CHAPTER 1
The Earliest Records

A LITTLE over fifty years ago, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the great majority of Chinese students of literature would have traced the earliest development of China's literary tradition back to the middle of the third millennium before Christ. They would have accepted an extensive array of supposedly early prose and poetry which, upon critical examination, was oftentimes but a projection of the imaginative minds of later ages into the remote past. When Herbert A. Giles, Professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge, wrote in 1901 the first systematic history of Chinese literature to be published "in any language, including Chinese," he decided boldly but wisely to brush aside China's high antiquity with a very brief summary, and begin his narrative with Confucius. Writing at about the same time, Professor Wilhelm Grube of Berlin, whose Geschichte der Chinesischen Literatur was published in 1902, approached the subject with the same cautiousness, and, venturing into what he called pre-Confucian literature, dared to tread warily only as far back as Kuan Chung who had died in 645 B.C., scarcely more than a century before the birth of the Chinese sage in 551 B.C. These, and other scholars of kindred mind, knew enough to realize that, to put it mildly, few literary documents before Confucius were even approximately datable.

Benefiting from the critical scholarship of the last several decades, and especially from the fruits of archaeological excavations, we have access today to thousands of original written records actually produced between 1400 B.C. and 1100 B.C. If these records, incised on bones and tortoise shells, like the records on bronzes of that period, have preserved for us no soul-stirring literary gems from antiquity, they have at least confronted us with a valuable body of authentic specimens from an early phase in the development of China's written language. The discovery of these records, an intriguing tale in itself, deserves at least a brief review.

The inscribed bones and tortoise shells were first discovered, quite accidentally, in 1899, slightly over two miles northwest of the walled city of the district seat of Anyang in Honan Province on the North China plains. There stood the insignificant, sleepy little village of Hsiaotun with the Huan River skirting quietly northeast of it. According to historic records, however, this village had not always been insignificant, for, according to SsŬ-ma Ch'ien (145-after 86 B.C.), "the Herodotus of China," it was the location where the famous General Hsiang Yü (323-202 B.C.) met one of his subordinates in 207 B.C. in order to converge their troops for a concerted attack on their adversaries. Under another name, probably erroneously given, the village had been noted in the prefecture or county gazetteer as the area of the wastes of an ancient city, and was also described in an illustrated guide to archaeological objects, K'ao Ku T'u ( 1092), as a locale where antique vessels had often been brought to light.

Nonetheless, nothing consequential had happened here until 1900, when bones and shells from this area found their way finally to Peking, the imperial capital. Previously, cotton planters had dug up bits of bones and shells from time to time while working in the fields, and had sold them to apothecaries as "dragon bones"--something of a panacea, and especially efficacious in curing rheumatism. But more than a thousand pieces of these bones were brought to the old cultural center in the spring of 1900 by two dealers. Immediately the interest of many antiquarians, Chinese and foreign, was aroused. Among Chinese collectors, the most notable was Liu Ê, who, by 1902, had assembled as many as five thousand pieces for his private collection. Thenceforth, as attractive prices were offered for these peculiar finds bearing inscriptions in Chinese characters over three thousand years old, the supply was increased as a result of more feverish digging by local farmers. Counterfeits--often consisting of genuine old bones with newly forged inscriptions--also found credulous buyers, especially when they were inserted in groups of authentic pieces.

These curious finds were gradually sent abroad to form collections in foreign countries--in Britain and the United States, in France and Germany, in Russia and Japan. Despite the avidity of the buyers and collectors, the origin of these artifacts remained a secret until 1903. From that time on, however, the Huan riverbanks near Anyang were frequented by antiquarians, Chinese and foreign, and the annual yield of archaeological bones and shells was increased. In 1914 alone as many as fifty thousand pieces were unearthed. The famine of 1920 and the failure of crops in 1928 resulting from civil war, lured farmers away from their agricultural labor to look for more bones and shells for a livelihood.

It was this this of unscientific and often destructive digging which aroused the attention of the newly organized Academia Sinica and sent it to the field to undertake systematic excavations. Between 1928 and 1937, when the work was interrupted by the SinoJapanese War, there were no less than fifteen excavations under the auspices of the Academia Sinica.

These excavations, though sadly cut short by international disruptions, have completely revolutionized our concept of early Chinese culture and society. The artifacts brought to light were so numerous and divergent in nature that even a brief summary cannot be attempted here. Of the inscribed records alone, the Academia Sinica has unearthed no fewer than twenty-three thousand bone and shell examples and over three hundred tortoise shells of unusually large size.

These shells and bones, often referred to as "oracle bones," contain the records of divinations performed at the royal capital in China over three thousand years ago. When direction was needed from the deities or the departed spirits of ancestors for the solution of a wide range of problems--selection of a date for the performing of a sacrificial ceremony to an ancestor, what kind of animals were to be sacrificed and how many of them; how soon it would rain or snow; whether the harvest would be plentiful; whether it would be propitious to launch a campaign, go on a hunting trip or cross a river--an elaborate religious service would be solemnized and the deities or spirits invoked. During the service, the officiating priest would use a piece of bone previously prepared, usually a scapula bone of cattle, and apply a heated stylus to a hole half-bored through the underside of the one, causing it to crack. The cracks thus produced, called chao in technical language, were then interpreted by the priest. To assure full responsibility for accuracy of interpretation, the date and the theme of the oracle consultation were later written on the bone with a fine writing brush; the characters were then incised to insure permanence, and the incisions colored in red or black to increase legibility. Sometimes the fulfillment of the oracle was also noted on the bone. In cases of grave questions, tortoise shells--usually the nether portions only--were used instead of bones.

At this point, we should make two observations on these curious oracle bones and shells. First, significant as the inscriptions are, their value is archaeological and historical rather than literary. Among the thousands of these records, there is yet to be found a single poem, a single story or anything that arouses our esthetic or emotional response. All the entries are factual and brief. Second, though these records are by far the most important specimens of ancient Chinese writing, they are not the only ones we have. For two thousand years ancient bronzes, some of which date back to the era of the oracle bones, have continually been brought to light and have engaged the attention of scholars. These bronzes often bear inscriptions in ancient Chinese characters the forms of which in the main agree with those found on the bones and tortoise shells.

These two classes of early inscriptions, then, converge to focus our attention on a basic fact in China's literary history, namely, that the written aspect of the Chinese language, with all its uniqueness, had already taken shape by 1400 B.C. and had been in use for some time. Chinese script was no longer in a primitive stage, for it had a vocabulary of approximately three thousand characters, which have been classified and tabulated in recent years, and approximately half of which have been deciphered and identified with their modern forms. If it is reasonable to assume that there are many other written records still buried underground and that many words (characters) in actual use at that time had failed to find their way into inscriptions, it seems possible that by 1400 B.C. there might have been as many as five thousand characters in the written language of China.

Before we pause briefly to examine the salient characteristics of this ancient system of writing, and the archaic spoken language of which these characters were but the written symbols, it is appropriate to call attention to a problem of China's early literary history which probably will never be solved. Faced as we are with these numerous bits of writing in which a sizable vocabulary was used, and with other artifacts excavated from the same site, including artistic bronzes as well as exquisite ivory figurines, tokens of a high level of social refinement, it seems probable that contemporary with these objects, and with the buildings which we now see only in ruins, there must have been beautiful songs sung, touching prayers said, and interesting stories told. Might these not have been committed to writing on some material more perishable than bones, shells, and bronzes and therefore irrevocably lost to posterity? Admiring the artistry of the inscriptions on these bones and noting the great certainty and delicacy of the incised lines, along with the freshness of the red ink so skillfully painted into the grooves with fine writing brushes, we can feel almost sure that a total absence of literary activities in those days would be difficult to fit into the picture. And yet, unless the spades of the archaeologists yield us new finds of an unexpected kind, we must continue to bear the tantalizing silence of the millenniums that separate us from the creative youth of ancient Anyang.

Further speculations being idle and likely to provoke resentment from the scholarly-minded, let us return to the more tangible though prosaic subject of the literary tool.

As the peculiar character of this early language was to exert an unmistakable influence upon the development of Chinese literature --especially on prosody and the evolution of literary genres--it is appropriate that we take note of a few of its fundamental traits.

Beginning with the written aspect of the Chinese language, we should note that first of all Chinese writing was, as it still is, ideogrammic rather than phonographic. In other words the units of the Chinese script, commonly referred to as "characters," instead of spelling out the sounds of words which they represent, seek to convey their meanings by means of picture writing. Thus, when the character for tortoise, fish, sheep, swine, or cattle was written in 1400 B.C. it took one of several conventionalized forms as shown in Figure 1. It will be seen that the Chinese script appeals to the eye rather than to the ear, and that the written word in Chinese is more detached from pronunciation than in any of the Indo-European languages. Thus, in a European language the spelling of a word changes usually with the change of its pronunciation, whereas in Chinese, the character remains the same, making it possible for the latter to serve as a common symbol to several people who may each speak a different dialect, as well as to people separated by centuries during which time the spoken language may have undergone multiple changes in pronunciation.

As the Chinese written language is nonphonographic, so is it nonalphabetic. When a new word is invented, the task involved in the creation of a character is to represent the object, the idea, the action, the relationship, or whatever the content of the new word happens to be, and not the recording of its sound by means of an assemblage of letters in an alphabet. To one accustomed to a written language like English, the question at once arises: how can pictograms like these suffice beyond the elementary stage of saying "tortoise" and "fish," "sheep" and "cattle"? And if new words are needed, how are the characters "coined"? As Professor Bernhard Karlgren of Sweden has pointed out, "this pure picture writing, which is not a unique invention of the Chinese, but which has its parallels in various other ancient languages, could not suffice for very long."

Despite the absence of a formalized alphabet, the solution that naturally suggested itself to the early Chinese was the combination of two or more of these simple pictograms to form a new graph (see Figure 2 ). Thus sty was compounded from enclosure and pig, and corral from fence and cow. Similarly, to burn was made up of trees or grass and fire; to bark, of dog and mouth; and snow, of rain and two hands, i.e., that kind of rain which could be picked up by hand. Or sometimes the same graph was written in duplicate to form a new character: follow consisting of two men, one following the other; together consisting of two men standing in a row; forest consisting of two pictures of a tree, suggesting the plurality of trees; and silk consisting of two skeins.

Most of these early elemental characters had no indication of pronunciation, but it is not to be inferred too readily that phonetic considerations did not play an important role in the forming of new characters or that the ancient Chinese were not in search of economy in their use of language. This economy, or laziness, expressed itself for a time in "borrowing" instead of inventing a graph. In other words, the practice was followed of using one graph, not for its pictorial or ideogrammic value but for its sound, to indicate a word pronounced like the graph but having a different meaning. The practice is analogous to writing "to" for "two" in English. In ancient Chinese, as in modern English, there were homonyms, words that sounded identical but had different meanings, such as to, two, and too; and right, write, rite, and wright. Homonyms were understandably more numerous in Chinese, as Chinese characters were all monosyllabic--one syllable for each character--and without the advantage of polysyllabic combinations.

If the phenomenon of "loan" words sounds perplexing, we shall make it clear with a few examples (see Figure 3 ). The idea of negation was one not too easy to represent in a graph, but it happened that the ancient Chinese word for not sounded like the word for a flower receptacle, and so the lazy way suggested itself of using the graph for receptacle to stand for the word not. This was adopted by the small reading and writing public, for few would misread the sentence "I don't know him" for "I receptacle know him," as the English sentence "I don't no him" probably would convey the desired meaning despite the substitution of one homonym, no for the other, know. Similarly, the word come is hard to represent in a graph and so the graph for its homonym in oral archaic Chinese, barley, was borrowed as the written symbol for come, and people were satisfied, because the sentence written in characters, "Here I come," was almost never misinterpreted to mean "Here I barley." Again, the idea of "to" or "toward" was abstract and hard to denote, and so the graph for its homonym, a wind instrument made of bamboo or sometimes of crockery, became the borrowed form for the preposition. For the same reason, a graph meaning "basket" was borrowed for the pronominal adjective "his"; and the graph for "fur," borrowed for its homonym meaning "to beg," or "to solicit," or "to look for."

Such loans as these, however, were good and clever only if the originals were rarely used and if ambiguity could be ruled out by the context. If they were made in large numbers and without discrimination, the result would necessarily be hopeless uncertainty and endless confusion. Even such a phrase as "looking for his fur in his basket" might be baffling enough, and so this procedure was early modified in favor of a new method of character creation.

The method of combining two or more extant graphs to form a new one was utilized again but with some modification. Instead of drawing upon each of the component graphs for meaning in forming the new symbol (such as combining trees and fire to suggest burn), the new formula utilized a homonym in current use as a pronunciation indicator and one or more component graphs to suggest the general meaning. The word for grease or fat (lard), for example, was an exact homonym of the word for high whose graph was a picture of a tower or tall building (See Figure 4 ). If the loaning principle had been followed, the pictogram of the tower would have meant sometimes "high," sometimes "grease," to be determined by context. But this would create unusual confusion since both high and grease were words of daily use. So, instead of the lazier solution of using one form of the "tower" pictogram as a loan symbol for grease or lard, and instead of the more strenuous attempt to picture a pan of grease or a lump of lard, a compromise was reached by utilizing the symbol and adding onto it another graph meaning meat, the picture of a cut of meat, to indicate it was the word kâu related to meat and not the word kâu meaning "high."

This method of piecing old characters together to form new ones, registering sound by one component part (the phonetic) and suggesting meaning by another (the signific), was already in use in the age of the oracle bones and tortoise shells and came to be the chief formula for creating new characters in the Chinese language in subsequent centuries. It is no exaggeration to say that seven characters out of ten in current use are of this category--phono-ideograms.

Efforts at greater refinement and simplicity were made all the time, of course, and local variations were necessarily numerous, but no drastic deviations were observable to upset the tradition already established in the fourteenth century before Christ. We can not speak with any certainty about the development of the script prior to this period. It makes good sense to assume, however, that an extensive number of graphs, running up to the thousands, could not have been accumulated in a short period, and that the conventionali- zation of written symbols, removing them gradually from the primitive picture-writing stage--a trait already well developed at the time of the bronze and bone inscriptions--could only have been the result of a long process of slow evolution.

If the Chinese script has had a long history, the beginnings of the spoken Chinese tongue go back even further into antiquity. In fact, linguistic researches of the last few decades have attempted to steer the time machine backwards not only to look at proto-Chinese itself --the most ancient stage of the language--but also to discover the parent stock from which proto-Chinese was descended. This sounds extremely ambitious, but thanks to the solid contributions of comparative philology and historical phonology, the hypotheses advanced seem to rest on fairly sound foundations. The scroll unrolled thus far is, to be sure, as yet far from being complete, interrupted, as it is, by gaps here and beclouded with uncertainties there. And yet it is profoundly true that, by and large, the student of Chinese in the middle of the twentieth century knows more of how Confucius spoke around 500 B.C. than did many preceding generations of scholars.

Related to Tibetan, and in a less intimate way also to Thai and Burmese as well as to a number of dialects in central and southeastern Asia, Chinese is, by virtue of the large number of its modern speakers and the bulk and quality of its literary records, decidedly the most important member of the Sinitic (or Sino-Tibetan) family of languages. Regarding the parent language from which these languages and dialects have descended, very little is as yet known, except that it was spoken sometime in the remote past before Chinese and Tibetan had acquired sufficient characteristics of their own to become separate languages. It has been suggested hypothetically, that this parting of the ways probably took place during the third millennium before Christ.

For our present purpose, we need to concern ourselves only with a later phase of the development of the language, namely, archaic Chinese. Though it sounds antique, archaic Chinese is not too remote to be of interest to the modern student, for it has many features which have been preserved in the living language spoken and especially written by Chinese of the twentieth century. Before we go any further, it may be well for us to note specifically what archaic Chinese is. To give a brief answer to a complicated question, archaic Chinese is the label given to that period of the Chinese linguistic development the reconstruction of which has been made on the basis of Chinese literary documents produced between 1000 B.C. and 700 B.C. As there are no evidences of abrupt changes in the language either immediately before or after these dates, it is also extended to cover the age of the oracle bones on the one hand, and the language of Confucius, Mencius, and their contemporaries, down to about 200 B.C. on the other.

One basic fact of which we are certain regarding archaic Chinese in its sound aspect is that all the written graphs, almost without exception, were monosyllabic and isolating. In other words, archaic Chinese was a language in which nearly all the roots of the words were monosyllabic, and inflectional changes were not only reduced to the minimum, but also usually indicated by other ways than the addition of one or more syllables. In case such an addition was deemed imperative, the added syllable was treated as a separate word rather than the ending of the word to which it was affixed. A few simple illustrations will make these points clear. In English, such words as summer, winter, flower, and beauty are two-syllable units which cannot be split or shortened. In archaic Chinese they are all monosyllabic: hia, tuong, hua, and mjwi respectively. Moreover, each of the four English words may be prolonged by one syllable to serve different functions: summery, winterer, flowering, and beautiful, etc. In archaic Chinese, the four stem-words would remain intact. A change from one part of speech to another would be indicated by the position of the word with reference to the context. The continuous process implied by flowering and the idea of the agent in winterer would each be indicated by an additional but separate character.

This preponderant monosyllabism of archaic Chinese could not help but produce an embarrassing result--the large numbers of homonyms, that is, words having the same pronunciation but different meanings. Moreover, with the simplification of pronunciation, the number of homonyms increased. Many syllables that had been distinguishable at an earlier period merged into identical sounds. Though this process was not accelerated until after the third century before Christ, there are suggestions that it was already in operation during the archaic period.

To keep the situation under control, two remedies were employed. One was to vary the length of the syllable to differentiate between the meanings of a pair of homonyms. Thus the verb to invade in its active voice was pronounced quickly bjiwat, but in its passive voice, to be invaded, was prolonged, bjiwāt, although in both cases it was pronounced as one syllable. Fortunately, this remedy was early discovered to be of no great assistance, since the comparative length of a syllable was something hard to standardize; confusion arose either immediately before or after these dates, it is also extended to cover the age of the oracle bones on the one hand, and the language of Confucius, Mencius, and their contemporaries, down to about 200 B.C. on the other.

