamb fell into the river; Amaryllis shrieked. Behold Lycidas in the stream! He brings the breathless animal; he dries its velvet skin; he warms it in his breast; its little sides palpitate once more.—It is
born again!
(he exclaims) presenting it to Amaryllis.—Ah! (said the pastoral virgin, looking her gratitude) I thought, till now, that a goatherd cared not for the sorrows of a shepherdess.—Oh, Amaryllis! (replied Lycidas) I often think of thee.—How singular is this, oh Lycidas! I, too, often think of thee—When I view thee kissing a lamb, I would give ten of my goats to be that lamb.—Lycidas, thou shalt have my kisses when thou wilt; come from the mountains when thou wouldst have me kiss thee!
After this interview Lycidas was continually descending from the rocks to receive the caresses of Amaryllis. But sweet kisses inspired sweet words: it became necessary to unite the goats of Lycidas with the sheep of Amaryllis; and the mountaineers gradually abated their wildness among the mild inmates of the valley: yet, though influenced by the local softness, and losing their restless desire of climbing by continually treading on a level earth, they still retained their untamed spirit; and, never mingling with the timorous, ever preceded and conducted the feebler domestics.
Observe (said Amaryllis to Lycidas) how thy goats disdain the society of my sheep! How is it, oh Lycidas! that thou admittest me to thy arms, as if I were thy equal?
I have heard my father say (replied the youth), that man is an animal more noble than a goat; that his face looks up towards the gods. And yet this seems an error; for my face only looks straight forwards; were I to look up to the gods, I should stumble.
Couldst thou ever understand (enquired Amaryllis) what the goats think of man?
Oh, yes! assuredly they deem themselves superior. They climb, with their hollow foot, on ridges narrow as thy slender finger. I have viewed them sleep on the point of a precipice, where my
eye
only could
touch
them: I have waked them by my voice; but they only raised their heads and shook their beards, and again laid themselves to sleep. I have watched at the foot of the rock, in patient helplessness. Such is MAN!
I have often thought (replied Amaryllis) that man is a kind of goat; for our fathers have beards, but the faces of our mothers are smooth as mine and my sheep. Thou too wilt have a beard, no doubt, (she passed her hand playfully over his chin) already I perceive a fine brown shade glisten around thy face. How soft! I touch it, but cannot feel it. Be sure all human beings are only a kind of goats and sheep. Thine eye seems to command Nature, thy strong step echoes on the earth; but I timidly follow thee, and all my glory is my submission.
In conversations thus simple and innocent, they sometimes interchanged their thoughts; but they sported more than they talked. At the margent of a lucid fountain, or under an umbrage, dropping roses, they divided their milk and their fruits; the velvet turf sprang under their flying feet; the echo multiplied their silver voices. Mimicking a butting goat, Lycidas would run at Amaryllis; but Amaryllis most loved to lie down like a sheep, and, in short pantings, breathe on her beloved Lycidas. Amaryllis would conceal herself behind a woodbine hedge, or lie in the covering fern; and then Lycidas would call on her, seek her through all her hiding spots, and murmur at, yet half-enjoy, the feigned absence. Seldom could he track her through her inventive and mysterious paths, till the playful maid betrayed herself by a loud laugh; or attempted to fly, while her inviting eyes accused the pursuer's tardy embrace. Sometimes when he returned home she would lie down, feigning to sleep, while her eyes were half open, to see if Lycidas would immediately hasten to her; the youth kneeled, and sighed, and kissed her eyes, till she laughed.
Sometimes he would disorder her wavy tresses, while she murmured with a smile; and then would adorn them to his fancy, studding them with roses, or braiding them with jessamine. But if he often loved to disorder her fine tresses, he was careful, in passing her favourite flowers, to support their bended stalks, and to weave more closely her favourite shades. The tender reminiscence of her lover's attention often mingled with the delicious perfumes of the flower, and the bowery verdure of the tree. He would compose what he called
serpents of flowers,
and fancifully wind them about her long tresses, praying the gods that no other serpents might ever approach her.
One evening, beneath a lofty myrtle-tree, the beauteous Amaryllis was lamenting the death of a nightingale. She said, Sweetest tears have fallen with the touching close of its delicious tones: I felt the music creep along my nerves, and the fine vibrations play through my heart. I weep now, Lycidas, when I think such a charming sadness may never again give delightful tears.
Ah! that I could recal thy nightingale into existence, as I did thy drowned lamb! exclaimed the amiable youth.
Thou never canst, dear companion! it breathed a long and dying fall, like the gentle airs, moving the tops of the hollow reeds, making a moaning melody.
Studious to charm his beloved with the voice of the nightingale, the thoughts of Lycidas produced a sleepless night: the next day he gave Amaryllis the care of his goats, and promised an early return. The sun declined, and Lycidas returned not. Amaryllis sighed at its farewell beam. She sat, her head reclining on her arm. Suddenly aerial notes floated in soft remote sounds. The startled Amaryllis exclaimed—The air sings in the clouds! The notes seemed approaching to her. She looked up at the myrtletree. They warbled more musically clear. She perceived Lycidas: he held something in his hands to his lips.—Hast thou found another nightingale? (Lycidas replied but by the accents of his harmonious mouth.) What miracle is this! Canst thou give a vocal soul to a hollow reed?—Yes, (replied Lycidas,) it was thou who didst instruct me: Thou didst resemble the voice of the nightingale to the light AIRS breathing on the hollow REEDS. All day I wandered for a nightingale, and I found none: I took a reed, and made little entrances for my breath: I said, Oh, gentle reed! I can give thee AIR, if thou canst yield me the VOICE of the nightingale: I BREATHED, and it was MUSIC!
This first of flutes was their most valued acquisition, for it bestowed a new pleasure; and in the solitude of lovers, pleasure is their only avarice. Lycidas, gradually modulating his reed by his ear, perceived the successive sounds of MELODY, and, at length, the concords of HARMONY; but often, weary with trying musical sounds, the eyes of Amaryllis fired his soul, and the rapt enthusiast, tender or gay at such moments, made his lively inflections, and variety of accent imitate their sensations and echo their passions
Such is
imitative music,
which, says Rousseau, expresses all passions, paints all pictures, represents all objects, and subjects all Nature herself to its skilful imitations; and thus conveys to the heart of man those sentiments proper to touch and to agitate.
. Such was the progress of INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC!
As they wept or laughed, they marvelled how the air, through a hollow reed, could speak more persuasively to their hearts, than their own voices; they knew not that the imitations of Art please more than Nature herself. When Lycidas played, Amaryllis could not sit still, and her
gestures
corresponded with the
passions
he inspired. Was Amaryllis capricious? Lycidas breathed a long dissolving strain; sounds associated in her mind with ideas of tenderness; her ear arrested her steps, and silenced her tongue; while the sweetness of her physiognomy melted in the dew of her eye, and expressed itself in many a
passionate attitude.