One basic fact of which we are certain regarding archaic Chinese in its sound aspect is that all the written graphs, almost without exception, were monosyllabic and isolating. In other words, archaic Chinese was a language in which nearly all the roots of the words were monosyllabic, and inflectional changes were not only reduced to the minimum, but also usually indicated by other ways than the addition of one or more syllables. In case such an addition was deemed imperative, the added syllable was treated as a separate word rather than the ending of the word to which it was affixed. A few simple illustrations will make these points clear. In English, such words as summer, winter, flower, and beauty are two-syllable units which cannot be split or shortened. In archaic Chinese they are all monosyllabic: hia, tuong, hua, and mjwi respectively. Moreover, each of the four English words may be prolonged by one syllable to serve different functions: summery, winterer, flowering, and beautiful, etc. In archaic Chinese, the four stem-words would remain intact. A change from one part of speech to another would be indicated by the position of the word with reference to the context. The continuous process implied by flowering and the idea of the agent in winterer would each be indicated by an additional but separate character.

This preponderant monosyllabism of archaic Chinese could not help but produce an embarrassing result--the large numbers of homonyms, that is, words having the same pronunciation but different meanings. Moreover, with the simplification of pronunciation, the number of homonyms increased. Many syllables that had been distinguishable at an earlier period merged into identical sounds. Though this process was not accelerated until after the third century before Christ, there are suggestions that it was already in operation during the archaic period.

To keep the situation under control, two remedies were employed. One was to vary the length of the syllable to differentiate between the meanings of a pair of homonyms. Thus the verb to invade in its active voice was pronounced quickly bjiwat, but in its passive voice, to be invaded, was prolonged, bjiwāt, although in both cases it was pronounced as one syllable. Fortunately, this remedy was early discovered to be of no great assistance, since the comparative length of a syllable was something hard to standardize; confusion arose either immediately before or after these dates, it is also extended to cover the age of the oracle bones on the one hand, and the language of Confucius, Mencius, and their contemporaries, down to about 200 B.C. on the other.

One basic fact of which we are certain regarding archaic Chinese in its sound aspect is that all the written graphs, almost without exception, were monosyllabic and isolating. In other words, archaic Chinese was a language in which nearly all the roots of the words were monosyllabic, and inflectional changes were not only reduced to the minimum, but also usually indicated by other ways than the addition of one or more syllables. In case such an addition was deemed imperative, the added syllable was treated as a separate word rather than the ending of the word to which it was affixed. A few simple illustrations will make these points clear. In English, such words as summer, winter, flower, and beauty are two-syllable units which cannot be split or shortened. In archaic Chinese they are all monosyllabic: hia, tuong, hua, and mjwi respectively. Moreover, each of the four English words may be prolonged by one syllable to serve different functions: summery, winterer, flowering, and beautiful, etc. In archaic Chinese, the four stem-words would remain intact. A change from one part of speech to another would be indicated by the position of the word with reference to the context. The continuous process implied by flowering and the idea of the agent in winterer would each be indicated by an additional but separate character.

This preponderant monosyllabism of archaic Chinese could not help but produce an embarrassing result--the large numbers of homonyms, that is, words having the same pronunciation but different meanings. Moreover, with the simplification of pronunciation, the number of homonyms increased. Many syllables that had been distinguishable at an earlier period merged into identical sounds. Though this process was not accelerated until after the third century before Christ, there are suggestions that it was already in operation during the archaic period.

To keep the situation under control, two remedies were employed. One was to vary the length of the syllable to differentiate between the meanings of a pair of homonyms. Thus the verb to invade in its active voice was pronounced quickly bjiwat, but in its passive voice, to be invaded, was prolonged, bjiwāt, although in both cases it was pronounced as one syllable. Fortunately, this remedy was early discovered to be of no great assistance, since the comparative length of a syllable was something hard to standardize; confusion arose either immediately before or after these dates, it is also extended to cover the age of the oracle bones on the one hand, and the language of Confucius, Mencius, and their contemporaries, down to about 200 B.C. on the other.

One basic fact of which we are certain regarding archaic Chinese in its sound aspect is that all the written graphs, almost without exception, were monosyllabic and isolating. In other words, archaic Chinese was a language in which nearly all the roots of the words were monosyllabic, and inflectional changes were not only reduced to the minimum, but also usually indicated by other ways than the addition of one or more syllables. In case such an addition was deemed imperative, the added syllable was treated as a separate word rather than the ending of the word to which it was affixed. A few simple illustrations will make these points clear. In English, such words as summer, winter, flower, and beauty are two-syllable units which cannot be split or shortened. In archaic Chinese they are all monosyllabic: hia, tuong, hua, and mjwi respectively. Moreover, each of the four English words may be prolonged by one syllable to serve different functions: summery, winterer, flowering, and beautiful, etc. In archaic Chinese, the four stem-words would remain intact. A change from one part of speech to another would be indicated by the position of the word with reference to the context. The continuous process implied by flowering and the idea of the agent in winterer would each be indicated by an additional but separate character.

This preponderant monosyllabism of archaic Chinese could not help but produce an embarrassing result--the large numbers of homonyms, that is, words having the same pronunciation but different meanings. Moreover, with the simplification of pronunciation, the number of homonyms increased. Many syllables that had been distinguishable at an earlier period merged into identical sounds. Though this process was not accelerated until after the third century before Christ, there are suggestions that it was already in operation during the archaic period.

To keep the situation under control, two remedies were employed. One was to vary the length of the syllable to differentiate between the meanings of a pair of homonyms. Thus the verb to invade in its active voice was pronounced quickly bjiwat, but in its passive voice, to be invaded, was prolonged, bjiwāt, although in both cases it was pronounced as one syllable. Fortunately, this remedy was early discovered to be of no great assistance, since the comparative length of a syllable was something hard to standardize; confusion arose.

PERSIAN LITERATURE.

1. The Persian language and its Divisions.--2. Zendic Literature; The
Zendavesta.--3. Pehlvi and Parsee Literatures.--4. The Ancient Religion of
Persia; Zoroaster.--5. Modern Literature.--6. The Sufis.--7. Persian
Poetry.--8. Persian Poets; Ferdasi; Essedi of Tus; Togray, etc.--9.
History and Philosophy.--10. Education in Persia.


1. THE PERSIAN LANGUAGE AND ITS DIVISIONS.--The Persian language and its
varieties, as far as they are known, belong to the great Indo-European
family, and this common origin explains the affinities that exist between
them and those of the ancient and modern languages of Europe. During
successive ages, four idioms have prevailed in Persia, and Persian
literature may be divided into four corresponding periods.

First. The period of the Zend (living), the most ancient of the Persian
languages; it was from a remote, unknown age spoken in Media, Bactria, and
in the northern part of Persia. This language partakes of the character
both of the Sanskrit and of the Chaldaic. It is written from right to
left, and it possesses, in its grammatical construction and its radical
words, many elements in common with the Sanskrit and the German languages.

Second. The period of the Pehlvi, or language of heroes, anciently spoken
in the western part of the country. Its alphabet is closely allied with
the Zendic, to which it bears a great resemblance. It attained a high
degree of perfection under the Parthian kings, 246 B.C. to 229 A.D.

Third. The period of the Parsee or the dialect of the southwestern part of
the country. It reached its perfection under the dynasty of the
Sassanides, 229-636 A.D. It has great analogy with the Zend, Pehlvi, and
Sanskrit, and is endowed with peculiar grace and sweetness.

Fourth. The period of the modern Persian. After the conquest of Persia,
and the introduction of the Mohammedan faith in the seventh century A.D.,
the ancient Parsee language became greatly modified by the Arabic. It
adopted its alphabet, adding to it, however, four letters and three
points, and borrowed from it not only words but whole phrases, and thus
from the union of the Parsee and the Arabic was formed the modern Persian.
Of its various dialects, the Deri is the language of the court and of
literature.

2. ZENDIC LITERATURE.--To the first period belong the ancient sacred books
of Persia, collected under the name of _Zendavesta_ (living word), which
contain the doctrines of Zoroaster, the prophet and lawgiver of ancient
Persia. The Zendavesta is divided into two parts, one written in Zend, the
other in Pehlvi; it contains traditions relating to the primitive
condition and colonization of Persia, moral precepts, theological dogmas,
prayers, and astronomical observations. The collection originally
consisted of twenty-one chapters or treatises, of which only three have
been preserved. Besides the Zendavesta there are two other sacred books,
one containing prayers and hymns, and the other prayers to the Genii who
preside over the days of the month. To this first period some writers
refer the fables of Lokman, who is supposed to have lived in the tenth
century B.C., and to have been a slave of Ethiopic origin; his apologues
have been considered the model on which Greek fable was constructed. The
work of Lokman, however, existing now only in the Arabic language, is
believed by other writers to be of Arabic origin. It has been translated
into the European languages, and is still read in the Persian schools.
Among the Zendic books preserved in Arabic translations may also be
mentioned the "Giavidan Kird," or the Eternal Reason, the work of Hushang,
an ancient priest of Persia, a book full of beautiful and sublime maxims.

3. PEHLVI AHD PARSEE LITERATURES.--The second period of Persian literature
includes all the books written in Pehlvic, and especially all the
translations and paraphrases of the works of the first period. There are
also in this language a manual of the religion of Zoroaster, dictionaries
of Pehlvi explained by the Parsee, inscriptions, and legends.

When the seat of the Persian empire was transferred to the southern states
under the Sassanides, the Pehlvi gave way to the Parsee, which became the
prevailing language of Persia in the third period of its literature. The
sacred books were translated into this tongue, in which many records,
annals, and treatises on astronomy and medicine were also written. But all
these monuments of Persian literature were destroyed by the conquest of
Alexander the Great, and by the fury of the Mongols and Arabs. This
language, however, has been immortalized by Ferdusi, whose poems contain
little of that admixture of Arabic which characterizes the writings of the
modern poets of Persia.

4. THE ANCIENT RELIGION OF PERSIA.--The ancient literature of Persia is
mainly the exposition of its religion. Persia, Media, and Bactria
acknowledged as their first religious prophet Honover, or Hom, symbolized
in the star Sirius, and himself the symbol of the first eternal word, and
of the tree of knowledge. In the numberless astronomical and mystic
personifications under which Hom was represented, his individuality was
lost, and little is known of his history or of his doctrines. It appears,
however, that he was the founder of the magi (priests), the conservators
and teachers of his doctrine, who formed a particular order, like that of
the Levites of Israel and of the Chaldeans of Assyria. They did not
constitute a hereditary caste like the Brahmins of India, but they were
chosen from among the people. They claimed to foretell future events. They
worshiped fire and the stars, and believed in two principles of good and
evil, of which light and darkness were the symbols.

Zoroaster, one of these magi, who probably lived in the eighth century
B.C., undertook to elevate and reform this religion, which had then fallen
from its primitive purity. Availing himself of the doctrines of the
Chaldeans and of the Hebrews, Zoroaster, endowed by nature with
extraordinary powers, sustained by popular enthusiasm, and aided by the
favor of powerful princes, extended his reform throughout the country, and
founded a new religion on the ancient worship. According to this religion
the two great principles of the world were represented by Ormuzd and
Ahriman, both born from eternity, and both contending for the dominion of
the world. Ormuzd, the principle of good, is represented by light, and
Ahriman, the principle of evil, by darkness. Light, then, being the body
or symbol of Ormuzd, is worshiped in the sun and stars, in fire, and
wherever it is found. Men are either the servants of Ormuzd, through
virtue and wisdom, or the slaves of Ahriman, through folly and vice.
Zoroaster explained the history of the world as the long contest of these
two principles, which was to close with the conquest of Ormuzd over
Ahriman.

The moral code of Zoroaster is pure and elevated. It aims to assimilate
the character of man to light, to dissipate the darkness of ignorance; it
acknowledges Ormuzd as the ruler of the universe; it seeks to extend the
triumph of virtue over the material and spiritual world.

The religion of Zoroaster prevailed for many centuries in Persia. The
Greeks adopted some of its ideas into their philosophy, and through the
schools of the Gnostics and Neo-Platonists, its influence extended over
Europe. After the conquest of Persia by the Mohammedans, the Fire-
worshipers were driven to the deserts of Kerman, or took refuge in India,
where, under the name of Parsees or Guebers, they still keep alive the
sacred fire, and preserve the code of Zoroaster.

5. MODERN LITERATURE.--Some traces of the modern literature of Persia
appeared shortly after the conquest of the country by the Arabians in the
seventh century A.D.; but the true era dates from the ninth or tenth
century. It may be divided into the departments of Poetry, History, and
Philosophy.

6. THE SUFIS.--After the introduction of Mohammedanism into Persia, there
arose a sect of pantheistic mystics called Sufis, to which most of the
Persian poets belong. They teach their doctrine under the images of love,
wine, intoxication, etc., by which, with them, a divine sentiment is
always understood. The doctrines of the Sufis are undoubtedly of Hindu
origin. Their fundamental tenets are, that nothing exists absolutely but
God; that the human soul is an emanation from his essence and will finally
be restored to him; that the great object of life should be a constant
approach to the eternal spirit, to form as perfect a union with the divine
nature as possible. Hence all worldly attachments should be avoided, and
in all that we do a spiritual object should be kept in view. The great end
with these philosophers is to attain to a state of perfection in
spirituality and to be absorbed in holy contemplation, to the exclusion of
all worldly recollections or interests.

7. PERSIAN POETRY.--The Persian tongue is peculiarly adapted to the
purposes of poetry, which in that language is rich in forcible
expressions, in bold metaphors, in ardent sentiments, and in descriptions
animated with the most lively coloring. In poetical composition there is
much art exercised by the Persian poets, and the arrangement of their
language is a work of great care. One favorite measure which frequently
ends a poem is called the Suja, literally the _cooing of doves_.

The poetical compositions of the Persians are of several kinds; the gazel
or ode usually treats of love, beauty, or friendship. The poet generally
introduces his name in the last couplet. The idyl resembles the gazel,
except that it is longer. Poetry enters as a universal element into all
compositions; physics, mathematics, medicine, ethics, natural history,
astronomy, grammar--all lend themselves to verse in Persia.

The works of favorite poets are generally written on fine, silky paper,
the ground of which is often powdered with gold or silver dust, the
margins illuminated, and the whole perfumed with some costly essence. The
magnificent volume containing the poem of Tussuf and Zuleika in the public
library at Oxford affords a proof of the honors accorded to poetical
composition. One of the finest specimens of caligraphy and illumination is
the exordium to the life of Shah Jehan, for which the writer, besides the
stipulated remuneration, had _his mouth stuffed with pearls_.

There are three principal love stories in Persia which, from the earliest
times, have been the themes of every poet. Scarcely one of the great
masters of Persian literature but has adopted and added celebrity to these
beautiful and interesting legends, which can never be too often repeated
to an Oriental ear. They are, the "History of Khosru and Shireen," the
"Loves of Yussuf and Zuleika," and the "Misfortunes of Mejnoun and Leila."
So powerful is the charm attached to these stories, that it appears to
have been considered almost the imperative duty of all the poets to
compose a new version of the old, familiar, and beloved traditions. Even
down to a modern date, the Persians have not deserted their favorites, and
these celebrated themes of verse reappear, from time to time, under new
auspices. Each of these poems is expressive of a peculiar character. That
of Khosru and Shireen may be considered exclusively the Persian romance;
that of Mejnoun the Arabian; and that of Yussuf and Zuleika the sacred.
The first presents a picture of happy love and female excellence in
Shireen; Mejnoun is a representation of unfortunate love carried to
madness; the third romance contains the ideal of perfection in Yussuf
(Joseph) and the most passionate and imprudent love in Zuleika (the wife
of Potiphar), and exhibits in strong relief the power of love and beauty,
the mastery of mind, the weakness of overwhelming passion, and the
victorious spirit of holiness.

8. PERSIAN POETS.--The first of Persian poets, the Homer of his country,
is Abul Kasim Mansur, called Ferdusi or "Paradise," from the exquisite
beauty of his compositions. He flourished in the reign of the Shah Mahmud
(940-1020 A.D.). Mahmud commissioned him to write in his faultless verse a
history of the monarchs of Persia, promising that for every thousand
couplets he should receive a thousand pieces of gold. For thirty years he
studied and labored on his epic poem, "the Shah Namah," or Book of Kings,
and when it was completed he sent a copy of it, exquisitely written, to
the sultan, who received it coldly, and treated the work of the aged poet
with contempt. Disappointed at the ingratitude of the Shah, Ferdusi wrote
some satirical lines, which soon reached the ear of Mahmud, who, piqued
and offended at the freedom of the poet, ordered sixty thousand small
pieces of money to be sent to him, instead of the gold which he had
promised. Ferdusi was in the public bath when the money was given to him,
and his rage and amazement exceeded all bounds when he found himself thus
insulted. He distributed the paltry sum among the attendants of the bath
and the slaves who brought it.

He soon after avenged himself by writing a satire full of stinging
invective, which he caused to be transmitted to the favorite vizier who
had instigated the sultan against him. It was carefully sealed up, with
directions that it should be read to Mahmud on some occasion when his mind
was perturbed with affairs of state, and his temper ruffled, as it was a
poem likely to afford him entertainment. Ferdusi having thus prepared his
vengeance, quitted the ungrateful court without leave-taking, and was at a
safe distance when news reached him that his lines had fully answered
their intended purpose. Mahmud had heard and trembled, and too late
discovered that he had ruined his own reputation forever. After the satire
had been read by Shah Mahmud, the poet sought shelter in the court of the
caliph of Bagdad, in whose honor he added a thousand couplets to the poem
of the Shah Namah, and who rewarded him with the sixty thousand gold
pieces, which had been withheld by Mahmud. Meantime, Ferdusi's poem of
Yussuf, and his magnificent verses on several subjects, had received the
fame they deserved. Shah Mahmud's late remorse awoke. Thinking by a tardy
act of liberality to repair his former meanness, he dispatched to the
author of the Shah Namah the sixty thousand pieces he had promised, a robe
of state, and many apologies and expressions of friendship and admiration,
requesting his return, and professing great sorrow for the past. But when
the message arrived, Ferdusi was dead, and his family devoted the whole
sum to the benevolent purpose he had intended,--the erection of public
buildings, and the general improvement of his native village, Tus. He died
at the age of eighty. The Shah Namah contains the history of the kings of
Persia down to the death of the last of the Sassanide race, who was
deprived of his kingdom by the invasion of the Arabs during the caliphat
of Omar, 636 A.D. The language of Ferdusi may be considered as the purest
specimen of the ancient Parsee: Arabic words are seldom introduced. There
are many episodes in the Shah Namah of great beauty, and the power and
elegance of its verse are unrivaled.

Essedi of Tus is distinguished as having been the master of Ferdusi, and
as having aided his illustrious pupil in the completion of his great work.
Among many poems which he wrote, the "Dispute between Day and Night" is
the most celebrated.

Togray was a native of Ispahan and contemporary with Ferdusi. He became so
celebrated as a writer, that the title of Honor of Writers was given him.
He was an alchemist, and wrote a treatise on the philosopher's stone.

Moasi, called King of Poets, lived about the middle of the eleventh
century. He obtained his title at the court of Ispahan, and rose to high
dignity and honor. So renowned were his odes, that more than a hundred
poets endeavored to imitate his style.

Omar Kheyam, who was one of the most distinguished of the poets of Persia,
lived toward the close of the eleventh century. He was remarkable for the
freedom of his religious opinions and the boldness with which he denounced
hypocrisy and intolerance. He particularly directed his satire against the
mystic poets.

Nizami, the first of the romantic poets, flourished in the latter part of
the twelfth century A.D. His principal works are called the "Five
Treasures," of which the "Loves of Khosru and Shireen" is the most
celebrated, and in the treatment of which he has succeeded beyond all
other poets.

Sadi (1194-1282) is esteemed among the Persians as a master in poetry and
in morality. He is better known in Europe than any other Eastern author,
except Hafiz, and has been more frequently translated. Jami calls him the
nightingale of the groves of Shiraz, of which city he was a native. He
spent a part of his long life in travel and in the acquisition of
knowledge, and the remainder in retirement and devotion. His works are
termed the salt-mine of poets, being revered as unrivaled models of the
first genius in the world. His philosophy enabled him to support all the
ills of life with patience and fortitude, and one of his remarks, arising
from the destitute condition in which he once found himself, deserves
preservation: "I never complained of my condition but once, when my feet
were bare, and I had not money to buy shoes; but I met a man without feet,
and I became contented with my lot." The works of Sadi are very numerous,
and are popular and familiar everywhere in the East. His two greatest
works are the "Bostan" and "Gulistan" (Bostan, the rose garden, and
Gulistan, the fruit garden). They abound in striking beauties, and show
great knowledge of human nature.

Attar (1119-1233) was one of the great Sufi masters, and spent his life in
devotion and contemplation. He died at the advanced age of 114. It would
seem that poetry in the East was favorable to human life, so many of its
professors attained to a great age, particularly those who professed the
Sufi doctrine. The great work of Attar is a poem containing useful moral
maxims.

Roumi (1203-1272), usually called the Mulah, was an enthusiastic follower
of the doctrine of the Sufis. His son succeeded him at the head of the
sect, and surpassed his father not only in the virtues and attainments of
the Sufis, but by his splendid poetical genius. His poems are regarded as
the most perfect models of the mystic style. Sir William Jones says,
"There is a depth and solemnity in his works unequaled by any poet of this
class; even Hafiz must be considered inferior to him."

Among the poets of Persia the name of Hafiz (d. 1389), the prince of
Persian lyric poets, is most familiar to the English reader. He was born
at Shiraz. Leading a life of poverty, of which he was proud, for he
considered poverty the companion of genius, he constantly refused the
invitation, of monarchs to visit their courts. There is endless variety in
the poems of Hafiz, and they are replete with surpassing beauty of
thought, feeling, and expression. The grace, ease, and fancy of his
numbers are inimitable, and there is a magic in his lays which few even of
his professed enemies have been able to resist. To the young, the gay, and
the enthusiastic his verses are ever welcome, and the sage discovers in
them a hidden mystery which reconciles him to their subjects. His tomb,
near Shiraz, is visited as a sacred spot by pilgrims of all ages. The
place of his birth is held in veneration, and there is not a Persian whose
heart does not echo his strains.

Jami (d. 1492) was born in Khorassan, in the village of Jam, from whence
he is named,--his proper appellation being Abd Arahman. He was a Sufi, and
preferred, like many of his fellow-poets, the meditations and ecstasies of
mysticism to the pleasures of a court. His writings are very voluminous;
he composed nearly forty volumes, all of great length, of which twenty-two
are preserved at Oxford. The greater part of them treat of Mohammedan
theology, and are written in the mystic style. He collected the most
interesting under the name of the "Seven Stars of the Bear," or the "Seven
Brothers," and among these is the famous poem of Yussuf and Zuleika. This
favorite subject, which every Persian poet has touched with more or less
success, has never been so beautifully rendered as by Jami. Nothing can
exceed the admiration which this poem inspires in the East.

Hatifi (d. 1520) was the nephew of the great poet Jami. It was his
ambition to enter the lists with his uncle, by composing poems on similar
subjects. Opinions are divided as to whether he succeeded as well as his
master, but none can exceed him in sweetness and pathos. His version of
the sad tale of Mejnoun and Leila, the Romeo and Juliet of the East, is
confessedly superior to that of Nizami.

The lyrical compositions of Sheik Feizi (d. 1575) are highly valued. In
his mystic poems he approaches to the sublimity of Attar. His ideas are
tinged with the belief of the Hindus, in which he was educated. When a boy
he was introduced to the Brahmins by the Sultan Mohammed Akbar, as an
orphan of their tribe, in order that he might learn their language and
obtain possession of their religions secrets. He became attached to the
daughter of the Brahmin who protected him, and she was offered to him--in
marriage by the unsuspecting parent. After a struggle between inclination
and honor, the latter prevailed, and he confessed the fraud. The Brahmin,
struck with horror, attempted to put an end to his own existence, fearing
that he had betrayed his oath and brought danger and disgrace on his sect.
Feizi, with tears--and protestations, besought him to forbear, promising
to submit to any command he might impose on him. The Brahmin consented to
live, on condition that Feizi should take an oath never to translate the
Vedas nor to repeat to any one the creed of the Hindus. Feizi entered into
the desired obligations, parted with his adopted father, bade adieu to his
love, and with a sinking heart returned home. Among his works the most
important is the "Mahabarit," which contains the chronicles of the Hindu
princes, and abounds in romantic episodes.

The most celebrated recent Persian poet is Blab Phelair (1729-1825). He
left many astronomical, moral, political, and literary works. He is called
the Persian Voltaire.

Among the collections of novels and fables, the "Lights of Canope" may be
mentioned, imitated from the Hitopadesa. Persian literature is also
enriched by translations of the standard works in Sanskrit, among which
are the epic poems of Valmiki and Vyasa.

9. HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY.--Among the most celebrated of the Persian
historians is Mirkhond, who lived in the middle of the fifteenth century.
His great work on universal history contains an account of the origin of
the world, the life of the patriarchs, prophets, and philosophers of
Persia, and affords valuable materials, especially for the history of the
Middle Ages. His son, Khondemir, distinguished himself in the same branch
of literature, and wrote two works which, for their historical correctness
and elegance of style, are in great favor among the Persians. Ferischta,
who flourished in the beginning of the seventeenth century, is the author
of a valuable history of India. Mirgholah, a historian of the eighteenth
century, gives a contemporary history of Hindustan and of his own country,
under the title of "A Glance at Recent Affairs," and in another work he
treats of the causes which, at some future time, will probably lead to the
fall of the British power in India. The "History of the Reigning Dynasty"
is among the principal modern historical works of Persia.

The Persians possess numerous works on rhetoric, geography, medicine,
mathematics, and astronomy, few of which are entitled to much
consideration. In philosophy may be mentioned the "Essence of Logic," an
exposition in the Arabic language of the doctrines of Aristotle on logic;
and the "Moral System of Nasir," published in the thirteenth century A.D.,
a valuable treatise on morals, economy, and politics.

10. EDUCATION IN PERSIA.--There are established, in every town and city,
schools in which the poorer children can be instructed in the rudiments of
the Persian and Arabic languages. The pupil, after he has learned the
alphabet, reads the Koran in Arabic; next, fables in Persian; and lastly
is taught to write a beautiful hand, which is considered a great
accomplishment. The Persians are fond of poetry, and the lowest artisans
can read or repeat the finest passages of their most admired poets. For
the education of the higher classes there are in Persia many colleges and
universities where the pupils are taught grammar, the Turkish and Arabic
languages, rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry. The literary men are
numerous; they pursue their studies till they are entitled to the honors
of the colleges; afterwards they devote themselves to copying and
illuminating manuscripts.

Of late many celebrated European works have been translated and published
in Persia.




HEBREW LITERATURE.

1. Hebrew Literature; its Divisions.--2. The Language; its Alphabet; its
Structure; Peculiarities, Formation, and Phases.--3. The Old Testament.--
4. Hebrew Education.--5. Fundamental Idea of Hebrew Literature.--6. Hebrew
Poetry.--7. Lyric Poetry; Songs; the Psalms; the Prophets.--8. Pastoral
Poetry and Didactic Poetry; the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.--9. Epic and
Dramatic Poetry; the Book of Job.--10. Hebrew History; the Pentateuch and
other Historical Books.--11. Hebrew Philosophy.--12. Restoration of the
Sacred Books.--13. Manuscripts and Translations.--14. Rabbinical
Literature.--15. The New Revision of the Bible, and the New Biblical
Manuscript.

1. HEBREW LITERATURE.--In the Hebrew literature we find expressed the
national character of that ancient people who, for a period of four
thousand years, through captivity, dispersion, and persecution of every
kind, present the wonderful spectacle of a race preserving its
nationality, its peculiarities of worship, of doctrine, and of literature.
Its history reaches back to an early period of the world, its code of laws
has been studied and imitated by the legislators of all ages and
countries, and its literary monuments surpass in originality, poetic
strength, and religious importance those of any other nation before the
Christian era.

The literature of the Hebrews may be divided into the four following
periods:--

The first, extending from remote antiquity to the time of David, 1010
B.C., includes all the records of patriarchal civilization transmitted by
tradition previous to the age of Moses, and contained in the Pentateuch or
five books attributed to him after he had delivered the people from the
bondage of Egypt.

The second period extends from the time of David to the death of Solomon,
1010-940 B.C., and to this are referred some of the Psalms, Joshua, the
Judges, and the Chronicles.

The third period extends from the death of Solomon to the return from the
Babylonian captivity, 940-532 B.C., and to this age belong the writings of
most of the Prophets, The Song of Solomon, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the
books of Samuel, of Kings, and of Ruth.

The fourth period extends from their return from the Babylonian Captivity
to the present time, and to this belong some of the Prophets, the
Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, the final completion of the Psalms,
the Septuagint translation of the Bible, the writings of Josephus, of
Philo of Alexandria, and the rabbinical literature.

2. THE LANGUAGE.--The Hebrew language is of Semitic origin; its alphabet
consists of twenty-two letters. The number of accents is nearly forty,
some of which distinguish the sentences like the punctuation of our
language, and others serve to determine the number of syllables, or to
mark the tone with which they are to be sung or spoken.

The Hebrew character is of two kinds, the ancient or square, and the
modern or rabbinical. In the first of these the Scriptures were originally
written. The last is deprived of most of its angles, and is more easy and
flowing. The Hebrew words as well as letters are written from right to
left in common with, the Semitic tongues generally, and the language is
regular, particularly in its conjugations. Indeed, it has but one
conjugation, but with seven or eight variations, having the effect of as
many different conjugations, and giving great variety of expression. The
predominance of these modifications over the noun, the idea of time
contained in the roots of almost all its verbs, so expressive and so
picturesque, and even the scarcity of its prepositions, adjectives, and
adverbs, make this language in its organic structure breathe life, vigor,
and emotion. If it lacks the flowery and luxuriant elements of the other
oriental idioms, no one of these can be compared with the Hebrew tongue
for the richness of its figures and imagery, for its depth, and for its
majestic and imposing features.

In the formation, development, and decay of this language, the following
periods may be distinguished:--

First. From Abraham to Moses, when the old stock was changed by the
infusion of the Egyptian and Arabic. Abraham, residing in Chaldea, spoke
the Chaldaic language, then traveling through Egypt, and establishing
himself in Canaan or Palestine, his language mingled its elements with the
tongues spoken by those nations, and perhaps also with that of the
Phoenicians, who early established commercial intercourse with him and his
descendants. It is probable that the Hebrew language sprung from the
mixture of these elements.

Second. From Moses and the composition of the Pentateuch to Solomon, when
it attained its perfection, not without being influenced by the
Phoenician. This is the Golden Age of the Hebrew language.

Third. From Solomon to Ezra, when, although increasing in beauty and
sweetness, it became less pure by the adoption of foreign ideas and
idioms.

Fourth. From Ezra to the end of the reign of the Maccabees, when it was
gradually lost in the Aramaean or Chaldaic tongue, and became a dead
language.

The Jews of the Middle Ages, incited by the learning of the Arabs in
Spain, among whom they received the protection denied them by Christian
nations, endeavored to restore their language to something of its original
purity, and to render the Biblical Hebrew again a written language; but
the Chaldaic idioms had taken too deep root to be eradicated, and besides,
the ancient language was found insufficient for the necessities of an
advancing civilization. Hence arose a new form of written Hebrew, called
rabbinical from its origin and use among the rabbins. It borrowed largely
from many contemporary languages, and though it became richer and more
regular in its structure, it retained little of the strength and purity of
the ancient Hebrew.

3. THE OLD TESTAMENT.--The literary productions of the Hebrews are
collected in the sacred books of the Old Testament, in which, according to
the celebrated orientalist, Sir William Jones, we can find more eloquence,
more historical and moral truth, more poetry,--in a word, more beauties
than we could gather from all other books together, of whatever country or
language. Aside from its supernatural claims, this book stands alone among
the literary monuments of other nations, for the sublimity of its
doctrine, as well as for the simplicity of its style.

It is the book of all centuries, countries, and conditions, and affords
the best solution of the most mysterious problems concerning God and the
world. It cultivates the taste, it elevates the mind, it nurses the soul
with the word of life, and it has inspired the best productions of human
genius.

4. HEBREW EDUCATION.--Religion, morals, legislation, history, poetry, and
music were the special objects to which the attention of the Levites and
Prophets was particularly directed. The general education of the people,
however, was rather simple and domestic. They were trained in husbandry,
and in military and gymnastic exercises, and they applied their minds
almost exclusively to religious and moral doctrines and to divine worship;
they learned to read and write their own language correctly, but they
seldom learned foreign languages or read foreign books, and they carefully
prevented strangers from obtaining a knowledge of their own.

5. FUNDAMENTAL IDEA OF HEBREW LITERATURE.--Monotheism was the fundamental
idea of the Hebrew literature, as well as of the Hebrew religion,
legislation, morals, politics, and philosophy. The idea of the unity of
God constitutes the most striking characteristic of Hebrew poetry, and
chiefly distinguishes it from that of all mythological nations. Other
ancient literatures have created their divinities, endowed them with human
passions, and painted their achievements in the glowing colors of poetry.
The Hebrew poetry, on the contrary, makes no attempt to portray the Deity
by the instruments of sensuous representation, but simple, majestic, and
severe, it pours forth a perpetual anthem of praise and thanksgiving. The
attributes of God, his power, his paternal love and wisdom, are described
in the most sublime language of any age or nation. His seat is the
heavens, the earth is his footstool, the heavenly hosts his servants; the
sea is his, and he made it, and his hands prepared the dry land.

Placed under the immediate government of Jehovah, having with Him common
objects of aversion and love, the Hebrews reached the very source of
enthusiasm, the fire of which burned in the hearts of the prophets so
fervently as to cause them to utter the denunciations and the promises of
the Eternal in a tone suited to the inspired of God, and to sing his
attributes and glories with a dignity and authority becoming them, as the
vicegerents of God upon earth.

6. HEBREW POETRY.--The character of the people and their language, its
mission, the pastoral life of the patriarchs, the beautiful and grand
scenery of the country, the wonderful history of the nation, the feeling
of divine inspiration, the promise of a Messiah who should raise the
nation to glory, the imposing solemnities of the divine worship, and
finally, the special order of the prophets, gave a strong impulse to the
poetical genius of the nation, and concurred in producing a form of poetry
which cannot be compared with any other for its simplicity and clearness,
for its depth and majesty.

These features of Hebrew poetry, however, spring from its internal force
rather than from any external form. Indeed, the Hebrew poets soar far
above all others in that energy of feeling, impetuous and irresistible,
which penetrates, warms, and moves the very soul. They reveal their
anxieties as well as their hopes; they paint with truth and love the
actual condition of the human race, with its sorrows and consolations, its
hopes and fears, its love and hate. They select their images from the
habitual ideas of the people, and personify inanimate objects--the
mountains tremble and exult, deep cries unto deep. Another characteristic
of Hebrew poetry is the strong feeling of nationality it expresses. Of
their two most sublime poets, one was their legislator, the other their
greatest king.

7. LYRIC POETRY.--In their national festivals the Hebrews sang the hymns
of their lyric poets, accompanied by musical instruments. The art of
singing, as connected with poetry, flourished especially under David, who
instituted twenty-four choruses, composed of four thousand Levites, whose
duty it was to sing in the public solemnities. It is generally believed
that the Hebrew lyric poetry was not ruled by any measure, either of
syllables or of time. Its predominant form was a succession of thoughts
and a rhythmic movement, less of syllables and words than of ideas and
images systematically arranged. The Psalms, especially, are essentially
symmetrical, according to the Hebrew ritual, their verses being sung
alternately by Levites and people, both in the synagogues and more
frequently in the open air. The song of Moses after the passage of the Bed
Sea is the most sublime triumphal hymn in any language, and of equal merit
is his song of thanksgiving in Deuteronomy. Beautiful examples of the same
order of poetry may be found in the song of Judith (though not canonical),
and the songs of Deborah and Balaam. But Hebrew poetry attained its
meridian splendor in the Psalms of David. The works of God in the creation
of the world, and in the government of men; the illustrious deeds of the
House of Jacob; the wonders and mysteries of the new Covenant are sung by
David in a fervent out-pouring of an impulsive, passionate spirit, that
alternately laments and exults, bows in contrition, or soars to the
sublimest heights of devotion. The Psalms, even now, reduced to prose,
after three thousand years, present the best and most sublime collection
of lyrical poems, unequaled for their aspiration, their living imagery,
their grand ideas, and majesty of style.

When at length the Hebrews, forgetful of their high duties and calling,
trampled on their institutions and laws, prophets were raised up to recall
the wandering people to their allegiance. ISAIAH, whether he foretells the
future destiny of the nation, or the coming of the Messiah, in his
majestic eloquence, sweetness, and simplicity, gives us the most perfect
model of lyric poetry. He prophesied during the reigns of Azariah and
Hezekiah, and his writings bear the mark of true inspiration.