Was Amaryllis plunged in the softest melancholy? Aerial tones, rapid and voluble, vibrated around; till, stealing the sense of thought from the pensive beauty, they broke into gay melodies; while, responsive to their cheerful influence, her light footsteps gave what Lycidas termed,
the music to the eye:
and such was the origin of THEATRIC DANCE!
Their enjoyments were only interrupted by his frequent absences: whole days were sometimes passed in search of a wanton goat. How terrible is the absence of him in whose presence alone the heart feels the sense of existence! She thought this, one night in a cave where Lycidas was sleeping, while the wakeful beauty hung enamoured over each interesting feature: a SUSPENDED LAMP was placed near.—Ah! (she continued) even this pleasing light, this soft moon of my chamber, is the
thought
of his genius
It is a pleasing idea of Apuleius, in his Cupid and Psyche, that the LAMP was first invented by a LOVER, that he might, for a longer time, enjoy by NIGHT the object of his desire.
. It was from THE PENDENT LIGHT OF THE GLOW-WORM, in the illumined hedge, that he stole the hint; it is thus that, borrowing every happy conception from Nature, he discovers around him the sources of enjoyment.
The lamp threw its light on the even wall, and the solitary flame strongly reflected the
shadow of his face.
—Ye gods! (exclaimed the fond maid) behold
two Lycidases!
Ye speaking features, can ye not for ever dwell on that wall? then would Lycidas not entirely quit me in his absence. How consoling even the shadow of what we love! Lycidas! thy shade would to me prove a tender companion. Fugitive and cherished shadow! live here when Lycidas roves in the circling mountains!
She took up her sheephook, and affectionately tracing the shadow of her lover, its sharp iron graved it on the wall. Lycidas turned, and the lines remained unmoved.—He is for ever there! (exclaimed the enraptured Amaryllis.) Lycidas awoke.—Who is here? Amaryllis!—THYSELF, THYSELF! (she cried, in embracing him.) These eyes shall worship thee when thou art on the clifts: whole suns from me, the light shall give me thy presence in the mimic wonder. Behold thy half-closed eye, thy half-opened lips, for ever smiling on that wall! Lycidas looked on the wall and on Amaryllis, and they embraced. Such was the origin of DESIGN
It is singular that the origin of
painting
has ever been attributed to the often-repeated story of the Corinthian Maid sketching the shadow of her sleeping lover. But this is only the origin of
design,
and, in fact, is but a SILHOUETTE. I have never been able to trace the origin of
colouring
to any recorded tradition.
!
Amaryllis, in the absence of Lycidas, passed many hours in contemplating this FIRST PORTRAIT of Love. But the familiarity of enjoyment discovered its imperfections.—Dismal shadow! (she cried) thou pleasest me, because thou resemblest Lycidas; but Lycidas would not charm me, did he resemble thee! Where is the soft mutability of his cheek? Melancholy resemblance of a form of gaiety! Only when Lycidas is dead, will he resemble thee!
She held in her lap a treasury of flowers, which she was assorting to weave into a wreath for Lycidas. She took a ROSE, and continued:—This breathing ROSE is the hue of his cheek: O, Shade! I will place it on thy cheek! This white LILY is like the snow of his forehead: that its splendid whiteness could for ever spread on thine! These blue VIOLETS are the purple of his veins; and she delicately laid them along the neck. And this dark eye of the TULIP is black as his brilliant eye: and she fixed it there!
Entranced, she gazed on the illusive shadow: for a moment it was her Lycidas! his beautiful colours lived to her eye. Such was the first essay of COLOURING! The tinted impressions which some of the flowers left behind, gave them afterwards a hint to express, from various plants and minerals, that variety of colours which gave birth to the more perfect parts of PAINTING
After this was written, the notion was verified by two facts I discovered: the one, in the Life of Carlo Maratti, who, when a child, for want of
colours,
made use of the
juices of herbs and flowers.
The other, in the History of the Canary Islands, where the author writes, that
"some of the Majorcans were good artificers; they built houses and
painted
them elegantly with the
colours
which they
extracted
from certain
herbs and flowers
upon the island."
The Majorcans were then in the infancy of society.
!
Seated, in the sultry silence of summer, at the entrance of a grove, they viewed their slocks retired beneath the umbrageous hedges.—Dear Lycidas (said the smiling maid), how amiable the dewy mornings, and the clear moons of summer! I love at noon-tide to lay myself beside some rippling water, and listen to its cooling murmurs mingling with the airy murmurs of a bee: oft as they blend, they lull my spirits with ONE rocking sound, and I catch some half-dream. It is in winter I feel unhappy: the cave our fathers hewed is so round, or so square, one sees the termination of every thing; nothing is left to the imagination. It is not thus in Nature; she never
imprisons
the eye; all her lines are waved, and varied, and enchanted. How often I sigh when I view nothing of lise and motion before me, but the solitary flame trembling on the opposite wall!
Lycidas replied:—Had I been idle last winter, as thou wert, I too should have been melancholy in the cave. Then I made reeds for summer songs, I added another aperture to my flutes, and I produced a new music. How many hast thou broken in thy first lessons? Do not mind them, Amaryllis; I am pleased when thou breakest them; for to me it is delightful to amend thy reeds, and to pass my fingers over the places thine have touched.
She kissed Lycidas, and said:—Oh, that our days may be blended, as the AIR we played this morning;
two
symphonious instruments yielding but
one
modulation. The other evening, waiting thy return beside the RIVULET, I thought it were happiness for us to resemble it: when it receives a new stream, the
two streams
can never be separated; THEY TOUCH, and are FOR EVER UNITED!
And I wish (continued Amaryllis) that we could live in such a grove through the happy circle of the year.
Thou dost nothing but
wish,
said Lycidas.
Had I such a grove in winter, the aspect of Nature would console me in thy absence. Observe how finely arched is the grove above us by the interwoven boughs; as if placed in a regular order, view the straight trunks of the palm-trees; mark the little openings around, delighting the eye with various views; and here, as we sit, this seems the only entrance of the grove. On the hollow curves of these trees my foot has rested, when I climbed, till I was seated at their summit. One day I ascended, and descried thee on the great rock, directing thy goats. I saw thee urging the vagrants home, and often kissing thy hand as thou didst stretch it towards our valley; approaching, thou didst sound thy reed; then my heart bounded with the tender thought, that thou didst
remember me
when thou thoughtest that I could
not see thee!
While the voluble beauty was describing the grove, the eye of Lycidas had intensely followed the objects of her fancy. And now he was lost in reverie. The bunch of grapes he held in his hand remained unplucked; when she ceased, he spoke not; he wandered from thought to thought; he sat in motionless abstraction.