JEREMIAH flourished during the darkest period in the history of the
kingdom of Judah, and under the last four kings, previous to the
Captivity. The Lamentations, in which he pours forth his grief for the
fate of his country, are full of touching melancholy and pious
resignation, and, in their harmonious and beautiful tone, show his ardent
patriotism and his unshaken trust in the God of his fathers. He does not
equal Isaiah in the sublimity of his conceptions and the variety of his
imagery, but whatever may be the imperfections of his style, they are lost
in the passion and vehemence of his poems.

DANIEL, after having straggled against the corruptions of Babylon, boldly
foretells the decay of that empire with terrible power. His conceptions
and images are truly sublime; but his style is less correct and regular
than that of his predecessors, his language being a mixture of Hebrew and
Chaldaic.

Such is also the style of EZEKIEL, who sings the development of the
obscure prophesies of his master. His writings abound in dreams and
visions, and convey rather the idea of the terrible than of the sublime.

These four, from the length of their writings, are called the Greater
Prophets, to distinguish them from the twelve Minor Prophets: HOSEA, JOEL,
AMOS, OBADIAH, JONAH, MICAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK, ZEPHANIAH, HAGGAI,
ZECHARIAH, and MALACHI, all of whom, though endowed with different
characteristics and genius, show in their writings more or less of that
fire and vigor which can only be found in writers who were moved and
warmed by the very spirit of God.

8. PASTORAL POETRY AND DIDACTIC POETRY.--The Song of Solomon and the
history of Ruth are the best specimens of the Hebrew idyl, and breathe all
the simplicity of pastoral life.

The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes contain treatises on moral
philosophy, or rather, are didactic poems. The Proverb, which is a maxim
of wisdom, greatly used by the ancients before the introduction of
dissertation, is, as the name indicates, the prevalent form of the first
of these books. In Ecclesiastes we have described the trials of a mind
which has lost itself in undefined wishes and in despair, and the
efficacious remedies for these mental diseases are shown in the pictures
of the vanity of the world and in the final divine judgment, in which the
problem of this life will have its complete solution. SOLOMON, the author
of these works, adds splendor to the sublimity of his doctrines by the
dignity of his style.

9. EPIC AND DRAMATIC POETRY.--The Book of Job may be considered as
belonging either to epic or to dramatic poetry. Its exact date is
uncertain; some writers refer it to the primitive period of Hebrew
literature, and others to a later age; and, while some contend that Job
was but an ideal, representing human suffering, whose story was sung by an
anonymous poet, others, with more probability, regard him as an actual
person, exposed to the trials and temptations described in this wonderful
book. However this may be, it is certain that this monument of wisdom
stands alone, and that it can be compared to no other production for the
sublimity of its ideas, the vivacity and force of its expressions, the
grandeur of its imagery, and the variety of its characters. No other work
represents, in more true and vivid colors, the nobility and misery of
humanity, the laws of necessity and Providence, and the trials to which
the good are subjected for their moral improvement. Here the great
straggle between evil and good appears in its true light, and human virtue
heroically submits itself to the ordeal of misfortune. Here we learn that
the evil and good of this life are by no means the measure of morality,
and here we witness the final triumph of justice.

10. HEBREW HISTORY.--Moses, the most ancient of all historians, was also
the first leader and legislator of the Hebrews. When at length the
traditions of the patriarchs had become obscured and confused among the
different nations of the earth, Moses was inspired to write the history of
the human race, and especially of the chosen people, in order to bequeath
to coming centuries a memorial of revealed truths and of the divine works
of eternal Wisdom. Thus in the first chapters of Genesis, without aiming
to write the complete annals of the first period of the world, he summed
up the general history of man, and described, more especially, the
genealogy of the patriarchs and of the generations previous to the time of
the dispersion.

The subject of the book of Exodus is the delivery of the people from the
Egyptian bondage, and it is not less admirable for the importance of the
events which it describes, than for the manner in which they are related.
In this, and in the following book of Numbers, the record of patriarchal
life gives place to the teachings of Moses and to the history of the
wanderings in the deserts of Arabia.

In Leviticus the constitution of the priesthood is described, as well as
the peculiarities of a worship.

Deuteronomy records the laws of Moses, and concludes with his sublime hymn
of thanksgiving.

The historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra,
etc., contain the history of the Hebrew nation for nearly a thousand
years, and relate the prosperity and the disasters of the chosen people.
Here are recorded the deeds of Joshua, of Samson, of Samuel, of David, and
of Solomon, the building of the Temple, the division of the tribes into
two kingdoms, the prodigies of Elijah and Elisha, the impieties of Ahab,
the calamities of Jedekiah, the destruction of Jerusalem and of the first
Temple, the dispersion and the Babylonish captivity, the deliverance under
Cyrus, and the rebuilding of the city and Temple under Ezra, and other
great events in Hebrew history.

The internal evidence derived from the peculiar character of each of the
historical books is decisive of their genuineness, which is supported
above all suspicion of alteration or addition by the scrupulous
conscientiousness and veneration with which the Hebrews regarded their
sacred writings. Their authenticity is also proved by the uniformity of
doctrine which pervades them all, though written at different periods, by
the simplicity and naturalness of the narrations, and by the sincerity of
the writers.

These histories display neither vanity nor adulation, nor do they attempt
to conceal from the reader whatever might be considered as faults in their
authors or their heroes. While they select facts with a nice judgment, and
present the most luminous picture of events and of their causes, they
abstain from reasoning or speculation in regard to them.

11. HEBREW PHILOSOPHY.--Although the Hebrews, in their different sacred
writings, have transmitted to us the best solution of the ancient
philosophical questions on the creation of the world, on the Providence
which rules it, on monotheism, and on the origin of sin, yet they have
nowhere presented us with a complete system of philosophy.

During the Captivity, their doctrines were influenced by those of
Zoroaster, and later, when many of the Jews established themselves in
Egypt, they acquired some knowledge of the Greek philosophy, and the
tenets of the sects of the Essenes bear a strong resemblance to the
Pythagorean and Platonic schools. This resemblance appears most clearly in
the writings of Philo of Alexandria, a Jew, born a few years before the
birth of our Saviour. Though not belonging to the sect of the Essenes, he
followed their example in adopting the doctrines of Plato and taking them
as the criterion in the interpretation of the Scriptures. So, also,
Flavius Josephus, born in Jerusalem, 37 A.D., and Numenius, born in Syria,
in the second century A.D., adopted the Greek philosophy, and by its
doctrines amplified and expanded the tenets of Judaism.

12. RESTORATION OF THE SACRED BOOKS.--One of the most important eras in
Hebrew literature is the period of the restoration of the Mosaic
institutions, after the return from the Captivity. According to tradition,
at that time Ezra established the great Synagogue, a college of one
hundred and twenty learned men, who were appointed to collect copies of
the ancient sacred books, the originals of which had been lost in the
capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and Nehemiah soon after placed
this, or a new collection, in the Temple. The design of these reformers to
give the people a religious canon in their ancient tongue induces the
belief that they engaged in the work with the strictest fidelity to the
old Mosaic institutions, and it is certain that the canon of the Old
Testament, in the time of the Maccabees, was the same as that which we
have at present.

13. MANUSCRIPTS AND TRANSLATIONS.--Of the canonical books of the Old
Testament we have Hebrew manuscripts, printed editions, and translations.
The most esteemed manuscripts are those of the Spanish Jews, of which the
most ancient belong to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The printed
editions of the Bible in Hebrew are numerous. The earliest are those of
Italy. Luther made his German translation from the edition of Brescia,
printed in 1494. The earliest and most famous translation of the Old
Testament is the Septuagint, or Greek translation, which was made about
283 B.C. It may, probably, be attributed to the Alexandrian Jews, who,
having lost the knowledge of the Hebrew, caused the translation to be made
by some of their learned countrymen for the use of the Synagogues of
Egypt. It was probably accomplished under the authority of the Sanhedrim,
composed of seventy elders, and therefore called the Septuagint version,
and from it the quotations in the New Testament are chiefly taken. It was
regarded as canonical by the Jews to the exclusion of other books written
in Greek, but not translated from the Hebrew, which we now call, by the
Greek name, the Apocrypha.

The Vulgate or Latin translation, which has official authority in the
Catholic Church, was made gradually from the eighth to the sixteenth
century, partly from an old translation which was made from the Greek in
the early history of the Church, and partly from translations from the
Hebrew made by St. Jerome.

The English version of the Bible now in use in England and America was
made by order of James I. It was accomplished by forty-seven distinguished
scholars, divided into six classes, to each of which a part of the work
was assigned. This translation occupied three years, and was printed in
1611.

14. RABBINICAL LITERATURE.--Rabbinical literature includes all the
writings of the rabbins, or teachers of the Jews in the later period of
Hebrew letters, who have interpreted and developed the literature of the
earlier ages. The language made use of by them has its foundation in the
Hebrew and Chaldaic, with various alterations and modifications in the use
of words, the meaning of which they have considerably enlarged and
extended. They have frequently borrowed from the Arabic, Greek, and Latin,
and from those modern tongues spoken where they severally resided.

The Talmud, from the Hebrew word signifying _he has learned_, is a
collection of traditions illustrative of the laws and usages of the Jews.
The Talmud consists of two parts, the Mishna and the Gemara. The Mishna,
or _second law_, is a collection of rabbinical rules and precepts made in
the second century. The Gemara (_completion_ or _doctrine_) was composed
in the third century. It is a collection of commentaries and explanations
of the Mishna, and both together formed the Jerusalem Talmud.

The Babylonian rabbins composed new commentaries on the Mishna, and this
formed the Babylonian Talmud. Both Talmuds were first committed to writing
about 500 A.D. At the period of the Christian Era, the civil constitution,
language, and mode of thinking among the Jews had undergone a complete
revolution, and were entirely different from what they had been in the
early period of the commonwealth. The Mosaic books contained rules no
longer adapted to the situation of the nation, and many difficult
questions arose to which their law afforded no satisfactory solution. The
rabbins undertook to supply this defect, partly by commentaries on the
Mosaic precepts, and partly by the composition of new rules.

The Talmud requires that wherever twelve adults reside together in one
place, they shall erect a synagogue and serve the God of their fathers by
a multitude of prayers and formalities, amidst the daily occupations of
life. It allows usury, treats agricultural pursuits with contempt, and
requires strict separation from the other races, and commits the
government to the rabbins. The Talmud is followed by the Rabbinites, to
which sect nearly all the European and American Jews belong. The sect of
the Caraites rejects the Talmud and holds to the law of Moses only. It is
less numerous, and its members are found chiefly in the East, or in Turkey
and Eastern Russia.

The Cabala, or oral tradition, is, according to the Jews, a perpetual
divine revelation, preserved among the Jewish people by secret
transmission. It sometimes denotes the doctrines of the prophets, but most
commonly the mystical philosophy, which was probably introduced into
Palestine from Egypt and Persia. It was first committed to writing in the
second century A.D. The Cabala is divided into the symbolical and the
real, of which the former gives a mystical signification to letters. The
latter comprehends doctrines, and is divided into the theoretical and
practical. The first aims to explain the Scriptures according to the
secret traditions, while the last pretends to teach the art of performing
miracles by an artificial use of the divine names and sentences of the
sacred Scriptures.

The Jews of the Middle Ages acquired great reputation for learning,
especially in Spain, where they were allowed to study astronomy,
mathematics, and medicine in the schools of the Moors. Granada and Cordova
became the centres of rabbinical literature, which was also cultivated in
France, Italy, Portugal, and Germany. In the sixteenth century the study
of Hebrew and rabbinical literature became common among Christian
scholars, and in the following centuries it became more interesting and
important from the introduction of comparative philology in the department
of languages. Rabbinical literature still has its students and
interpreters. In Padua, Berlin, and Metz there are seminaries for the
education of rabbins, which supply with able doctors the synagogues of
Italy, Germany, and France. There is also a rabbinical school in
Cincinnati, Ohio. The Polish rabbins and Talmudists, however, are the most
celebrated.

15. THE NEW REVISION OF THE BIBLE.--The convocation of the English House
of Bishops, which met at Canterbury in 1870, recommended a revised version
of the Scriptures, and appointed a committee for the work of sixty-seven
members from various ecclesiastical bodies of England, to which an
American committee of thirty-five was added, and by their joint labors the
revised edition of the New Testament was issued in 1881. The revised Old
Testament is expected to appear during 1884. The advantages claimed for
these new versions are: a more accurate rendering of the text, a
correction of the errors of former translations, the removal of misleading
archaisms and obsolete terms, better punctuation, arrangement in sections
as well as chapters and verses, the metrical arrangement of poetry, and an
increased number of marginal readings.

In 1875, Bryennios, a metropolitan of the Greek Church, discovered in the
library of the Most Holy Sepulchre at Constantinople a manuscript
belonging to the second century A.D., which contains, among other valuable
and interesting documents, one on the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,"
many points of which bear on the usages of the church, such as the mode of
baptism, the celebration of the Eucharist, and the orders of the ministry.
It was at first considered authentic and highly important, but more
deliberate study tends to discredit its authority.


ARABIAN LITERATURE.

1. European Literature in the Dark Ages.--2. The Arabian language.--3.
Arabian Mythology and the Koran.--4. Historical Development of Arabian
Literature.--5. Grammar and Rhetoric.--6. Poetry.--7. The Arabian Tales.--
8. History and Science.--9. Education.


1. EUROPEAN LITERATURE IN THE DARK AGES.--The literature, arts, and
sciences of the Arabs formed the connecting link between the civilizations
of ancient and modern times. To them we owe the revival of learning in
Western Europe, and many of the inventions and useful arts perfected by
later nations.

From the middle of the sixth century A.D. to the beginning of the
eleventh, the interval between the decline of ancient and the development
of modern literature is known in history as the Dark Ages. The sudden rise
of the Arabian Empire and the rapid development of its literature were the
great events which characterize the period.

At the beginning of this epoch classical genius was already extinct, and
the purity of the classical tongues was yielding rapidly to the
corruptions of the provinces and of the new dialects. Many other causes
conspired to work great changes in the fabric of society, and in the
manifestations of human intellect. Throughout this period the treasures of
Greek and Latin literature, exposed to the danger of perishing and
impaired by much actual loss, exerted no influence on the minds of those
who still used the tongues to which they belong. Greek letters, as we have
seen, decayed with the Byzantine power, and the vital principle in both
became extinct long before the sword of the Turkish conqueror inflicted
the final blow. The fate of Latin literature was not less deplorable. When
province after province of the Roman dominions was overrun by the northern
hordes, when the imperial schools were suppressed and the monuments of
ancient genius destroyed, an enfeebled people and a debased language could
not withstand such adverse circumstances. During the seventh and eighth
centuries Latin composition degenerated into the rudeness of the monkish
style. The care bestowed by Charlemagne upon education in the ninth
century produced some purifying effect upon the writings of the cloister;
the tenth was distinguished by an increased zeal in the task of
transcribing the classical authors, and in the eleventh the Latin works of
the Normans display some masculine force and freedom. Latin was the
repository of such knowledge as the times could boast; it was used in the
service of the church, and in the chronicles that supplied the place of
history, but it was not the vehicle of any great production stamped with
true genius and impressing the minds of posterity. Still, genius was not
altogether extinguished in every part of Europe. The north, which sent out
its daring tribes to change the aspect of civil life, furnished a fresh
source of mental inspiration, which was destined, with the recovered
influence of the classic spirit and other prolific causes, to give birth
to some of the best portions of modern literature.

At the memorable epoch of the overthrow of the Roman dominion in the West
(476 A.D.), the seats of the Teutonic race extended from the banks of the
Rhine and the Danube to the rock-bound coasts of Norway. The victorious
invaders who occupied the southern provinces of Europe speedily lost their
own forms of speech, which were broken down, together with those of the
vanquished, into a jargon unfit for composition. But in Germany and
Scandinavia, where the old language retained its purity, song continued to
flourish. There, from the most distant eras described by Tacitus and other
Latin writers, the favorite attendants of kings and chiefs were those
celebrated bards who preserved in their traditionary strains the memory of
great events, the praises of the gods, the glory of warriors, and the laws
and customs of their countrymen. Intrusted, like the Grecian heroic
minstrelsy, to oral recitation, it was not until the propitious reign of
Charlemagne that these verses were collected. But, through the bigotry of
his successor or the ravages of time, not a fragment of this collection
remains. We are enabled, however, to form an idea of the general tone and
tenor of this early Teutonic poetry from other interesting remains. The
"Nibelungen-Lied" (_Lay of the Nibelungen_) and "Heldenbuch" (_Book of
Heroes_) may be regarded as the Homeric poems of Germany. After an
examination of their monuments, the ability of the ancient bards, the
honor in which they were held, and the enthusiasm which they produced,
will not be surprising.

Equally distinguished were the Scalds of Scandinavia. Ever in the train of
princes and gallant adventurers, they chanted their rhymeless verse for
the encouragement and solace of heroes. Their oldest songs, or sagas, are
mostly of a historical import. In the Icelandic Edda, however, the richest
monument of this species of composition, the theological element of their
poetry is shadowed out in the most picturesque and fanciful legends.

Such was the intellectual state of Europe down to the age of Charlemagne.
While in the once famous seats of arts and arms scarcely a ray of native
genius or courage was visible, the light of human intellect still burned
in lands whose barbarism had furnished matter for the sarcasm of classical
writers.

Charlemagne encouraged learning, established schools, and filled his court
with men of letters; while in England, the illustrious Alfred, himself a
scholar and an author, improved and enriched the Anglo-Saxon dialect, and
exerted the most beneficial influence on his contemporaries.

The confusion and debasement of language in the south of Europe has
already been alluded to. But the force and activity of mind, that formed
an essential characteristic of the conquering race, were destined
ultimately to evolve regularity and harmony out of the concussion of
discordant elements. The Latin and Teutonic tongues were blended together,
and hence proceeded all the chief dialects of modern Europe. Over the
south, from Portugal to Italy, the Latin element prevailed; but even where
the Teutonic was the chief ingredient, as in the English and German, there
has also been a large infusion of the Latin. To these two languages, and
to the Provençal, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, called, from
their Roman origin, the Romance or Romanic languages, all that is
prominent and precious in modern letters belongs. But it is not until the
eleventh century that their progress becomes identified with the history
of literature. Up to this period there had been little repose, freedom, or
peaceful enjoyment of property. The independence and industry of the
middle classes were almost unknown, and the chieftain, the vassal, and the
slave were the characters which stood out in the highest relief.
Throughout the whole of the eleventh century, the social chaos seemed
resolving itself into some approach to order and tranquillity. The gradual
abolition of personal servitude, hardly accomplished in three successive
centuries, now began. A third estate arose. The rights of cities, and the
corporation-spirit, the result of the necessity that drove men to combine
for mutual defense, led to intercourse among them and to consequent
improvement in language. Chivalry, also, served to mitigate the
oppressions of the nobles, and to soften and refine their manners. From
the date of the first crusade (1093 A.D.) down to the close of the twelfth
century, was the golden age of chivalry. The principal thrones of Europe
were occupied by her foremost knights. The East formed a point of union
for the ardent and adventurous of different countries, whose courteous
rivalry stimulated the growth of generous sentiments and the passion for
brave deeds. The genius of Europe was roused by the passage of thousands
of her sons through Greece into Asia and Egypt, amidst the ancient seats
of art, science, and refinement; and the minds of men received a fresh and
powerful impulse. It was during the eleventh century that the brilliancy
of the Arabian literature reached its culminating point, and, through the
intercourse of the Troubadours with the Moors of the peninsula, and of the
Crusaders with the Arabs in the East, began to influence the progress of
letters in Europe.

2. THE ARABIAN LANGUAGE.--The Arabian language belongs to the Semitic
family; it has two principal dialects--the northern, which has, for
centuries, been the general tongue of the empire, and is best represented
in literature, and the southern, a branch of which is supposed to be the
mother of the Ethiopian language. The former, in degenerated dialects, is
still spoken in Arabia, in parts of western Asia, and throughout northern
Africa, and forms an important part of the Turkish, Persian, and other
Oriental languages. The Arabic is characterized by its guttural sounds, by
the richness and pliability of its vowels, by its dignity, volume of
sound, and vigor of accentuation and pronunciation. Like all Semitic
languages, it is written from right to left; the characters are of Syrian
origin, and were introduced into Arabia before the time of Mohammed. They
are of two kinds, the Cufic, which were first used, and the Neskhi, which
superseded them, and which continue in use at the present day. The Arabic
alphabet was, with a few modifications, early adopted by the Persians and
Turks.

3. ARABIAN MYTHOLOGY AND THE KORAN.--Before the time of Mohammed, the
Arabians were gross idolaters. They had some traditionary idea of the
unity and perfections of the Deity, but their creed embraced an immense
number of subordinate divinities, represented by images of men and women,
beasts and birds. The essential basis of their religion was Sabeism, or
star-worship. The number and beauty of the heavenly luminaries, and the
silent regularity of their motions, could not fail deeply to impress the
minds of this imaginative people, living in the open air, under the clear
and serene sky, and wandering among the deserts, oases, and picturesque
mountains of Arabia. They had seven celebrated temples dedicated to the
seven planets. Some tribes exclusively reverenced the moon; others the
dog-star. Some had received the religion of the Magi, or fire-worshipers,
while others had become converts to Judaism.

Ishmael is one of the most venerated progenitors of the nation; and it is
the common faith that Mecca, then an arid wilderness, was the spot where
his life was providentially saved, and where Hagar, his mother, was
buried. The well pointed out by the angel, they believe to be the famous
Zemzem, of which all pious Mohammedans drink to this day. To commemorate
the miraculous preservation of Ishmael, God commanded Abraham to build a
temple, and he erected and consecrated the Caaba, or sacred house, which
is still venerated in Mecca; and the black stone incased within its walls
is the same on which Abraham stood.

Mohammed (569-632 A.D.) did not pretend to introduce a new religion; his
professed object was merely to restore the primitive and only true faith,
such as it had been in the days of the patriarchs; the fundamental idea of
which was the unity of God. He made the revelations of the Old and New
Testaments the basis of his preaching. He maintained the authority of the
books of Moses, admitted the divine mission of Jesus, and he enrolled
himself in the catalogue of inspired teachers. This doctrine was
proclaimed in the memorable words, which for so many centuries constituted
the war-cry of the Saracens,--_There is no God but God, and Mohammed is
his prophet_. Mohammed preached no dogmas substantially new, but he
adorned, amplified, and adapted to the ideas, prejudices, and inclinations
of the Orientals, doctrines which were as old as the race. He enjoined the
ablutions suited to the manners and necessities of hot climates. He
ordained five daily prayers, that man might learn habitually to elevate
his thoughts above the outward world. He instituted the festival of the
Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca, and commanded that every man should
bestow in alms the hundredth part of his possessions; observances which,
for the most part, already existed in the established customs of the
country.

The Koran (Reading), the sacred book of the Mohammedans, is, according to
their belief, the revelation of God to their prophet Mohammed. It contains
not only their religious belief, but their civil, military, and political
code. It is divided into 114 chapters, and 1,666 verses. It is written in
rhythmical prose, and its materials are borrowed from the Jewish and
Christian scriptures, the legends of the Talmud, and the traditions and
fables of the Arabian and Persian mythologies. Confusion of ideas,
obscurity, and contradictions destroy the unity and even the interest of
this work. The chapters are preposterously distributed, not according to
their date or connection, but according to their length, beginning with
the longest, and ending with the shortest; and thus the work becomes often
the more unintelligible by its singular arrangement. But notwithstanding
this, there is scarcely a volume in the Arabic language which contains
passages breathing more sublime poetry, or more enchanting eloquence; and
the Koran is so far important in the history of Arabian letters, that when
the scattered leaves were collected by Abubeker, the successor of Mohammed
(635 A.D.) and afterwards revised, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira,
they fixed at once the classic language of the Arabs, and became their
standard in style as well as in religion.

This work and its commentaries are held in the highest reverence by the
Mohammedans. It is the principal book taught in their schools; they never
touch it without kissing it, and carrying it to the forehead, in token of
their reverence; oaths before the courts are taken upon it; it is learned
by heart, and repeated every forty days; many believers copy it several
times in their lives, and often possess one or more copies ornamented with
gold and precious stones.

The Koran treats of death, resurrection, the judgment, paradise, and the
place of torment, in a style calculated powerfully to affect the
imagination of the believer. The joys of paradise, promised to all who
fall in the cause of religion, are those most captivating to an Arabian
fancy. When Al Sirat, or the Bridge of Judgment, which is as slender as
the thread of a famished spider, and as sharp as the edge of a sword,
shall be passed by the believer, he will be welcomed into the gardens of
delight by black-eyed Houris, beautiful nymphs, not made of common clay,
but of pure essence and odors, free from all blemish, and subject to no
decay of virtue or of beauty, and who await their destined lovers in rosy
bowers, or in pavilions formed of a single hollow pearl. The soil of
paradise is composed of musk and saffron, sprinkled with pearls and
hyacinths. The walls of its mansions are of gold and silver; the fruits,
which bend spontaneously to him who would gather them, are of a flavor and
delicacy unknown to mortals. Numerous rivers flow through this blissful
abode; some of wine, others of milk, honey, and water, the pebbly beds of
which are rubies and emeralds, and their banks of musk, camphor, and
saffron. In paradise the enjoyment of the believers, which is subject
neither to satiety nor diminution, will be greater than the human
understanding can compass. The meanest among them will have eighty
thousand servants, and seventy-two wives. Wine, though forbidden on earth,
will there be freely allowed, and will not hurt or inebriate. The
ravishing songs of the angels and of the Houris will render all the groves
vocal with harmony, such as mortal ear never heard. At whatever age they
may have died, at their resurrection all will be in the prime of manly and
eternal vigor. It would be a journey of a thousand years for a true
Mohammedan to travel through paradise, and behold all the wives, servants,
gardens, robes, jewels, horses, camels, and other things, which belong
exclusively to him.

The hell of Mohammed is as full of terror as his heaven is of delight. The
wicked, who fall into the gulf of torture from the bridge of Al Sirat,
will suffer alternately from cold and heat; when they are thirsty, boiling
water will be given them to drink; and they will be shod with shoes of
fire. The dark mansions of the Christians, Jews, Sabeans, Magians, and
idolaters are sunk below each other with increasing horrors, in the order
of their names. The seventh or lowest hell is reserved for the faithless
hypocrites of every religion. Into this dismal receptacle the unhappy
sufferer will be dragged by seventy thousand halters, each pulled by
seventy thousand angels, and exposed to the scourge of demons, whose
pastime is cruelty and pain.

It is a portion of the faith inculcated in the Koran, that both angels and
demons exist, having pure and subtle bodies, created of fire, and free
from human appetites and desires. The four principal angels are Gabriel,
the angel of revelation; Michael, the friend and protector of the Jews;
Azrael, the angel of death; and Izrafel, whose office it will be to sound
the trumpet at the last day. Every man has two guardian angels to attend
him and record his actions, good and evil. The doctrine of the angels,
demons, and jins or genii, the Arabians probably derived from the Hebrews.
The demons are fallen angels, the prince of whom is _Eblis_; he was at
first one of the angels nearest to God's presence, and was called
_Azazel_. He was cast out of heaven, according to the Koran, for refusing
to pay homage to Adam at the time of the creation. The genii are
intermediate creatures, neither wholly spiritual nor wholly earthly, some
of whom are good and entitled to salvation, and others infidels and
devoted to eternal torture. Among them are several ranks and degrees, as
the _Peris_, or fairies, beautiful female spirits, who seek to do good
upon the earth, and the _Deev_, or giants, who frequently make war upon
the Peris, take them captive, and shut them up in cages. The genii, both
good and bad, have the power of making themselves invisible at pleasure.
Besides the mountain o£ Kaf, which is their chief place of resort, they
dwell in ruined cities, uninhabited houses, at the bottom of wells, in
woods, pools of water, and among the rocks and sandhills of the desert.
Shooting stars are still believed by the people of the East to be arrows
shot by the angels against the genii, who transgress these limits and
approach too near the forbidden regions of bliss. Many of the genii
delight in mischief; they surprise and mislead travelers, raise
whirlwinds, and dry up springs in the desert. The _Ghoul_ lives on the
flesh of men and women, whom he decoys to his haunts in wild and barren
places, in order to kill and devour them, and when he cannot thus obtain
food, he enters the graveyards and feeds upon the bodies of the dead.

The fairy mythology of the Arabians was introduced into Europe in the
eleventh century by the Troubadours and writers of the romances of
chivalry, and through them it became an important element in the
literature of Europe. It constituted the machinery of the _Fabliaux_ of
the Trouvères, and of the romantic epics of Boccaccio, Ariosto, Tasso,
Spenser, Shakspeare, and others.

The three leading Mohammedan sects are the Sunnees, the Sheahs, and the
Wahabees. The Sunnees acknowledge the authority of the first Caliphs, from
whom most of the traditions were derived. The Sheahs assert the divine
right of Ali to succeed to the prophet; consequently they consider the
first Caliphs, and all their successors, as usurpers. The Wahabees are a
sect of religious reformers, who took their name from Abd al Wahab (1700-
1750), the Luther of the Mohammedans. They became a formidable power in
Arabia, but they were finally overcome by Ibrahim Pacha in 1816.

4. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARABIAN LITERATURE.--The literature of
the Arabians has, properly speaking, but one period; although from remote
antiquity poetry was with them a favorite occupation, and long before the
time of Mohammed the roving tribes of the desert had their annual
conventions, where they defended their honor and celebrated their heroic
deeds. As early as the fifth century A.D., at the fair of Ochadh, thirty
days every year were employed not only in the exchange of merchandise, but
in the nobler display of rival talents. A place was set apart for the
competitions of the bards, whose highest ambition was to conquer in this
literary arena, and the victorious compositions were inscribed in golden
letters upon Egyptian paper, and suspended upon the doors of the Caaba,
the ancient national sanctuary of Mecca. Seven of the most famous of these
ancient poets have been celebrated by Oriental writers under the title of
the Arabian Pleiades, and their songs, still preserved, are full of
passion, manly pride, and intensity of imagination and feeling. These and
similar effusions constituted the entire literature of Arabia, and were
the only archives of the nation previous to the age of Mohammed.

The peninsula of Arabia, hitherto restricted to its natural boundaries,
and peopled by wandering tribes, had occupied but a subordinate place in
the history of the world. But the success of Mohammed and the preaching of
the Koran were followed by the union of the tribes who, inspired by the
feelings of national pride and religious fervor, in less than a century
made the Arabian power, tongue, and religion predominant over a third part
of Asia, almost one half of Africa, and a part of Spain; and, from the
ninth to the sixteenth century, the literature of the Arabians far
surpassed that of any contemporary nation.

After the fall of the Roman empire in the fifth century A.D., when the
western world sank into barbarism, and the inhabitants, ever menaced by
famine or the sword, found full occupation in struggling against civil
wars, feudal tyranny, and the invasion of barbarians; when poetry was
unknown, philosophy was proscribed as rebellion against religion, and
barbarous dialects had usurped the place of that beautiful Latin language
which had so long connected the nations of the West, and preserved to them
so many treasures of thought and taste, the Arabians, who by their
conquests and fanaticism had contributed more than any other nation to
abolish the cultivation of science and literature, having at length
established their empire, in turn devoted themselves to letters. Masters
of the country of the magi and the Chaldeans, of Egypt, the first
storehouse of human science, of Asia Minor, where poetry and the fine arts
had their birth, and of Africa, the country of impetuous eloquence and
subtle intellect--they seemed to unite in themselves the advantages of all
the nations which they had thus subjugated. Innumerable treasures had been
the fruit of their conquests, and this hitherto rude and uncultivated
nation now began to indulge in the most unbounded luxury. Possessed of all
the delights that human industry, quickened by boundless riches, could
procure, with all that could flatter the senses and attach the heart to
life, they now attempted to mingle with these the pleasures of the
intellect, the cultivation of the arts and sciences, and all that is most
excellent in human knowledge. In this new career, their conquests were not
less rapid than they had been in the field; nor was the empire which they
founded less extended. With a celerity equally surprising, it rose to a
gigantic height, but it rested on a foundation no less insecure, and it
was quite as transitory in its duration.

The Hegira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, corresponds with
the year 622 of our era, and the supposed burning of the Alexandrian
library by Amrou, the general of the Caliph Omar, with the year 641. This
is the period of the deepest barbarism among the Saracens, and this event,
doubtful as it is, has left a melancholy proof of their contempt for
letters. A century had scarcely elapsed from the period to which this
barbarian outrage is referred, when the family of the Abassides, who
mounted the throne of the Caliphs in 750, introduced a passionate love of
art, of science, and of poetry. In the literature of Greece, nearly eight
centuries of progressive cultivation succeeding the Trojan war had
prepared the way for the age of Pericles. In that of Rome, the age of
Augustus was also in the eighth century after the foundation of the city.
In French literature, the age of Louis XIV. was twelve centuries
subsequent to Clovis, and eight after the development of the first
rudiments of the language. But, in the rapid progress of the Arabian
empire, the age of Al Mamoun, the Augustus of Bagdad, was not removed more
than one hundred and fifty years from the foundation of the monarchy. All
the literature of the Arabians bears the marks of this rapid development.

Ali, the fourth Caliph from Mohammed, was the first who extended any
protection to letters. His rival and successor, Moawyiah, the first of the
Ommyiades (661-680), assembled at his court all who were most
distinguished by scientific acquirements; he surrounded himself with
poets; and as he had subjected to his dominion many of the Grecian islands
and provinces, the sciences of Greece under him first began to obtain any
influence over the Arabians.

After the extinction of the dynasty of the Ommyiades, that of the
Abassides bestowed a still more powerful patronage on letters. The
celebrated Haroun al Raschid (786-809) acquired a glorious reputation by
the protection he afforded to letters. He never undertook a journey
without carrying with him at least a hundred men of science in his train,
and he never built a mosque without attaching to it a school.

But the true protector and father of Arabic literature was Al Mamoun, the
son of Haroun al Raschid (813-833), who rendered Bagdad the centre of
literature. He invited to his court from every part of the world all the
learned men with whose existence he was acquainted, and he retained them
by rewards, honors, and distinctions of every kind. He exacted, as the
most precious tribute from the conquered provinces, all the important
books and literary relics that could be discovered. Hundreds of camels
might be seen entering Bagdad, loaded with nothing but manuscripts and
papers, and those most proper for instruction were translated into Arabic.
Instructors, translators, and commentators formed the court of Al Mamoun,
which appeared to be rather a learned academy, than the seat of government
in a warlike empire. The Caliph himself was much attached to the study of
mathematics, which he pursued with brilliant success. He conceived the
grand design of measuring the earth, which was accomplished by his
mathematicians, at his own expense. Not less generous than enlightened, Al
Mamoun, when he pardoned one of his relatives who had revolted against
him, exclaimed, "If it were known what pleasure I experience in granting
pardon, all who have offended against me would come and confess their
crimes."

The progress of the Arabians in science was proportioned to the zeal of
the sovereign. In every town of the empire schools, colleges, and
academies were established. Bagdad was the capital of letters as well as
of the Caliphs, but Bassora and Cufa almost equaled that city in
reputation, and in the number of celebrated poems and treatises that they
produced. Balkh, Ispahan, and Samarcand were equally the homes of science.
Cairo contained a great number of colleges; in the towns of Fez and
Morocco the most magnificent buildings were appropriated to the purposes
of instruction, and in their rich libraries were preserved those precious
volumes which had been lost in other places.

What Bagdad was to Asia, Cordova was to Europe, where, particularly in the
tenth and eleventh centuries, the Arabs were the pillars of literature. At
this period, when learning found scarcely anywhere either rest or
encouragement, the Arabians were employed in collecting and diffusing it
in the three great divisions of the world. Students traveled from France
and other European countries to the Arabian schools in Spain, particularly
to learn medicine and mathematics. Besides the academy at Cordova, there
were established fourteen others in different parts of Spain, exclusive of
the higher schools. The Arabians made the most rapid advancement in all
the departments of learning, especially in arithmetic, geometry, and
astronomy. In the various cities of Spain, seventy libraries were opened
for public instruction at the period when all the rest of Europe, without
books, without learning, without cultivation, was plunged in the most
disgraceful ignorance. The number of Arabic authors which Spain produced
was so prodigious, that many Arabian bibliographers wrote learned
treatises on the authors born in particular towns, or on those among the
Spaniards who devoted themselves to a single branch of study, as
philosophy, medicine, mathematics, or poetry. Thus, throughout the vast
extent of the Arabian empire, the progress of letters had followed that of
arms, and for five centuries this literature preserved all its brilliancy.