Art thou disordered, my sweet Lycidas? Not one smile dimples thy cheek; the heaviness of sleep presses thy lids. Ah! thou lookest on the earth, and not on Amaryllis!
Lycidas, starting from his trance, flung the grapes from his hand in rapture. The creative smile of Enthusiasm lighted up every feature; his eye swam in a liquid fire; a tremor of sensibility vibrated through his frame. Looking on Amaryllis with complacency, he said—I was only
thinking.
And why dost thou
think,
dear Lycidas? to think is to toil. With thee I never
think,
I only
feel;
it is in thine absence I
think
and
suffer.
In the enjoyment of thy presence, when I lay my hand on thy beating heart; when I seal my trembling lips on thy soft lips; when I blend my breath with thy breath, it is then I am all
sensation.
Ah! then should a single
thought
intervene, I should feel
it
an interruption of my existence.
Lycidas replied, smiling,—Dost thou not perceive that thou thyself art thinking, while thou prattlest against the labour of thought?
To think with thee, Lycidas, seems no pain; my thoughts embrace thy thoughts, as my arms wind around thy arms. In thine
absence
only
thinking
tortures; for since I have known thee, I abhor all that is
solitary.
After this conversation Lycidas was constantly absent from Amaryllis. He had ever some prompt excuse. A goat was missing; she counted the herd, and the number was just. He fell down the rock, and was lamed; she examined his foot, and it was unmarked by a bruise. He was in pursuit of a nightingale, but he never brought one home. He had listened hours near a bed of reeds, that his ear might discover a new music; but he still could only play on one kind of reed. The autumn was closing, and his excuses of absence became every day more unsatisfactory.
Amaryllis sat deserted, and her whole soul dreamed of Lycidas. Her melancholy diffused itself over every surrounding object. How Nature has suddenly changed! exclaimed the solitary virgin. She murmured with the murmurs of the rivulet; she sighed with the evening zephyr; she flew to the portrait, and on the face of the shadowy Lycidas, rolled living tears.
The evening return of Lycidas came unmarked by fondness; pensive, weary, and silent; a cold caress, a rapid meal, and a deep slumber. It was now that first she perceived how, in the presence of unsocial man, one may find a terrible solitude.
Sometimes she thought of tracking his concealed retreat; yet it was long ere she could persuade herself to abandon, for one day, the flock and the herd. Once she followed him; in agony she pressed his rapid footsteps on the morning dews; she came to a high rock from whence Lycidas precipitated himself with ease to another, and disappeared! She returned to the valley to think and to mourn.
At length the habitual reverie of melancholy thought and desponding curiosity presented a monstrous imagination to her disordered senses; the terrific chimaera that breeds in the delirium of love. She struck her lovely forehead; the pulses of her temples rose, burning, to her touch; her soul sickened, her frame shivered. She felt the pang of JEALOUSY!
She thinks Lycidas may have discovered
another
Amaryllis: he flies to kiss other cheeks! There are, doubtless, beings like ourselves on this earth: other vallies, other rocks, and other shepherdesses! Ah! if every valley should have its Amaryllis, then is Lycidas for ever lost to me; for all will adore Lycidas, though Lycidas may adore none. Ah, ingrate! capricious as thy goats! were there as many Lycidases, thou wouldst be to me the only Lycidas; for I feel I have but one heart, and one heart can love but once.
Every evening Lycidas found his Amaryllis in tears. He said, Why dost thou weep?
Lycidas, canst thou ask why I weep? When thou shakest the flower, dost thou inquire why the trembling dews are scattered?
Lovelier than the flowers at thy seat in the grove, has thy Lycidas ever rudely touched thy softness?
Lycidas, those flowers thy hands reared, are faded. Once, in gazing on them, methought they had a voice; I heard, or seemed to hear, thou wert then kissing another Amaryllis. I turned, in horror, from those flowers. How one can cherish and abhor the same object!
Another Amaryllis! (exclaimed Lycidas) Is there another on this earth? I have seen the same plants, and the same animals, reproduce themselves; but never have I seen an infant Amaryllis. I consider thee as A SOLITARY BEAUTY in Nature; there is but one sun, one moon, and one Amaryllis!
Enamouring embraces gave to the virgin's soul a new sensation of felicity;
that
which, in one day, restores the lost happiness of years
—ch'un sol giorno
Può ristorar molt 'anni—.
PETRARCHA.
. Drops of tears rolled on the fine carnation of her cheek.—Still thou weepest! cried Lycidas, kissing them one by one.—Lycidas, these are
not like
the tears I wept.—Are there, then,
two kinds of tears?
—What know I, but this, oh, Lycidas! that I could wish for ever to feel the strange delight of these sweet tears.
When Lycidas awoke the succeeding morning, he quitted not Amaryllis as of late. An unanxious sleep restored the serenity of pleasure; his soul moved in the calm of the passions; his eye and his hand alike caressed; and his voice had the melody of rapture, for he anticipated a new enjoyment.
He spoke.—Feelest thou not the hoary morning with its frosty breath? soon will it come with a naked head spread with ungenial snow: the old year creeps on with the imperfect day. Is not the old year like our old fathers? Thou must quit thy grove.
Alas! if thou forsakest me this winter, the cave will be my sepulchre. Thou must bury me in it, as we buried the father of my father.
Amaryllis! thou shalt no more live in a cave; thou shalt reside in a grove; but it is
a grove without leaves.
It was for this I quitted thee incessantly. I toiled, till my limbs could scarcely conduct me home; I thought, till even in thy presence my thoughts felt weary.
A smile played on the pensive features of Amaryllis; an indistinct idea rushed across her mind.—Say, what novel miracle has Lycidas invented?
Come with me! cried the youth, rising with rapture.
I cannot (said Amaryllis). I once followed thee till I reached the great rock, from whence thou flewest like the eagle that builds its aerie there.
For thee a smoother passage is formed: thou shalt
walk over the waters!
What sayest thou! Can the foot repeat its steps on aught but the solid earth?
Lycidas returned to his seat, and said:— I must first inform thee of
another discovery.
One day, returning to
the grove without leaves,
I found the rock had disparted. I sought to enter by the lower part; the broad stream opposed. I swam across; but thou canst not swim!
Alas! exclaimed Amaryllis.
I sat dejected on the banks. As my eye reached
the grove without leaves,
I sighed. A long-tailed BIRD now flew across the stream. It floated in air by the undulations of its tail. Till then I had never observed the manner of its flight: but we find every thing, when we are deeply interested in its discovery; and Nature—.
Proceed, proceed! (cried the impatient Amaryllis) thou art too fond of reflections.