5. GRAMMAR AND RHETORIC.--The perfection of the language was one of the
first objects of the Arabian scholars, and from the rival schools of Cufa
and Bassora a number of distinguished men proceeded, who analyzed with the
greatest subtlety all its rules and aided in perfecting it. As early as in
the age of Ali, the fourth Caliph, Arabian literature boasted of a number
of scientific grammarians. Prosody and the metric art were reduced to
systems. Dictionaries of the language were composed, some of which are
highly esteemed at the present day. Among these may be mentioned the "Al
Sehah," or Purity, and "El Kamus," or the Ocean, which is considered the
best dictionary of the Arabian language. The study of rhetoric was united
to that of grammar, and the most celebrated works of the Greeks on this
art were translated and adapted to the Arabic. After the age of Mohammed
and his immediate successors, popular eloquence was no longer cultivated.
Eastern despotism having supplanted the liberty of the desert, the heads
of the state or army regarded it beneath them to harangue the people or
the soldiers; they called upon them only for obedience. But though
political eloquence was of short duration among the Arabians, on the other
hand they were the inventors of that species of rhetoric most cultivated
at the present day, that of the academy and the pulpit. Their philosophers
in these learned assemblies displayed all the measured harmony of which
their language was susceptible. Mohammed had ordained that his faith
should be preached in the mosques;--many of the harangues of these sacred
orators are still preserved in the Escurial, and the style of them is very
similar to that of the Christian orators.

6. POETRY.--Poetry still more than eloquence was the favorite occupation
of the Arabians from their origin as a nation. It is said that this people
alone have produced more poets than all others united. Mohammed himself,
as well as some of his first companions, cultivated this art, but it was
under Haroun al Raschid and his successor, Al Mamoun, and more especially
under the Ommyïades of Spain that Arabic poetry attained its highest
splendor. But the ancient impetuosity of expression, the passionate
feeling, and the spirit of individual independence no longer characterized
the productions of this period, nor is there among the numerous
constellations of Arabic poets any star of distinguished magnitude. With
the exception of Mohammed and a few of the Saracen conquerors and
sovereigns, there is scarcely an individual of this nation whose name is
familiar to the nations of Christendom.

The Arabians possess many heroic poems composed for the purpose of
celebrating the praises of distinguished men, and of animating the courage
of their soldiers. They do not, however, boast of any epics; their poetry
is entirely lyric and didactic. They have been inexhaustible in their love
poems, their elegies, their moral verses,--among which their fables may be
reckoned,--their eulogistic, satirical, descriptive, and above all, their
didactic poems, which have graced even the most abstruse science, as
grammar, rhetoric, and arithmetic. But among all their poems, the
catalogue alone of which, in the Escurial, consists of twenty-four
volumes, there is not a single epic, comedy, or tragedy.

In those branches of poetry which they cultivated they displayed
surprising subtlety and great refinement of thought, but the fame of their
compositions rests, in some degree, on their bold metaphors, their
extravagant allegories, and their excessive hyperboles. The Arabs despised
the poetry of the Greeks, which appeared to them timid, cold, and
constrained, and among all the books, which, with almost superstitious
veneration, they borrowed from them, there is scarcely a single poem which
they judged worthy of translation. The object of the Arabian poets was to
make a brilliant use of the boldest and most gigantic images, and to
astonish the reader by the abruptness of their expressions. They burdened
their compositions with riches, under the idea that nothing which was
beautiful could be superfluous. They neglected natural sentiment, and the
more they could multiply the ornaments of art, the more admirable in their
eyes did the work appear.

The nations who possessed a classical poetry, in imitating nature, had
discovered the use of the epic and the drama, in which the poet endeavors
to express the true language of the human heart. The people of the East,
with the exception of the Hindus, never made this attempt--their poetry is
entirely lyric; but under whatever name it may be known, it is always
found to be the language of the passions. The poetry of the Arabians is
rhymed like our own, and the rhyming is often carried still farther in the
construction of the verse, while the uniformity of sound is frequently
echoed throughout the whole expression. The collection made by Aboul Teman
(fl. 845 A.D.) containing the Arabian poems of the age anterior to
Mohammed, and that of Taoleti, which embraces the poems of the subsequent
periods, are considered the richest and most complete anthologies of
Arabian poetry. Montanebbi, a poet who lived about 1050, has been compared
to the Persian Hafiz.

7. THE ARABIAN TALES.--If the Arabs have neither the epic nor the drama,
they have been, on the other hand, the inventors of a style of composition
which is related to the epic, and which supplies among them the place of
the drama. We owe to them those tales, the conception of which is so
brilliant and the imagination so rich and varied: tales which have been
the delight of our infancy, and which at a more advanced age we can never
read without feeling their enchantment anew. Every one is acquainted with
the "Arabian Nights Entertainments;" but in our translation we possess but
a very small part of the Arabian collection, which is not confined merely
to books, but forms the treasure of a numerous class of men and women,
who, throughout the East, find a livelihood in reciting these tales to
crowds, who delight to forget the present, in the pleasing dreams of
imagination. In the coffee-houses of the Levant, one of these men will
gather a silent crowd around him, and picture to his audience those
brilliant and fantastic visions which are the patrimony of Eastern
imaginations. The public squares abound with men of this class, and their
recitations supply the place of our dramatic representations. The
physicians frequently recommend them to their patients in order to soothe
pain, to calm agitation, or to produce sleep; and these story-tellers,
accustomed to sickness, modulate their voices, soften their tones, and
gently suspend them as sleep steals over the sufferer.

The imagination of the Arabs in these tales is easily distinguished from
that of the chivalric nations. The supernatural world is the same in both,
but the moral world is different. The Arabian tales, like the romances of
chivalry, convey us to the fairy realms, but the human personages which
they introduce are very dissimilar. They had their birth after the
Arabians had devoted themselves to commerce, literature, and the arts, and
we recognize in them the style of a mercantile people, as we do that of a
warlike nation in the romances of chivalry. Valor and military
achievements here inspire terror but no enthusiasm, and on this account
the Arabian tales are often less noble and heroic than we usually expect
in compositions of this nature. But, on the other hand, the Arabians are
our masters in the art of producing and sustaining this kind of fiction.
They are the creators of that brilliant mythology of fairies and genii
which extends the bounds of the world, and carries us into the realms of
marvels and prodigies. It is from them that European nations have derived
that intoxication of love, that tenderness and delicacy of sentiment, and
that reverential awe of women, by turns slaves and divinities, which have
operated so powerfully on their chivalrous feelings. We trace their
effects in all the literature of the south, which owes to this cause its
mental character. Many of these tales had separately found their way into
the poetic literature of Europe, long before the translation of the
Arabian Nights. Some are to be met with in the old _fabliaux_, in
Boccaccio, and in Ariosto, and these very tales which have charmed our
infancy, passing from nation to nation through channels frequently
unknown, are now familiar to the memory and form the delight of the
imagination of half the inhabitants of the globe.

The author of the original Arabic work is unknown, as is also the period
at which it was composed. It was first introduced into Europe from Syria,
where it was obtained, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, by
Galland, a French traveler, who was sent to the East by the celebrated
Colbert, to collect manuscripts, and by him first translated and
published.

8. HISTORY AND SCIENCE.--As early as the eighth century A.D., history
became an important department in Arabian literature. At later periods,
historians who wrote on all subjects were numerous. Several authors wrote
universal history from the beginning of the world to their own time; every
state, province, and city possessed its individual chronicle, Many, in
imitation of Plutarch, wrote the lives of distinguished men; and there was
such a passion for every species of composition, and such a desire to
leave no subject untouched, that there was a serious history written of
celebrated horses, and another of camels that had risen to distinction.
They possessed historical dictionaries, and made use of all those
inventions which curtail labor and dispense with the necessity of
research. Every art and science had its history, and of these this nation
possessed a more complete collection than any other, either ancient or
modern. The style of the Arabian historians is simple and unadorned.

Philosophy was passionately cultivated by the Arabians, and upon it was
founded the fame of many ingenious and sagacious men, whose names are
still revered in Europe. Among them were Averrhoes of Cordova (d. 1198),
the great commentator on the works of Aristotle, and Avicenna (d. 1037), a
profound philosopher as well as a celebrated writer on medicine. Arabian
philosophy penetrated rapidly into the West, and had greater influence on
the schools of Europe than any branch of Arabic literature; and yet it was
the one in which the progress was, in fact, the least real. The Arabians,
more ingenious than profound, attached themselves rather to the subtleties
than to the connection of ideas; their object was more to dazzle than to
instruct, and they exhausted their imaginations in search of mysteries.
Aristotle was worshiped by them, as a sort of divinity. In their opinion
all philosophy was to be found in his writings, and they explained every
metaphysical question according to the scholastic standard.

The interpretation of the Koran formed another important part of their
speculative studies, and their literature abounds with exegetic works on
their sacred book, as well as with commentaries on Mohammedan law. The
learned Arabians did not confine themselves to the studies which they
could only prosecute in their closets; they undertook, for the advancement
of science, the most perilous journeys, and we owe to Aboul Feda (1273-
1331) and other Arabian travelers the best works on geography written in
the Middle Ages.

The natural sciences were cultivated by them with great ardor, and many
naturalists among them merit the gratitude of posterity. Botany and
chemistry, of which they were in some sort the inventors, gave them a
better acquaintance with nature than the Greeks or Romans ever possessed,
and the latter science was applied by them to all the necessary arts of
life. Above all, agriculture was studied by them with a perfect knowledge
of the climate, soil, and growth of plants. From the eighth to the
eleventh century, they established medical schools in the principal cities
of their dominions, and published valuable works on medical science. They
introduced more simple principles into mathematics, and extended the use
and application of that science. They added to arithmetic the decimal
system, and the Arabic numerals, which, however, are of Hindu origin; they
simplified the trigonometry of the Greeks, and gave algebra more useful
and general applications. Bagdad and Cordova had celebrated schools of
astronomy, and observatories, and their astronomers made important
discoveries; a great number of scientific words are evidently Arabic, such
as algebra, alcohol, zenith, nadir, etc., and many of the inventions,
which at the present day add to the comforts of life, are due to the
Arabians. Paper, now so necessary to the progress of intellect, was
brought by them from Asia. In China, from all antiquity, it had been
manufactured from silk, but about the year 30 of the Hegira (649 A.D.) the
manufacture of it was introduced at Samarcand, and when that city was
conquered by the Arabians, they first employed cotton in the place of
silk, and the invention spread with rapidity throughout their dominions.
The Spaniards, in fabricating paper, substituted flax for cotton, which
was more scarce and dear; but it was not till the end of the thirteenth
century that paper mills were established in the Christian states of
Spain, from whence the invention passed, in the fourteenth century only,
to Treviso and Padua. Tournaments were first instituted among the
Arabians, from whom they were introduced into Italy and France. Gunpowder,
the discovery of which is generally attributed to a German chemist, was
known to the Arabians at least a century before any trace of it appeared
in European history. The compass, also, the invention of which has been
given alternately to the Italians and French in the thirteenth century,
was known to the Arabians in the eleventh. The number of Arabic
inventions, of which we enjoy the benefit without suspecting it, is
prodigious.

Such, then, was the brilliant light which literature and science displayed
from the ninth to the fourteenth century of our era in those vast
countries which had submitted to the yoke of Islamism. In this immense
extent of territory, twice or thrice as large as Europe, nothing is now
found but ignorance, slavery, terror, and death. Few men are there capable
of reading the works of their illustrious ancestors, and few who could
comprehend them are able to procure them. The prodigious literary riches
of the Arabians no longer exist in any of the countries where the Arabians
or Mussulmans rule. It is not there that we must seek for the fame of
their great men or for their writings. What has been preserved is in the
hands of their enemies, in the convents of the monks, or in the royal
libraries of Europe.

9. EDUCATION.--At present there is little education, in our sense of the
word, in Arabia. In the few instances where public schools exist, writing,
grammar, and rhetoric sum up the teaching. The Bedouin children learn from
their parents much more than is common in other countries. Great attention
is paid to accuracy of grammar and purity of diction throughout the
country, and of late literary institutions have been established at
Beyrout, Damascus, Bagdad, and Hefar.

Such is the extent of Arabic literature, that, notwithstanding the labors
of European scholars and the productions of native presses, in Boulak and
Cairo, in India, and recently in England, where Hassam, an Arabian poet,
has devoted himself to the production of standard works, the greater part
of what has been preserved is still in manuscript and still more has
perished.

ENGL 148

Philippine Literature
Epics, folktales, dirges
Essays

ENGL 206

Study the following terms:
.
1.Indian Literature
2.Sanskrit
3.Aryan
4.Vedas
5.epic
6.Mahabharata
7.Chinese Literature
8.The Book of Transformations
9. Confucios
10. Mencius
11. Ramayana
12. Emperor Qin Shi Huang Ti (Di)


God bless!

ENGL 148

NONFICTION
Losing My Religion
by Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.
I'm writing this on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, something I may entirely have forgotten if it weren't for all those cruciform smudges on people's foreheads at the mall, where I had my lunch.
It got me to remembering my grade school days in the early 60s, at La Salle Green Hills, back when EDSA was Highway 54 and there was nothing on Ortigas Avenue but that green-pillared house, the school, and dusty vastnesses of scrubgrass and adobe in between.
Back then, a day like this would have been suffused with prayer and incense, and with as much ceremonious contrition as giggly boys could be made to muster. Back then, at about the same hour today that I was strolling past some food stalls and trying to choose between spicy chicken wings and beef on a bed of noodles, we would have been at Mass, poking out our trembling tongues for a wafer of a host, our bellies grumbling for more substantial fodder after a whole morning of fasting.
That host was the driest thing you ever tasted. It felt as large as a saucer -this was way before it became all right to snap it into halves or quarters-and it stuck to your palate like a stamp, and you sucked on it slowly until it came apart, bit by crumbly bit, mindful not to chew on it. That, said the priest, would bring Christ's holy blood gushing out from between the molecules of the masticated starch, to dribble out of the sides of your guilty mouth and onto your crisp white shirt. I saw no blood in all those years of post-Eucharistic swallowing, so I guess we all believed him.
This was a school and a time when, at flag ceremony, you could stroll between the rows of gangly pre-teeners and fatting kids and spot the likes of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Diosdado Macapagal Jr., and Roberto Manglapus-whose fathers were all after the same high chair in Malacañang-and, chubby and quietish, Stephen Mark Whisenhunt. We didn't mind them too much, because flag ceremony ended with more pleasant diversions than wondering about what you and your schoolmate would become in thirty years-such as the Twofus, aka Ronnie Henares and Jojit Paredes, belting out "From a Window" (you know: " Late yesterday night, I saw a light shine from a window." ) from behind the flagpole.
I remember that, and the La Salle fight song-which, I would discover years later much to my chagrin, had been lifted from Notre Dame's-but it wasn't the secular clarities of the place that stayed with me so much as the mysteries of our devotions: Tantum Ergo, Salve Regina, No mas amor que el tuyo , the faceless priest, the incense filling the hall with the smell of holiness, the roses for the Virgin Mary, the Glorious Mysteries, the maddeningly inescapable ubiquity of Sin, and opportunities therefore.
We all had little booklets in which we dutifully and truthfully ("God is Everywhere") catalogued our trespasses, mortal and venial-a "Bad word" here, an "evil thought" there-so much the easier for confessions. Looking back on forgone pleasures, I wish I could say that I mostly sinned against myself and with myself, but that came a little later. Those days we were happy enough to pee, and the most heinous social offense you could commit was to pee-or worse-in your pants, for which the nurse at the clinic thoughtfully kept a pair of Kairuz khaki shorts handy. Such was life in that privileged pocket of easy colonialism and hard religion.
And now, more than three decades later, those two a.m.'s when I realize that I'm staring at my beer and wondering, not too remorsefully, about how I could've made such a fine and glorious mess of my life, I think about those days when sinning was a Big Thing and yet it wasn't.
A few days ago, a friend asked me pointblank over lunch at the cafeteria: "Are you an atheist?" No, I said, but I also said-in the way many people of my generation might have-that I didn't necessarily believe in the bushy-bearded Roman Catholic God but in a God, a Great Someone or Something or Other.
And I told her that I was repelled by institutionalized religion and any kind of fanaticism that presumes to know what God thinks. That's right: I'll respect what other people believe in-Jehovah, Baal or Ashtar, for all I know-but I won't be told that theirs is The Only Way to Paradise, as if they owned the franchise and the TV rights, besides. I can't stand people who pray to God to help them with this prize or help them be Miss or Mr. That. I'd hate to think that God would be stupid or small-minded enough to evaluate basketball games and players and pick a side to win.
I think that the whole notion of having presumably celibate men lay down the dos and don'ts of sex is downright silly-and, when we talk of a whole population policy, criminally irresponsible. And I haven't gone to confession (or "reconciliation," as I think it's been repackaged) in something like eleven years, because I don't see why it has to take another man to get the sordid truth out of me; and besides, if I'd kept a list of everything and confessed to everything, I'd be in there for a week, reading from a chronicle of infamy the size of a phonebook. I don't know what God thinks of that, but I think He knows I'm sorry; I've told him so, many times.
And no, none of this virulent anti-Vaticanism means that I've been reborn, or "renewed," into a more convenient variety of Christianity. I don't even know that I can call myself a Christian (I can hear my mother groaning and praying for my salvation). What I do know is that religion has become a very different thing to me from what it was at La Salle Green Hills (don't snicker, Ateneans; you probably had it worse): priestless, non-sacramental, more private even than sex.
So why am I writing about it? Because I suspect that there are many of you out there who feel the same way I do. And I can suspect, too, what my devouter friends will say to all this: it was the brush with Marxism, it was Sartre, it was the marriage, it was the money, it was all those Playboy magazines, he never knew religion to begin with.
Maybe so. But I'll tell you something. Some days, some very quiet days, I stroll into the chapel, sit in one of the back benches, and carry conversations with all kinds of absent parties-even with that boy kicking up pebbles on the Greenhills lawn-and sometimes I remember how good it felt to sing a full-throated hymn with a hundred other hungry voices. Maybe in my old age, if I get there, I just might do that again-once more, with feeling.
19 February 1994
Gay and Catholic
by J. Neil C. Garcia
The Holy Week served to remind us just how Catholic we are. Perhaps, more than any other place in the world, the Philippines celebrates Lent with remarkable piety and pomp: with rituals, processions, crucifixions, and self-flogging enough to make the foreigner drop his jaw in amazement, or shake his head in disbelief. These mark us off from the rest of the Christian world because they are outward displays of religiosity, at a time when quiet contemplation would seem to be the more desirable mode of devotion to take.
Our seemingly great obsession with images of glorious suffering is something Catholicism found most endearing about us. When the Spanish introduced their religion into our islands four-hundredsomething years ago, they hardly had to placate us. They taught us the story of Christ, the God-Man who came down from the heavens to suffer for our sake. And our ancestors understood. More than that, suffering was something they may have secretly desired on themselves, as such would make them like the white-man's God. The first native, Catholic prayers are in fact the lyric narratives detailing the passion and death of Christ: the pasyon . And the pasyon became so popular among the masses that when finally a few native men and women decided that they had had enough of their Spanish overlords, they borrowed the language of their rebellion from the pasyon . (And many of their rebellions failed-probably because in the end Christianity, being transcendental, can only yield defeatist texts.).
Holy week also got me thinking about just how Catholic I am. And this is not something I can help: my childhood, come to think of it, was filled with so much religious fervor that I can only echo it in my present life. Specifically, in my poetry.
My earliest poems were about the saints, Jesuses and Marys that crammed my waking-and even sleeping-days as a child in a very pious household. My maternal grandparents, who stayed with my family ever since I can remember, taught me to value my faith in palpable ways: to sing it, to recite it, to flaunt it. They collected a menagerie of religious images, with which I became slavishly fascinated. I was like a child stolen by these icons and somber-faced likenesses that peopled my world. When I learned to play with modeling clay, my first and last figurines were precisely miniaturized versions of the crucifix, the Virgin of Lourdes, the Nazareno and the Santo Niño. I was especially fixated on the Holy Child, and only recently did I realize that the reason for this was that I was actually identifying myself with the image of the Santo Niño who, like me, I fancied a sissy: he doesn't look boyish at all, what with those long lashes and golden locks, the pink-rouged cheeks and ruby-red lips! I wanted to be the like him was why I fashioned so many clay versions of him, using my sissy, nimble fingers.
When my grandmother died, three years after my lolo , I turned even more spiritual: youngest of the family's apo , I somehow ended up closest to them, and was their shameless favorite. And when they, three years apart, passed away, death touched me, much more deeply than it did my siblings and cousins: I wanted to die, too, to be with my grandparents who loved me. But early death eluded me, and so instead I became a sacristan , joined the choir, and thought myself bound for the priesthood. In hindsight, I only turned more and more religious because of my desire to avoid getting teased a bakla by the neighborhood's roughish boys, who never really managed to make me one of their own. And because by staying close to God I thought I might ever be close to my lolo and lola whose spirits-I was convinced-hovered over me and kept me happy and safe.
It must have been in high school when I finally decided that I was different from the boys of my childhood, who kicked and punched and roughhoused one another silly: like my new-found friends, I realized I was gay (and that I can never be a priest because I enjoyed my newly discovered sexuality too much!). This epiphany happened to us not because we turned one another gay, but because together we finally were able to put to rest our common doubts, and vowed to face up to the consequences of this realization. We excelled in school, suffice it to say. And this made us impervious to the attacks of our school's intolerant heterosexual majority, who got a kick out of bashing just any old gay they happened to bump into. We weren't that, to be sure: not being just any old gays, we gloried in our collective pride, and even bullied the boys who weren't half as bright or popular as we were.
But since my high school was a Catholic one, I never lost touch with my obligations as a believer either. If anything, our being exemplary meant that we had to lead our classmates to the path of holiness. And the strange thing is, we were doing that rather well: despite being avowedly gay (we had crushes who knew that we liked them-and I must believe that some of them liked us back), we were the perennial conduct awardees, and served as lector during mass, sang in the choir, etc. There was hardly any conflict between our sense of who we were (males who were sexually attracted to other males), and what our theology classes taught us we should be (anything but who we were, basically). I have often wondered just why this was so.
And I wonder, too, just how come other gays I came to know much later in life didn't seem to have enjoyed their adolescence as much as my friends and I did. It must be because they were alone, or felt like they were alone: I must admit our being a relatively big group gave us some measure of (imagined) power over the rest of the high school population. And when I think of it, being gay and alone must be the worst fate anybody can have in this life. To know one's demonic difference is hard enough, but being the only who knows about it makes it all the harder.
I have a feeling that I can be confidently gay and Catholic because the kind of Catholicism I grew up in wasn't dogmatic about anything: like the devout Church-going usurer (or corrupt politician) in our society, I can continue being myself at the same time that I profess my faith in all sincerity. (Of course, this analogy is false because being gay isn't like being a usurer or corrupt politician at all!) I look around me and see basically the same thing: the faith-healers and soothsayers hawking their wares in front of the Quiapo church, the blood-weeping image of the Virgin of Agoo, the dancing sun, the miraculous in almost every little thing. they are proof of our ability to make our faith follow our needs, perhaps because our needs, being always human, can only be of a piece with our spiritual nature. Or perhaps, because Catholicism was never really understood by us, we have been able to make it understand us for a change. And so, the native revolutionaries rose up in arms against the Spanish frailes and governador-generales , quoting passages from the pasyon , with pig-Latin inscriptions on pieces of paper plastered fervidly on their chests.
I end this column with a note on suffering. And how gay suffering can be perfectly heroic, in keeping with the spirit of the "passionate" times. This is a poem I wrote around four years back. It's a prose poem, actually, and in it I try to explain why Lent bears heavily down on its persona, who is out to get the ashen cross rubbed onto his forehead, but ends up getting weighed down by something else instead.
Ash Wednesday
There is a cross yearly staked in the mind and people, remembering their own graves, carry it in earnest. Their heads weighed down are stayed by thoughts of the Passion that is come: planks of wood propped up on a Skull; nails riveting hands and feet; of thorns, a crown; water and blood drawn forth by a spear which stoked septuple a mother's great, inflaming heart, etc. It is, of course the season of passion. The coolth is gone from mornings as people show their warmth by wearing more the body than its cloth. The Pontius Sun is let to pass sentence on skins bared impassioned to its cat-o'-nine rays. And this becomes their mortification.
I repent with them, then, this day: people on whose faces the season casts the cruciform shadow of consecrated ash, that brings to bear on me much more than my own mortal load. As I heft the cross of death upon my forehead I carry not just this body's burden of dust to dust, ashes to ashes; but agonying in the skimpy shorts and hanging shirts of boys crucified in earnest to their summer's passions, I fall the fourth time under the terrific weight of mine.
Gilda Cordero Fernando, Cantadora
by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo
I first read Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker by Gilda Cordero Fernando when I was a sophomore in college. And from that moment, I knew who it was that I wanted to write like. Her characters were different from the ones I had encountered in the stories of other Filipino writers in English. They were people I could identify with-sensitive little girls like Wendy in "Hunger" and the girl being mercilessly bullied by Socorro in "The Eye of the Needle," or bewildered adolescents like Tia Dolor's niece in "Hothouse" and Victoria in "People in the War," or lonely expatriate students like Noli and the heroine of "Sunburn". And her plots sometime skipped blithely out of the real world into the magical one of goblins living under a hillock in the shadow of a fire tree in a "wild neglected spot of the garden, planted once long ago and forgotten," and ancient gypsies living in "a little village tucked in the apron of a mountain" weaving silk the color of "the translucent amber of centuries-old Amontillado, the ephemeral glitter of green on the wingtips of dragonflies, the elusive wisp of smoke in the crater of a dying volcano."
There was a picture of the author on the back cover, and I remember thinking, "Oh Lord, she's pretty too!"
A year or so later, when I was writing for the youth page for the Manila Chronicle , my boss, Amante Paredes, sent me a review copy of A Wilderness of Sweets , Mrs. Fernando's second book. I read it in one sitting, and wrote my review of it that same night. I thought it was an even better collection that her first book. "People in the War," seemed to me now an early study for the title story in the second book, "A Wilderness of Sweets"-a harrowing tale of a young girl's experience of war, evoked with deceptive lyricism. "The Dust Monster" a wilder, more whimsical, more enchanting version of "The Level of Each Day's Need". And "Early inn our World" a more painful story than anything in the earlier volume.
Some years later, I received, to my great delight, a complimentary copy of Culinary Culture of the Philippines , with a little note from its author, saying that it was not for reviewing, but for me to enjoy.
In these days of glossy coffee table books and regular book launchings, it is difficult for young people to imagine what an event Culinary Culture was when it first came out. To begin with, National Bookstore had only two small branches, and they only carried textbooks. Alemar's, Bookmark and PECO sold textbooks and foreign books. Popular, Erewhon and La Solidaridad had "Filipiniana" sections, which consisted of a shelf at the back of the room, containing a handful of novels and short story collections, anthologies used as textbooks, and history books. With the exception of Nick Joaquin's The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Kerima Polotan Tuvera's The Hand of the Enemy (which were Stonehill grant recipients), and Carmen Guerrero Nakpil's Woman Enough , all were paperbacks, printed on cheap paper. Bert Florentino had come out with "peso book" editions of the classics. And when National decided to come out with compilations of Nick Joaquin's magazine essays, it packaged them as cheap pocketbooks with komiks -type covers and movie-magazine titles.
The appearance in 1976 of the handsome Culinary Culture , priced at 140 pesos, was little short of a miracle. Evan more miraculous was the fact that it was a hit.
Ah, I thought, she's a wonder worker too.
I finally met Gilda Cordero Fernando at the launching of the first two Joaquin essay books at the new National on Harrison Plaza. There was a big turnout, because, according to Chato Garcellano, " Akala ng mga tao, ikakasal daw si Nick at si Nora Aunor ." I don't remember who introduced me to Mrs. Fernando. And in that crowd, it was impossible to say anything beyond "how nice to meet you at last".
We ran into each other intermittently after that-at other book launchings, at openings of art exhibits, at a plant fair in the U.P. campus. But she did not become my friend until later. By then, I had reread her stories many times, had given them to my daughters to read, had taught them to my students. My personal favorites were still "A Wilderness of Sweets" and "The Dust Monster," but I had come to appreciate the subtlety and sophistication of all the other stories-the ones set in middle-class suburbia as well as those set in Pugad Lawin and the village of broken-down "bus houses".
In her autobiography, Simone de Beauvoir recalls that she had always imagined Han Suyin as Jennifer Jones, the actress who had played the heroine of Love is a Many Splendored Thing . When she actually met the Chinese-Belgian writer, de Beauvoir was astonished to find that she was more beautiful than the actress. In my mind, Gilda Cordero-Fernando was the heroines of her stories. And then I got to know her, and to my astonishment, she was more fascinating than all of them combined..
The assignment to do her profile for another magazine a couple of years ago (it never saw print, as the magazine folded up in the way of such magazines), convinced me that I still hardly knew her. I dialed her number, frantic for an "interview". I needed to collect the data that usually went into that sort of story.
Gilda was amused, but she obliged, as usual. We set a date. She remembered that she had tickets for Anton Juan's Salome at the CCP, and invited me to come with her.
"We can have lunch first," she said. "I'll pick you up. I know a place you'll love." As usual, she made it sound like an adventure.
While I waited for her, I tried to recall how she looked. It wasn't that simple, because she's the sort of person who looks different each time one sees her. At Nestor Mata's recital, for instance, she wore a long rose-colored skirt and a blouse she had made herself from an old camisa appliquéd with flowers from another terno , and her long hair was held with a clasp and draped over one shoulder. When she came to speak to my undergraduate class at the U.P., she was wearing a denim shirtwaist, a choker she hSad fashioned from chandelier crystals and antique beads, and frizzy hair.
For our lunch that day, she was dressed in black slacks and a black t-shirt.
I tried to find the word that would best describe her special quality. Again, it was nothing as simple as beauty. Beauty, certainly, but also radiance, vibrance, grace, laughter, tears, passion.
The place she took me to was Cosa Nostra, a tiny establishment on Adriatico Street. Very cozy and very chic. Though I have never been particularly partial to Italian cuisine, I found the pizza pezzo and the spaghetti with its vegetable sauce irresistible.
It was difficult to concentrate on facts like dates and degrees and number of siblings. We kept getting sidetracked. Gilda's interests are multifarious. Between bites of the incredible pizza, we talked about dream analysis, about manghuhula , about aerobics, about women's secrets, about women running away, about mutual friends-Julie Lluch, Sylvia Mayuga, Doreen Fernandez.
She gave me glimpses into her childhood in Quiapo. The street was called Escaldo. It was a tiny street, but the procession of the Nazareno never failed to pass that way, because her neighbors, the Nakpils, were the biggest contributors to the Quiapo church. During the Occupation and part of Liberation, she lived in Malabon. And after that, the family moved to Malate-Ermita, "the burgis part of town". There she spent her growing-up years. "And then, I couldn't stand it anymore, so I got married and moved away," she says.
Her relationship with her mother was a troubled one, she explained. But with her father, a professor of Medicine at the U.P., it was ideal. "He was always there for my sister, Tess (Pardo), and me."
I recalled her saying to me one time that she could not imagine writing her autobiography. "It I so difficult for a Filipina, isn't it?" she said. "You can't let it all hang out. People will get hurt." But, in fact, she had written a very touching autobiographical piece called "Motherhood Statements" (included in the anthology Telling Lives ) about the connections between mothers and daughters. And she and Mariel Francisco have since published a book which is a kind of "joint autobiography".
This project-like all Gilda's projects-was, above all, original. Two women writing about different phases and passages of their individual lives, which are also phases and passages of other women's lives.
We got back on track somehow. What about her schooldays at St. Theresa's College? I asked.
"Oh, I was not a good student at all," she said. "I was never in the honor roll. So the nuns never made me editor-in-chief of the school paper until I was a senior. In my time, the editor had to be the valedictorian." Sometimes, however, the valedictorian couldn't write. Nor could the nun who served as moderator of the paper. So Gilda did all the work: wrote, edited, did the layouts too, and the presswork. "That's probably how the publisher in me was born," she smiled.
This leads to an aside on karma. According to Gilda, the people with whom we form exceptionally close ties in this life are reincarnations of people whose lives were also linked to ours in previous lives. "Troubled relationships should be worked out. Otherwise you are doomed to be involved with each other again and again." Today, her mother and she have managed to become friends. "So have my husband and I," she added with a wink.
We talked of other relationships in her life. " Marami namang lumigaw sa akin ," she admitted with disarming candor. "But that didn't help my insecurity. I had no self-esteem to speak of."
At 22, she married a lawyer, Marcelo Fernando, who was 23. "I chose him because he did not make me feel insecure," she said. "And because I loved him, of course," she added, smiling again. "But it was very important to me that my partner did not make me feel even less sure than I was. I could never have married one of those cocky, arrogant, high-powered young men."
It took her a long, long time to get over that insecurity, a long, long time to even determine what the problem was. "I was Flora and Reve, those characters in my stories. I felt ugly and useless. I felt everything I did was unimportant."
This, despite her writing, for which she kept winning prizes. "It surprised me that people liked my stories. I was very touched that Franz Arcellana thought me good, that he wanted to spend time teaching me."
I remember telling Gilda one time about a critical piece on her stories done by Thelma Arambulo, a colleague at the U.P. It astonished her that anyone was still studying her fiction. "Do the students today take any interest in those old stories?" she asked. "They must sound so old fashioned. They were the work of a very young person. I stopped writing fiction 35 years ago. I don't even read fiction anymore."
But she read the book I gave her, a collection of my own tales, about which I felt unsure, never having written anything like them before. And she said such warmly encouraging things about it that my heart glowed like a bright red apple.
And when she agreed to come to listen to my students' analyses of "A Wilderness of Sweets,'" she was tremendously pleased. "They are so bright, so insightful. They make me feel good about my work."
While her children were growing up, she was a full-time housewife, thought she was also always a "working woman". She did not like the role of "corporate wife". Husband Marcelo, was a fast-rising Meralco executive, and she had to socialize with the business and society people. It was a strain. "I didn't dress the way they did and couldn't talk about shopping and restaurants and the latest trips abroad. It was more fun to go dancing, which I did with my gay male friends, at the Coco Banana , since my husband didn't much care for it." This phase is reflected in some of her tales, including "Magnanimity."
When she decided to work, she decided to do it at home. "I would have wanted to work for a magazine, which was what most writers did, but it would have meant neglecting my home and my children." Besides, she was reluctant to enter a world she could not share with her husband.
Intermittently for six years, Gilda wrote the column, called "Tempest in a Teapot," first for the Chronicle , then for the Observer , and then for Veritas . This is another thing she was insecure about. "My style isn't right for magazine columns and essays. I'm not organized. I tend to ramble. I write as I speak. My fiction is different. I don't know why."
I told her that this was the reason I could not believe she meant it when she declared she would never write fiction again.
Gilda assured me that she was serious about this. But she had agreed to allow Anvil Publishing to publish a new combined edition of her two story collections, both of which had been out of print for a while. ( Note: the book, titled Story Collection was published in 1994. )
Besides writing magazine articles, she corrected students' written analyses of "cases" for the Asian Institute of Management. This was boring work, and spoiled her eyes forever. She knew nothing about business, but was hired because she had mastery over the language, and enough horse sense to understand the point despite students' circumlocutions. For her part, she took the job because it paid well and because, again, it enabled her to work at home.
Early in her marriage, she also manufactured and distributed diaper bags, having gotten the idea from a pretty baby diaper bag someone had given her as a present, and discovered that all diaper bags were imported. She decided it would be a simple matter to produce a local version. She didn't know how to sew, but there were seamstresses she could hire. She would design the bats, choose the materials herself, going all the way to Divisoria-"remnants," they were called, bits of this and that-and lug them back in a jeepney. It was a matter of pride not to take a cab. The cab fare would have eaten into her profits. She employed three modistas and one "wrapper; "and supplied Rustan's, Aguinaldo's, Everlast, Makati Supermart, Manila C.O.D. (malls were nonexistent). The idea was pirated by others and soon ceased to be profitable.
Like the bag business, the legendary GCF Books was run from her house, a sprawling one-story affair on Panay Avenue, practically hidden by trees and a profusion of plants.
When she first invited me over for lunch, her house struck me as exactly the sort of place I had imagined as her "space." As the famous houseboat must have seemed inevitably Anais Nin's, and Monk's House unmistakably Virginia Woolf's. The sunken living room, watched over by Julie Lluch's sculptures, the large Bob Feleo piece against one wall, the old opium bed, the open corridor, which is really a little wooden bridge over a small pool, the den with its book-lined wall, the lanai with a hammock hanging from a huge bougainvillea tree, the old German shepherd called Boris, sleeping on a little hill of smooth gray stones (gone now, unfortunately), under a 25-year-old tree whose name Gilda doesn't know, but which sprouts the loveliest feathery flowers, white and lavender.
It is one of the airiest, sunniest houses I have even been in. Everywhere you look, you see gardens. Two steps, and you are within touching distance of a fat, leafy, contented plant. It is the first house to be build by Lindy Locsin. "He who had just finished the U.P. Chapel."
The GCF books "office" was a narrow room, one of its walls consisting entirely of windows. Another wall was covered with shelves. A long dining table (where she served me a delightful brunch consisting of champurado and tuyo , and a variety of the freshest vegetables) occupied most of the floor space. A door opened into a smaller room, from which Gilda produced several blouses which she was in the process of putting together, combining material from the camisas of different old ternos in lovely, unexpected patterns. This was her new thing: clothes designing. The blouses were to be given to her daughters and daughters-in-law as Christmas gifts.
Though she declared firmly that her decision to get out of publishing big illustrated books was final, the nostalgia was unmistakable when she spoke of her other "babies," the books she produced, children not just of her brain, but of her heart and soul. She called them "identity books," her contribution to the Filipino's obsessive search.
That was in the early 70's, before courses on "popular culture" or "folk culture" were being taught, before degrees in Philippine Studies were being granted. Gilda had worked as Associate Editor on the Philippine Heritage series, which ran to 10 volumes. This is how she learned to make books. She had, for some time, been running a small shop located inside Solidaridad Galleries on Padre Faura (her first experience as a tindera , she says). When it closed, she opened another antique/folk art shop called Junque, on A. Mabini.
She wanted to recall things she was about to forget, but which she knew were important-things people had told her-stories, legends, descriptions of lifestyles, riddles, proverbs, recipes. She wanted to pass them on, with intelligence and sensitivity and charm.
She rummaged through rare books and old magazines, even enrolled in a couple of courses at the U.P. "I guess when you have a vision, you will find the right people to help make the dream, come true."
She wanted to produce books that would be both beautiful and intelligent, researched in a scholarly manner but written in a popular style. The measure of GCF Books' success is that it lasted 13 years, and produced 11 books, each one a gem. "Its time is past. Now everyone knows how to do an illustrated book. And Filipiniana is in -I think I had a small part in that. I gave up fiction for that. Fiction writing to me is really just self-indulgence, too much of an ego trip."
Couldn't it also be a reaching out? I asked.
"Maybe it is. But even when you do reach some readers, even when you do touch them, they are so few! Admit it, how many people read fiction in English?"
She wanted to reach more people to teach them things through books. "But first, I had to learn them myself."
We had long since finished lunch, and were about to be late for Anton's play. Gilda asked for the bill, and we dashed off to the CCP.
After the performance, which, we agreed, was as original as all Anton Juan productions are, Gilda told me she wanted to inquire about ballet lessons.
"For whom? I asked.
"For me, of course," she laughed. "I've been wanting to choreograph a ballet with a friend. But I lack the technical skill."
The people in the CCP's ballet office were unfazed by Gilda's being 63. Dancing had nothing to do with age, they said. This delighted Gilda, as it is a favorite theme of hers.
She had decided, at this point, that we were going back to her house for ice cream. "Actually," she said, as we headed for Panay Avenue, "age does make a difference. I like my present self now much better than my thirty-year-old self. I don't know why people are afraid of growing old. It's nice to be old."
Perhaps, I said, that's why she didn't look old.
"The best thing about being this age," Gilda said, "is that one finally feels free. Free to be and do everything one would have been and done if one hadn't been too scared when one was younger. These days, I can be absolutely outrageous.
I asked for an example of her outrageousness.
"I will give you an example of what I was like before, and you will see what I mean." One time, she said, she asked Erwin Castillo, the writer-artist, to paint a mural on her bathroom wall. He painted, with great verisimilitude, three naked figures: a woman with green hair standing between a brown macho -type man and a yellow poet sort of guy. She was too embarrassed to live with it, and too embarrassed to tell Erwin of her embarrassment. "Do you know what I did? I edited it! I actually erased their genitals with paint thinner. Naturally, it didn't solve anything. The mural still made me uncomfortable. It threatened and irritated my husband. And it offended Erwin. After all, I had defaced his artwork. Now, that's the sort of thing that would never happen to me now."
Over ice cream, Gilda talked about her present. One phase was over, the book-publishing phase. It was time to move on. She was not sure what the new phase would be. An art-curating phase perhaps; or a costurera phase, or a dancer phase. Not knowing is part of the excitement.
A few days later, I was back in Gilda's house again, to fill in the blanks in the profile.
Gilda was in the middle of a meeting over her latest book, the "joint autobiography" she had written with Mariel Francisco. Babeth Lolarga (the editor) and Manni Chaves (the art director) were there. Gilda made room for me at the worktable and insisted on serving me a late breakfast of pancakes, hotdogs, and scrambled eggs.
It was like old times. They were deciding about illustrations. The book was to be a pastiche of many enchanting elements. memories, dreams, drawings by a grandson, old photographs, cartoons, greeting cards, sundry memorabilia. It was still title-less. Gilda liked "Two Quezon City Housewives," but Mariel was dissatisfied with that. And, Manni added, Gilda's title sounded too much like Krip Yuson's Confessions of a Quezon City House Husband .
"What do you think of Two Old Women in Tennis Shoes?" Gilda asked me. I thought it was wonderful. So did Babeth. But Gilda said Mariel would never agree. ( The book, released in 1995, was finally titled Ladies' Lunch and Other Ways to Wholeness .)
Corazon Alvina, invaluable part of the old GCF Books team, dropped in, and was also plied with breakfast even if it was now past 11 a.m. Gilda asked if she had some memorabilia that could be photographed, "like dried leaves, for instance".
Conversation turned to the art exhibit which Gilda had been asked by the Metropolitan Museum and the French Embassy to curate, then jumped to the sudden death of Boris, the German shepherd. Babeth asked Gilda what her next book would be.
Fiction? I suggested hopefully.
"Maybe fiction for children," Gilda said. "We'll see."
In the gaps, I managed to ask Gilda the questions I had come to ask. Some of them were answered by Corazon, who has a sharper memory for some details, including details of Gilda's writing and publishing career.
My last question had to do with children and grandchildren.
There are four Fernando children. "Our best achievement, Marcelo's and mine," Gilda said, beaming, "what we have to show for our long, not always calm, life together-four bright, achieving, happy people."
Teodoro is a lawyer like his father, and is married to Lanelle Abueva, daughter of Dr. Jose Abueva; Manolo, an executive at MERALCO, and an accomplished chef, is married to Lilli Ann Dim; Patricia is an architect and is married to Roy Regalado, an engineer/contractor; and Marcelo Jr. works for Citibank and is married to Ernestine Villareal, abogada de campanilla . The latter couple is referred to by their mother as "our rich neighbors". The houses surrounding Marcelo's and Gilda's in the compound belong to Marcelo (Arcus) and Ernestine and to Manolo and Lilli Ann. Both (and the Bey-Lanelle house in Antipolo) were designed by Patricia and built by Roy. At the time of our interview, there were 7 grandchildren.
Unfortunately, none of them were around. And I knew that a third visit could not be squeezed in before my deadline.
Gilda walked me to my car, and we lingered under the trees a while, talking about this women-in-their-sixties group that she belongs to, who call themselves "Woman Plus". What they all have in common, Gilda said, is a refusal to stagnate. They have regular discussions on different topics. Another group she belongs to is called "Inner Work". A third group was just forming, called "Mama's Girls," consisting of women with problem mothers.
"No wonder you don't age!" I exclaimed. "You don't have the time!"
"The important thing is to be in touch with oneself, to peel off the useless layers, the disguises, to get to the inner core. Then one does not waste so much time and energy. This is what being happy means."
Suddenly she remembered a book she said I had to read, dashed back into the house, and returned before I could find my car keys. "Here. It's really Mariel's book. She lent it to me. But I'm a slow reader. You read it first."
The book-which had not yet found its way into the shelves of National-was Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, doctor of multi-cultural studies and clinical psychologist, artist, cantadora , singer of songs, teller of tales. (The book was later to become a bestseller.)
Gilda Cordero Fernando smiled at me.
I smiled back.
Since our interview, Gilda has published Ladies' Lunch and Other Ways to Wholeness , presented "Jamming on an Old Saya," a smash-hit fashion show featuring her own designs and creations, and contributed substantially to the success of Writers' Night-the writers' reunion and fundraiser held by the U.P. Creative Writing Center held in December every year-by donating several lovely items from her own collection, including the first two antique santos she had ever bought. She now has nine grandchildren.
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I Owe Y’All Two Pages
Creative Nonfiction by Cecille LaVerne dela Cruz | Sunday, June 21st, 2009
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning: should I wear my hood in class on the fifth of January or should I wear my hood in class on the fifth of January? It’s a tricky question, given that we live in a democratic society. By democracy, I mean being surrounded by people who are as free as you are they’d sing Itaktak Mo over and over until you’d feel odd enough you’d be moved to remove your hood. Scandal has two sides after all: baring your head below, and covering your head above.
I do not wish to move the world. Not that I won’t dare, but how could I disturb the universe given the size of my breasts and my booty? A few years back, a fiction teacher said I was a promising writer. By that I think he meant I have the great talent for putting off one article after another for the next day. My reason is a humble one: I write because I want to play god; so then I could pare my fingernails.
Writing is not easy. True. How could it be given that sitting too much could strain your back? Besides, we need to confront every day the hard facts of life: what price tomatoes? who killed the porkchops? and how different is a quickie from a full-bodied fornication? I have no answers. How could I? After all I’m a modern brained Homo Sapiens and like any, am bugged greatly by the futility of a modern Homo Sapiens’s effort to comprehend this world.
And so each day I wait for divine illumination. I have never seen one. That’s because I was raised a Protestant and the problem with being raised a Protestant is that we tend to smirk at Catholic miracles all the time. Take my mom, who does not believe in bloody Marys and levitating priests. Everything seemed to be working fine when, months before New Year’s Eve of 2000, she ciphered from Revelation that Christ was to come eve of the new millennium. Don’t ask me how, but by October she was hoarding boxes of matches, salt, rice, and gasoline. Came the last day of 1999, there was enough supply to last five people through an eternity of darkness.
Mom sat us around the dinner table and made us wait.
The clock struck twelve. Firecrackers were blown and fireworks lighted the sky. The clock struck one. No star fell— they should have fallen: to signal the descent of Christ.
Holy Christ, did he not come! Imagine then the disappointment of my mom who, without a doubt, stood next to God in the Great Chain of Being. How could God dare snob her and exchange her for the people who were in the lowest rung of the holy scale— my father’s mother, for example? My brother swore, though, that she had fallen asleep when Christ showed up by her window.
(What’s great about Mom is that she’s not bothered by modern questions at all. She was born in the middle ages, raised during the Reformation, and lives in the days of our Lord. And so help me God.)
See, I share with my mom my great disability to see divine revelations. What more could be tragic than this.
Raging at my disability, I pace back and forth the long schoolroom. Then realizing the absurdity of my walking back and forth, I feel relieved. The feeling of being absurd is a modern feeling, the sellable theme of the century. Read the latest chick flick. Those about female journalists bloating their asses and who’d trip so often they couldn’t tell an ass from a dimwit Hollywood producer.
Of course we have our own J. Zafra, who’s also fat and who wears weird specs so she could write six books about her fat and her weird specs. Very absurd, indeed. This thing called writing from the body.
Of course, we forgive them. After all, how could we dare forget their genius? J. Zafra, for instance, has long known how to make another of herself before the geneticists have cloned Dolly. Fact is, she has made three of her: Me, Myself, and I. All fat, all wearing weird specs, all self-generating into more sets of Me, Myself, and I.
Given the fat ladies before me, and the suicidal romantics before me, how could I write something new, something that would make Shakespeare wish he was born after me? We have indeed reached a literature of exhaustion. True. It’s not at all alarming until I remembered I need to stretch this piece into six pages and am having a hard time reaching four.
Alarming, but not a problem. What really ails me as a writer is that I should write in relation to all the dead writers of the past. How could I know them all when I’m even having a problem remembering the names of classmates in my essay class? Besides, who wants to talk to a guy who wrote the way he did in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or Sir Patrick Spence?
(No, that was not what he meant at all. That was not it, at all).
After the strolls and the sunsets and the sachets of Extra Joss, I see the divine light. Four decades and three years ago, a society called Vienna Circle killed the Author. So the living could write not only with a full consciousness of the present, but of the past.
(That was not it at all. Ain’t what it meant, at all).
And so I have come to a crossroad watching two trees in the low sky and the train zipper down its track. I am at ease here with alien people clutching their purses. Teacher, mother, suffer me not to mock myself while I wander through the wasteland of Quezon City.
—-
UP Min alumna Cecille Laverne is finishing her MA Creative Writing in UP Diliman.