I then perceived a large FISH. I observed the sharp fins cutting the wave; its head steadily firm; its tail moving gently from side to side. Suddenly I cried out, I will
make a fish!
I took planks; I hollowed the trunk of a tree to bear us within, as if we were
the entrails of the fish.
I constructed the
head
The prow.
, and the
tail
A stern with a moveable helm.
, and I made
two fins
The oars.
: but then I found I could not direct the motion against the winds; yet the BIRD steered against the winds. I placed two pieces of my vest erect in
the fish of wood;
and these were the
wings
The sails.
. And now, Amaryllis, we can swim like a fish, and fly like a bird. The river wanders but for thee; and thou shalt
walk on the surface of the waters
Sailing.—In this invention of a sailing vessel, I have blended the various traditions: this was indeed one of my purposes; yet, however the account be faithful to truth, it is certainly not the more valuable to the imagination; the objects are less grateful than if they were formed by some happy fiction. After this trifle was composed, a friend pointed out to me a fine poem of Gesner's, that of
the first navigator.
That delicate writer there represents a lover meditating on the banks of a river, desirous of crossing it to obtain a sight of his mistress. He views, floating on the stream, a vast trunk of an old tree, hollowed by age; a timid rabbit escaped from the hunter, wrapt in some green branches, lies in it: the winds blow it to the shore, near the young lover. This accident first teaches him to
trust himself
in a hollow wood. No fiction can be more elegant. He says, An animal first taught me to swim in the trunk of a tree; from animals I will learn the means to perfect this new invention. I will make wooden feet, wide as those of the swan, and fix them at the side of the hollow trunk; these form the oars. The poet has called in the God of Love, and a Nereid, and the sovereign of the winds: I have not, however, found it necessary to ask the aid of a divinity. The mythology of poetry is perhaps too liberally employed by that amiable poet, who, while he really consulted Nature, often turned away from Nature to Art; as may be observed in his own designs; where the landscape, taken from the localities of his native country, is enchantingly picturesque with every charm of genius, while in the same landscape his
ancient figures,
copied from gems, statues, and other antique remains, have an incongruous effect.
!
END OF PART THE FIRST.
PART THE SECOND.
LYCIDAS now conducted Amaryllis to the banks of the river. She raised her hands in wonder at the view of
the wooden fish.
Tremblingly she entered. Lycidas unfurled the sail; he pushed off the little bark; and now they glide on the stream!
Be it thine, dear partner of my inventions! (said the first navigator) to conduct
the tail of the fish.
—How proudly it elevates its
head!
I will give motion to the
fins.
In mute astonishment Amaryllis turned the helm. She looked around, and then exclaimed,—Lycidas! lo, the mountains and the valleys
move!
the earth itself wondering at thy happy audacity, rises to pursue us, fugitives from our native soil!
Thou ever yieldest to thy fancy, Amaryllis! The earth moves not, but we move.—Ah, Lycidas! if, in returning to our cherished home, I find all departed from us! where shall I look for our sheep and our goats, if the mountains can leap into the river? Art thou certain the earth moves not? Surely what mimics motion so well, has motion!
Like thee I thought, Amaryllis, when I first quitted the shore: like thee, astonished, I beheld the mountains tremble, and the vallies glide! My heart coiled within me. Impatiently I gained the shore; I grasped it in eager joy; I kissed it, I wept over it: Cherished earth! (I cried) on which my Amaryllis treads, never shall my feet again wander. But soon I found it had never moved.
Amaryllis now, watching the motion of the oars, was again rapt in wonder. The light water-drops, falling from the raised oars, excited her first attention. She desired to examine them.—I thought (she said) thy
fins
had
white feathers;
they glittered like the loose plumage of the dove, scattered by the winds.—How thou fanciest all thou viewest! they are but the shining drops of water falling in the sunbeam, and glittering as they fall
Among skilful rowers, the art of flinging the water from their oars in long and light trails is termed,
feathering the oar;
from the appearance it bears with falling feathers.
.
And now she wondered at the oars in the water. Leaning on one side, the little bark overset, and the two first navigators fell into the stream. Lycidas with one arm embraces the fainting Amaryllis, and with the other steers along the waves; he sustains her drooping head; and toiling in the river, exhausted, gains the opposite bank. The touch of the solid earth restores him; he stretches the recovering beauty on the velvet turf; he awakens life by the warmth of his kisses; and when her relumed eyes open, the first object they rested on were the eyes of Lycidas. His tender embraces quell her fugitive terrors. The boat floated slowly towards them.
See, Amaryllis!
the wooden fish
follows us: it was thy error in trusting all thy weight on one side: did I not tell thee we were as
the entrails of the fish?
I viewed thy deep attention; thou didst look so beautiful with the fullness and softness of thine eyes, that in gazing on thee, I forgot the danger.
Lycidas, well might I gaze; I viewed
another wonder
in the stream. The two
fins
which thou didst lift in the air were straight, but moving in the water, they were bent and doubled.
Thou errest, Amaryllis; behold them!—He plunged them into the stream; and the oar, straight in the air, was bent in the water! He drew them out and examined them; then looked on the oars, and then on Amaryllis. Her eye was full of fearful wonder.—These are things (said Lycidas, recovering from his alarm) which the gods only understand!
Amaryllis, by the tender solicitude of Lycidas, had received no other ill than the alarm of the sudden plunge into the stream. He wrung the water from her fine tresses, he kissed the drops hanging on her lids, and shook the wet from their dress. The sun darted along an azure heaven; they gave no thought to the past, but proceeded, pursuing each other in sport.
They reached a deep and luxuriant valley; embosomed among the circling hills, it seemed, even in Arcadia, as if Nature had sought to conceal the spot she fondly embellished. In the centre, another miracle arrested the rapid steps of Amaryllis; she felt the same sensation the polished European even now feels at the view of a pyramid. It was indeed but a rude edifice. THE FIRST HOUSE! the origin of ARCHITECTURE!
They entered. Amaryllis walked around, ascended, returned, and reascended. She spoke only with the interjections of surprise and admiration. Lycidas explained the scene.
What thou viewest, Amaryllis, is for thy winter residence. The cavern confined the fancy of thine eye; I therefore raised this abode on the bosom of the earth itself, that thus thou mayst question Nature from hour to hour, and face to face. Thy conversation in the grove inspired the invention. This abode is but
a grove despoiled of its foliage.
Behold the
straight trunks
of the palm trees
The pillars.
! view the vaulted
arch
the grove formed with its intermingled boughs
The roof, or ceiling.
. I have hewed the
resting places
thy foot found on the trunks of trees, and the
apertures
around, which solaced thine eye
The stairs and windows.
. Thou didst observe the grove had but
one proper entrance,
behold it! thou canst find no admittance but between these OPEN PILES
The door.
. And all this I call
a grove without leaves
A House.—It requires no testimonies to prove that the first models of architecture were natural objects. Trees, rocks, and other things, which afforded animals a refuge, formed our first attempts of
imitation.
Mr. Price, in his Essay on the Picturesque, with great probability, says, that
"
Rocks
of crumbling, friable stone, broken into detached pointed forms, with openings and intricacies of every kind, may be compared to similar openings and intricacies in
Gothic buildings,
of which, indeed,
they probably gave the first idea.
"
Vol. ii. p. 248.
It has been observed, that
"Gothic architecture is taken from a walk of trees whose branching heads are curiously imitated by the roof;"
and we shall also find that the Grecian orders form a more
interesting imitation,
as we proceed in this Romance.
It is curious to observe (if I may so express myself) that
Nature is still so natural to us,
that even in this most luxurious age, with all its pomp and all its refinements, we still have had recourse to NATURE in our most splendid edifices. A remarkable instance is that of a theatre at Paris, constructed to represent a
bower of trees,
and the
interlacing
of the
branches
form the
ceiling.
Mr. Jackson has noticed this building: it was imitated by Astley in his summer theatre. Mr. De Saint Pierre observes, that the
column
is less pleasing than the
palm tree;
after which it was imitated.
.
This is but the first rude pile my hands have reared, like the
first shade
thou didst trace of
my features:
when thou didst discover the
colouring,
thou wert sensible of the imperfection. I foretel new improvements; sublime ideas inflame my soul; and this imitation of Nature shall still be enriched by
ornaments,
which shall
endear
this rude edifice, and make it, THE HOUSE OF THE HEART!
That day they delightfully wandered in this first house. Returning to the boat, Amaryllis promised to give no other motion to
the fish of wood,
than the quiet action of the
tail,
or rudder. While she grasped it in her slender hand, she kept her eyes on the full-orbed moon, and sometimes stole a trembling glance on Lycidas. Smiling, he said, Amaryllis, thou mayest
move
thine eyes; and if thou smilest on me, the oars will play more freely.—May I
move
my eyes, Lycidas? Ah! how sweetly is thy face silvered over by the moon! how its beams break along the glittering waves! When the surface of the waters is but lightly touched, the moon looks as if it were swimming through the river; when unruffled, its silvery body seems to sleep along its liquid bed. How musically soft the sound of thy cadenced oars dropping in the stream! How wondrous and how sweet is all! Oh, Lycidas! till now I never found
a path in the stream;
surely the silence on the waters is more awful than the silence on the earth!
Returned to their valley, they found they had been missed. The bleating sheep, from all parts, uttered their small voices of complaint. It was the first day their tender pastoress had deserted. To want her affection, was to them to suffer a revolution in nature. Some had straggled to the borders of the valley, and trembled in the foreign path; some lie panting, and extenuate; while some sat alone, desolated, knowing not where to go, since now there was no one to follow. Not thus with the goats: they fiercely butted at each other; now ran in circles, now wildly wandered up their native rocks; every where the spirit of revolt prevailed, exulting in a dangerous liberty.
That night, and the succeeding day, Lycidas consumed in the chace of his rebels; and Amaryllis, in a thousand tender offices, to her soft-hearted family. This was the first trouble their happy occupations had known, and they reflected.
In seeking for NEW ARTS, dear Lycidas, we neglect those of daily use.
Ah! (replied the inventive goatherd, with the ardency of genius) I wish I had not the care of goats! Soft Indolence, thou nurse of thought! thou shouldst be my choice: stretched in some waving shade, or by some genial blaze, I would meditate on NATURE; I would arrange the thousand pictures she has painted on my brain, till from them I stole a thousand HINTS to form a thousand ARTS!
My dear Lycidas, much I fear that thy
thinking
will to thee prove a source of great trouble: the fever of Curiosity scorches thy heart, and thy cheeks lose their vermil fulness. I remember, when I pressed my finger on thy cheek, how it sunk in the firm flesh. No more thou dost taste our simple happiness; no more thou sportest on the fern heath. Often thou stealest to solitude, and often my kiss awakens thee from a daydream.
They were now desirous of residing in THE HOUSE. Amaryllis, in quitting the cavern, lamented that she left behind her favourite objects, the portrait of Lycidas, and some beautiful plants which grew at the entrance of the grove.—Care not for my shadow (cried Lycidas to the sorrowing maid), thou canst trace another on the wall of the house; thou knowest my shadow always accompanies me.—True! but here thou smilest so enchantingly; every feature so felicitously plays in thy intendering physiognomy. Surely when I drew thee thus asleep, thou wert dreaming one of the dreams of genius; the invention of a new art seems painted on thy face.
In vain Lycidas assured her his features would remain the same in all places: to convince her, he laid himself down beside the wall, but essayed in vain to express the same physiognomy. Amaryllis still mourned to leave the shadow of her lover.
This portrait of Lycidas, by having been incessantly traced by the sharp hook of the passionate shepherdess, had gradually become an
alto relievo;
it stood prominent on the wall. At that moment Lycidas was employed in forming clay to fill up cavities in the boat: half vexed that Amaryllis consumed the hour in idle regrets, he violently struck the ductile earth, in sportive anger, against the protuberant image. Behold another miracle! The argillaceous matter received the full impression, and faithfully preserved the
physiognomy
and the
atlitude.
Thou hast it now! (exclaimed Lycidas) Now will my shadow wander with thee wherever thou rovest! And this was the first effort of SCULPTURE!
Behold ANOTHER ART! (cried Amaryllis.) Now I feel but one regret—to abandon the cherished plants that live where the grove opens.
Beautiful inspirer of my inventions! in vain my talent toils to reach thy fancy. Thou meritest that I should bid the flowers start into birth beneath thy foot, colouring thy steps. But man cannot
create,
he can only
imitate.
The first HOUSE was the source of their winter's happiness. It formed the incessant object of Lycidas's meditation; it absorbed his faculties; it was the passion of his imagination. Every day some new
want
prompted the invention of some new
tool,
and at length he discovered marble. Gradual embellishments became visible; and the new ornaments, which had been insensibly formed, one day struck, with their united graces, the thoughtful eye of Amaryllis. It had ceased to be the same HOUSE, it might have been called a PALACE.
Lycidas (said Amaryllis), I have marked thy constant occupations, and I would not disturb thy happy labours by my complaints. The invention of new ARTS costs me the loss of many kisses; but my soul, nourishing a spark of thy divine flame, knows how to suffer thy
absence
even when thou art
present.
What a scene of enchantment has arisen? Pillars of wood are changed to columns of marble; the foot that sunk in the damp turf, now glides on the smooth pavement: here, elegant beauty rises in a slender form; there, a massy grandeur reposes, looking its immovability; a certain disposition arranging all, repeating on one side what charms on the other, yet, blending all the parts into
one,
an uniform variety! But how shall I name that SECRET SOMETHING diffused through the whole; the soul animating this edifice like the LIGHT, which, itself imperceivable, makes all things perceived? When our language yields not the fullness of expression, we call one thing by another; and this SOMETHING diffused throughout this edifice, is like
music,
A SILENT MUSIC; it is harmonious to the eye. My sensations obscure themselves in language: tell me, what is this thou hast raised with the mysterious magic of thy hand?
It is
a new art!
(replied Lycidas.) The FORMS thou viewest around I found in
Nature;
I discovered them in our own forms; and this ART is a memorial of human AFFECTION!
Explain thyself! said Amaryllis, with fondness and curiosity.
Observe that column opposite.
It is delicacy and lightness!
It is THYSELF!
Lycidas smiled, while the wondering Amaryllis leant over him, contemplating the column with the tremor of delight.
Yes, it is thyself! Raised to thy memory, I gave it the delicacy of
the feminine character
I refer the curious reader to Vitruvius for a great number of such traditions. I have omitted several of a pleasing nature as not entering into my plan. When the Ionians raised a temple to Diana, they sought for a novel grace to adorn the columns; and as the
Doric
had been formed on the model of a man, they gave the
Ionic
the delicacy of a female's body, by making it more slender, and by the imitations noticed in the Romance. The Ionic is a medium between the massive and the delicate orders, between simplicity and richness. It is properly used in churches and religious houses, and in courts of justice, and other places of tranquillity and devotion.—See Newton's splendid edition of Vitruvius.
. It has all thy gracility; it is a model of a woman with her ornaments. The
volutes
at its head, twining in spiral lines, represent thy
locks curling
beneath thine ear: the deep indented
flutings
that run down the trunk, imitate the
folds
of thy
flowing dress:
the
base,
which winds like twisted cords, resembles thy
sandals
That eloquent enthusiast, the picturesque Saint Pierre, writes:—
"If we attentively observe, we shall see that
the
FORMS which most delight us in ART; as those of antique vases, and the PROPORTIONS of the height and breadth in monuments, have been all drawn from
the human form.
It is known that the
Ionic column,
with its
capital
and its
flutings,
was imitated from the
head-dress
and the
robe
of the Grecian
females.
"
—I refer the reader to THE PLATE prefixed to this volume, which I designed as illustrative of all these traditions.
.—But the columns opposite are richer than mine. What means that beautiful
ornament,
which looks like a rich
foliage,
branching from the top
Such is the well-known origin of the
Corinthian
order: the circumstance is elegantly described by Vitruvius.
?
It is designed for what it seems. One day, near the cave, thou didst leave a
panicr
on a young
acanthus;
the panier was covered by a
tile,
and the rich foliage of the plant grew around it; and we admired how thy basket, covered by a tile, had, as it were, become a part of the acanthus itself, forming a new and beautiful object. Examine it; it is but a copy.
Wonderful, Lycidas! but thyself, where art thou?
There
(replied the first architect, pointing to a pillar of the
Doric
order, which is formed with the proportions and strength of the body of a man; a naked simplicity rather than a finished elegance
The
Doric
was made seven times as high as thick, and copied the proportions and the beauty of a robust man. Its solidity is employed by the moderns in large and strong buildings; in the gates of cities, the exterior of churches, and wherever delicacy of ornament would be unsuitable.
), mark that
plain unadorned
column; it was the
first
I raised
The
Tuscan,
the most massive and the plainest, as it was the first of the orders. Vitruvius calls it the
rustic order;
and it ought only to be employed in country houses, or market-places, and the lower offices of palaces. Thomson did not forget these
traditional origins
of the
orders
in ARCHITECTURE; the poet evidently alludes to them in the following happy lines of a poem, so insensibly calumniated by the thoughtless, or the tasteless, criticism of Johnson:
—First, unadorned,
And nobly plain, the MANLY DORIC rose;
The IONIC then, with decent MATRON grace,
Her airy pillar heaved; LUXURIANT, last,
The rich CORINTHIAN spread her wanton wreath.
LIBERTY, Part ii. v. 38
.
; it has a rude and primitive simplicity, for one never knows how to ornament a first production. The origin of the first column was the trunk of a tree; my great difficulty, at first, was to know how high I should make it; the height of the tree was too great, so I proportioned it to my own height. Those long
arcades
were imagined from a
row of trees;
and this
dome
above us, but imitates the
vault of heaven.
Divine Artist! thou hast not explained that secret something, that silent music, which so touches and so satisfies the soul!
What thou fancifully callest a
silent music,
is the effect of a
symmetrical proportion.
In ART, no inharmonious object is agreeable; all must be balanced. The height must be proportioned to the breadth; the relative parts of a work are measured by the whole, and the whole must be consonant to the parts. Such, Amaryllis, are the
concords
even in
marble!
This I learnt from Nature, for it is exhibited in the
human form;
there we trace an affinity between the soot, the hand, the finger, and all its parts: in every perfect work each individual member should enable us to judge of the magnitude of the work itself. It is thy tapering arms, winding like tendrils round my neck; thy two soul-dissolving eyes; and the regular graces of thy well-proportioned form, that enchant. From NATURE and from THEE, I learnt the gradual charm of UNITY in PROPORTION, and UNIFORMITY in VARIETY.
Such was the origin of THE ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE!
It was now spring; the earth was mantled by a verdure, that vested her rather with beauty than with warmth. The echo, seldom awakened in the cold season, returned to delight the ear of Amaryllis.
Lycidas had united to the modulation of instrumental, the charm of vocal music. But hitherto they were spontaneous and casual expressions of passion, without measure or design; and, like the origin of human language, little more than natural ejaculations of the heart. Of late they had taken a new form, something they had of ART, and they became POETRY. He perceived that Amaryllis felt an ecstasy of pleasure, when in the snowy season, reclined by the social blaze, he brought to her recollection the scenery of summer. The ideas of the sun, the shades, and the waters, delighted her in the winter; it was the cherished picture of Nature in her absence; and she felt the same pleasure in the vivid description, as when she contemplated the portrait of Lycidas on their separation. She called these descriptions
painting in thought.
Lycidas gradually discovered that his
chaunt
was susceptible of
order,
and that it communicated a pleasurable sensation when it solicited the ear by certain
pauses
and
cadences;
this produced
metre,
or BLANKVERSE. They were exquisitely gratified when they found the art of describing one object by another, as Amaryllis termed it; and this opened an eternal source of
metaphors
and
images.
Yet to this rude, though not unpleasing poetry, was still wanting a peculiar charm; that artifice which at once combines the pleasing returns of UNIFORMITY with the diversifications of VARIETY.
This appeared when Amaryllis one day, listening to the ECHO, inquired of Lycidas,—What is this mysterious flight that my voice takes? What is ECHO?—It is (said Lycidas)
the mirror of the voice!
—Then it is not (she continued) the voice itself? The liquid glass that reflects our forms is not a part of our forms!—Be not over-curious, Amaryllis; for thee it is sufficient to sport with the mimic sound.
I cannot invent an echo;
the gods preserve their own secrets.
The playful echo ever dclights me (said Amaryllis); but when I call on thee, and thou hearest me not, then, in cruel mockery, when I say Lycidas, Lycidas! it only replies,
das, das!
Thou seest the echo is irrational; for it never answers but by
the last syllable.
Ye gods! (exclaimed the enthusiastic Lycidas) thou lovest the repeating accent of the echo.
I can invent an echo!
I will close my verses with a reverberating sound. Every line was now answered by
an echoing line.
Such was the origin of RHIME
An Italian poet ingeniously conceived this idea:—
Tu sai pur, che l'imagin della voce,
Che risponde da i sassi, ov' ECHO alberga,
Fu inventrice delle prime RIME.
L'API del RUCELLAI.
!
It was in the luxuriance of summer that Amaryllis perceived her abode had still some wants. This spot, selected by Lycidas for its amenity and the forest trees, was not stored with rural luxuries. Lycidas passed many hours in returning to their ancient cavern for its neighbouring fruits. Every day he toiled beneath a panier filled with the Arcadian food; but whenever he neglected to bring a copious lap of the freshest flowers, Amaryllis tenderly chided him: and oft with a sigh complained to Lycidas, that their trees were without fruit, and their soil without flowers.
She had lamented so frequently that he never brought sufficient roses and hyacinths, that one day, having found a rose-tree whose roots had been loosened in the soil, he easily extracted it, and threw it at the feet of Amaryllis. She exclaimed:—Beauteous family of flowers, ye will all perish at once! For your violated and tender society, severed from your natal spots, pine in a foreign air; while ye yield your soothing odours, no maternal earth will supply you with new sources of existence; every breath of air ye fill with sweetness, and in every breath ye are dying: prodigal of your cherished existence, a tender regret disturbs us in the moment of pleasure. Lycidas, I will bury them in the sod that covers the lamb we buried last week.
She made a cavity in the earth, in which she deposited the rose-tree. The
transplanted
roses struck their roots in the soil; the bush flourished to their wondering eye, and graced their habitation with its solitary beauty. Another discovery! more roses and more hyacinths! Every pleasing plant they met in their walks became domiciliated; they passed hours in herbalising; and in the succeeding summer the forest air was sweetened with new odours, and a FLOWER-GARDEN embellished their solitude
Transplantation,
so natural an idea in an age of culture, appears not to occur to the minds of those who have made little progress in the agricultural art. The following anecdote seems to confirm this observation:—Niebuhr tells us, in his Travels through Arabia, that
"Mr. Forskal often visited the Kiaja, and
persuaded
him
to form a garden
for plants near his house, and to bring, from the interior parts of the country, the shrub which produces the balm of Mecca. The Arabs looked upon this
as a very happy thought;
and the more so, because the balm is not to be obtained pure at Jidda."
Vol. i. p. 229.
.
But to have thus accidentally discovered the arts of
planting
and
transplanting,
was not sufficient for the propagation of their trees. Their
horticulture
was still imperfect. They perceived, with equal disappointment and surprise, that the vines most luxuriant in leaves, were barren; while others, of thinner foliage, were prodigal of fruit. Amaryllis wondered, and Lycidas reflected. He observed that the vine, yielding the most abundant fruit, was one which a favourite goat was allowed to browze. He observed; he meditated; he stole the hint. He lopped the branches of the vines. And it was the GOAT who first shewed to MAN the ART OF PRUNING.
The procuring of wild honey from the cavities of old trees and the clefts of rocks, was often an uncertain pursuit and an insufficient resource. Another inquietude, another want, another invention!
They watched a little populace of soraging bees busy on their ambrosial repast, spoiling the farina of flowers or pressing the tops of the stamina, and thus anticipating the cautious oeconomy of Nature. The amusing sound! when they plunge their little velvet heads in the calix of a flower, and pierce through the resisting petal, while the sudden silence expresses the ardent pillage. Did they track the vagrants to their waxen tower? There, a new idea of SOCIETY gave a sublime emotion to our two solitaries. They traced order in a multitude; they viewed a city and its inhabitants; and, with a delicious joy, Amaryllis discovered the queenbee. She exclaimed, in contemplating their symmetrical, solid, and convenient cells; those finely planned edifices for thousands of the living,—Lycidas, thou must acknowledge the
architecture
of the little bees is more wonderful than thine.—It is more perfect (replied Lycidas); for these fabrics are just adapted to their inmates, while in our palace there are a hundred things to add and to amend.
They instructed themselves in the HUMAN PASSIONS (of which they were strangers to many) in meditating on this society. Innumerable offices of affection penetrated their hearts with the sensibility of humanity.
Lycidas having observed that the bees were ever settling on aromatic plants, on the thyme, the rosemary, the sage, and rested long on the flowers of the lime, he planted, on the southern steep of his valley, numerous beds of balmy flowers, and odoriferous herbs.—Want (said Lycidas), and not caprice, urges their restless flight; they are not volatile, but diligent. I can afford the wanderers a resting spot; perhaps they may make it a home; and we will interchange our mutual industry.
What he imagined, succeeded. The explorers of sweets soon discovered the new world; the aromatic land inspired a thousand adventurers, who, constant to pleasure, knew no other native spot, than where pleasure was found. The queen followed the colony; they then built their cells, and peopled, with dark clusters, the pendent boughs. The voice of the bee was musical beneath the solitary heaven of our lovers. Such was the origin of an APIARY, or BEE GARDEN
M. Saint Pierre has given a hint how an
aviary
might have been formed. It is in his delightful Paul and Virginia, where Paul brings to the spot most pleasing to Virginia, from the neighbouring forests, the
nests
of all kinds of
birds.
The fathers and mothers of these birds followed their little ones, and established themselves in this new colony.
!
They had now much advanced in the art of painting; but as they only employed their pencils from a spirit of gaiety, and a passion for decoration, the sublime inventions of the art were not yet conceived; the ideal was unknown, but the exactest imitation was practised. They knew well to copy the purple bloom of the fruit as it hung on the tree, and the brilliant tint of the flower, as it caught the sunbeam on its native stalk. They had mutually attempted to paint their own portraits; but the progress of such an elaborate piece had ever been interrupted by the tedious labour of the unskilled artist and the restlessness of the lively model. With more success they copied animals and insects. But LOVE had inspired Lycidas to adorn the corner of the apartment occupied by Amaryllis. There he continually sketched the thousand capricious images dancing in his brain. The curious wall was gradually covered with fantastic forms, and exhibited a constant spectacle of fancy. Now the bower of Amaryllis was there elegantly festooned, and the tendrils of vines were happily flourished by a stroke of the pencil; now, as his humour prompted, the fibres of the leaves were transparently laboured, while, on a delicate stem, hung the finished petal of an unfinished flower: sometimes he copied a silken white fillet, with which Amaryllis circled her headdress, binding it with scarlet flowers, glowing in the midst of their green leaves; sometimes he laboriously finished chimerical figures, which partly resembled human forms, but frequently terminated in that of some animal, or wore some ridiculous disproportion, provoking laughter; and sometimes the face of the volatile Amaryllis ending with the plumage of a bird, or the mottled wings of a butterfly. It was now a torrent foaming on rocks, and now a rivulet shaded with elms, whose silvery line was poured through the transparent umbrage. Every object they admired in their walks, on his return was sketched or finished on the wall. 'Twas now a tree, a prospect, or the clouds! But the Loves and the Graces often guided his deliriums of imagination, and the wall recorded the short annals of their lives, and pictured the epochas of his various inventions. There, were seen the first oversetting of the fish of wood; there himself breathing his first flute, and Amaryllis sketching his first shade. The fantastic scenery, airy or solemn, sketched or elaborate, inspired mirth, fancy, and love. Such was the origin of the playful ARABESQUES, Or GROTESQUE PAINTINGS
The ARABESQUES, in a
boudoir
of RAPHAEL, where he passed his delicious hours with his favourite mistress
Fornarina,
gave the hint of
this incident.
He covered the wall with a number of little genii, gamboling and frisking on stalks, tendrils, twigs, and flourishes, all marked by strong gesticulations: there is also an allegorical picture emblematic of the violence of the passions, and to the Passions Raphael became an enchanting victim. The bust of his mistress is repeated several times among these fond and sportive recreations of the painter of ideal beauty. In Newton's splendid edition of Vitruvius the curious reader will find the sentiments of the ancient architect on grotesque paintings.—See p. 163. It may be useful to inform some readers, that
grotesques
are ornaments of mere caprice, variegated with figures of animals, foliage, flowers, and chimerical objects. They have been censured as
unnatural;
it is, however, easy to conceive how happily they can be arranged by a fine taste and a rich fancy. There are some beautiful ones among the engravings of the Herculaneum.
.
Around their house was an ornamented scenery; but as they sometimes bewildered themselves in the neighbouring valleys, or were desirous of indicating some particular spot, they invented LOCAL NAMES, which were derived from some circumstance. One place was distinguished by
the Kiss;
and another, where Amaryllis, in eluding Lycidas, as he chaced the laughing fugitive, tumbled down the hill, was called
the Fall;
a fine walk near the lake, through hedges of the arbutus, was known by the name of
the Strawberry Walk;
and a valley, luxuriant in flowers, by the title of
the Summer Seat.
There was a favourite spot called
the Ruins of May.
One morning in that month Amaryllis lay there asleep; Lycidas passed, and observed the indolent maid. He hastened to the hedges, which were then in full flower, and despoiled them; and having gathered a panier full of May blossoms, he quietly covered the sleeping beauty with their fragrant snows. She awoke in a cloud of steaming odours, while her pleasure-twinkling eye wondered at the flowery vest that covered her. Chiding her playful lover for this waste of the young year, the fact was recorded in the name given to the place, thence called "
The Ruins of May.
" A similar origin is that of most LOCAL NAMES.
What now remained to perfect the felicity of our two solitaries? Their earth was tinted with brilliant flowers; their trees bowed their branches with delicious fruit; their air was musical with the volant bee; they glided on the river with a happy audacity; the melodies of the nightingale were in their flutes; the consolation of absence was found in the pictured form, and the gaiety of a playful pencil embodied their fantastic imaginations; the charm of an artificial echo resounded in their verses, while they traced in their palace the columns which memorised their affections. The enchanting miraclcs of ART long fascinated their eye, vibrating in their hearts the tranquil emotions of beauty; while the innocent voluptuousness which Nature threw around them, solicited their enjoyment. Often they now turned from the productions of Nature and of Art, to gaze on each other: an interior sensation, an unknown desire, a querulous anxiety, existed in their hearts, and every day their felicity was diminished.
One day, as they sat beside an expansive lake, they beheld TWO SWANS sailing on the stream; images of majesty, of grace, and of peace! Our lovers reclined, admiring each form of elegance, and the luminous whiteness of their plumage, and all the variety and freedom of their animated attitudes. The male was intent to attract the admiration of the female; anxious to discover the concealed graces of his beauty, yet anxious with pride. He arranges his splendid plumage; he throws the trailing water from his beak along his shining back and over his freshened wings with the fond solicitude of that being who knows the pleasure of being loved. All his figure respires voluptuousness. He approaches her; he flaps his pinions, and the feathery snow sparkles. With a preluding caress, they wind their sinuous necks around each other; their wings yield a confused sound, and some white feathers fall on the disturbed lake. A continued embrace unites them. They pursue each interchange of delight; they feel all the shades of sensibility, and faint in the ebriety of the senses. At length the male is no more majestic; he is only tender, and lies indolently along the trembling waters. Again the female returns to her lover; again inflames him; again incites his last ardours; and only quits him, reluctantly, but to plunge into the stream, and to extinguish the fires that still glow in her agitated form
Buffon's sublime description of the CAMEL journeying through the desert, has been distinguished by the eulogium of Gibbon. His description of the SWAN may deserve an equal, though a different applause. It abounds with the rich and voluptuous poetry of a philosophic imagination; always exact, yet always beautiful.
.
When the LOVERS had gazed on the affectionate SWANS, they turned to each other, and sighed. Lycidas snatched some feathers of the swans as they floated by them, and kissed them.—How they know (he cries) to love, and to render their love the source of their felicity! O, Amaryllis! why is not the sense of our existence the sense of our happiness! Shall we become old without having known enjoyment?
Children of Nature! the universal parent prepares for ye the maturity of happiness! she gives ye the soft pains ye now suffer, to render the fine pleasures she will bestow on ye, more exquisite and pure. It is only in a corrupt society curiosity anticipates passion; the energy of passion irritates your senses, but ye do not irritate your senses to obtain the energy of passion. SOULS OF CHASTITY! when YE meet ye know yourselves WORTHY OF EACH OTHER; your FIRST EMBRACE is the prelude of ETERNAL CONFIDENCE, and your VOLUPTUOUSNESS is in proportion to your VIRTUE!
THE END.
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