ENGL 300

TECHNICAL WRITING

Definition:

Is a written communication about a scientific or technical subject to specific reader or group of readers for the purpose of giving certain information. It is also called scientific writing because it deals with a topic in any of the sciences.

Stages:

A. PRE-WRITING

a. Selection of Topic
1. interestedness of the topic
2. limitedness/limited breadth of the topic
3. relevance to the writer’s field or discipline
4. familiarity of the writer with the topic
5. availability of materials
b. Writing of tentative bibliography
c. Determination of the purpose, scope, audience, and point of view
d. Outlining/Organization of ideas
TOPIC OUTLINE, SENTENCE OUTLINE, PARAGRAPH OUTLINE
e. Collection of information
1. Reading
2. Experimenation
3. Observation
4. Interviewing
5. Conversation/Chat
6. Internet surfing
7. Conducting a survey

B. WRITING

After undertaking the preliminary steps, the technical writer engages himself in the writing stage. He writes the first draft of his composition. This draft is also called a rough draft because it still contains errors which are corrected to make the draft “smooth”. At this stage, he documents his work by means of bibliography and footnote or endnote entries.

C. COPY READING AND PROOFREADING



Characteristics:

Principles:
1. Always have in mind a specific reader, real or imaginary, when you are writing a report; and always assume that this reader is intelligent, but uniformed.
2. Before you start to write, always decide what the exact purpose of your report is; and make sure that every paragraph, every sentence, every word, makes a clear contribution to that purpose, and makes it at the right time.
3. Use language that is simple, concrete, and familiar.
4. At the beginning and end of every section of your report check your writing according to this principle: “First you tell your readers what you’re going to tell them, then you tell them, and then you tell them what you’ve told them.”
5. Make your report attractive to look at.

Properties:

1. Accuracy-An effective technical paper is accurate. An accurate work is devoid of errors. Its every word is precise. Care must be exercised in the selection of words to be used in the paper.

2. Brevity-An effective paper is brief or short. Technical men, for example, businessmen and scientists, are busy people. They don’t have the time to read long papers. The shorter the paper, the better.

3. Coherence-Coherence refers to the sticking together of ideas. An effective writer has a way of putting ideas together to form a coherent whole. He achieves this by using transitional or pivotal words properly, avoiding dangling and squinting modifiers, and constructing coordination and subordination structures correctly.

4. Directness-Refrain from going around the bush or the so-called roundabout construction. He also avoids long-winded introductions. In writing paragraphs, he normally begins with a topic sentence, develops the main idea with supporting sentences, and ends with a concluding sentence.

5. Emphasis-To emphasize is to highlight main ideas and downplay subordinate ones. To achieve emphasis, an effective writer makes use of parallelism, position, proportion, repetition, variation, conciseness, and other means.

6. Factuality-The information that it contains is based on facts; therefore, is provable, testable, and credible. It is not a product of man’s imagination, speculation, or hallucination.

7. Grammaticality-It does not violate grammar rules or standards of correctness of structures in the language. A writer who observes concord rules or agreement between subject and verb, pronoun and antecedent, syntax rules.

8. Heaviness-Inasmuch as the subject matter of a technical paper is serious, that is, a scientific subject or a technical topic associated with the sciences, technical writing manifests heaviness.

9. Intelligibility-Even if a technical paper contains technical or scientific terms, it must be easily understood.

10. Judiciousness-A judicious writer always exercise good judgement. His ability to discriminate between fact and opinion, between truth and falsity, between relevance and irrelevance, between materiality and immateriality, between goodness and badness, between ethicality and unethicality, is always put to a test.

11. Keenness- It is a product of a smart writer who makes use of his intelligence to satisfy his readers.

12. Logicality-It conformes with the principles of logic, the science of correct thinking and reasoning. It does not take a logician to show correct spatial, temporal, causal, genus-species, and other relationships of words and ideas.

13. Mechanical Correctness-It conforms with the various rules of mechanics. Mechanics involves the use of punctuation marks, spelling, spacing, indention, capitalization, italicization, margining, alignment, the use of numbers in figures and words, and the like.

14. Neutrality-It is not biased; it does not favor only one side. It is not partial; it takes into account all aspects or facets of the thing under consideration.

15. Order-The ideas are sequenced in such a way that they flow smoothly. An effective technical writer make use of an outline to organize his thoughts properly.

16. Personality-It is a reflection of the kind of person the writer is. A well-written work is an index of a writer who is careful and responsible.

17. Quality-A paper which lives up to standards and possesses only all the positive traits any technical writing must have is a paper of good quality.

18. Reader-friendliness-It is adopted to the readers’ needs, interests, and knowledge.

19. Specificity-Unlike literary writing, technical writing is written by a specific writer to a specific reader for a specific purpose. For instance, a sales letter is written by a sales manager to a prospective buyer or buyers for the purpose of promoting the product of the company and boosting its sales.

20. Thoroughness-It is a complete work, be it a letter, book, report, journal, article, or another form. It must be thoroughly done; it must not miss out anything that is essential or salient to its being.

21. Unity-Unity means consistency in purpose, idea, subject, voice, mood, number, person, gender, language, etc. A violaton of theses unities produces a disunified paper.

22. Veracity-It contains no lies and presents information coming from reliable sources. An honest writer does not plagaiarize. When the he borrows the words and ideas of other people, he give credit to them by quoting them.
23. Worth-It is valuable to its reader of group ofreders because it satisfies the reders’ need for information. Besides, it serves other purposes. For example, a contact renders the agreement between or among parties binding or an instructional manual helpds the reader use the equipment optimally.

24. X-Factor-X-factor stands for an unknown factor, that factor which makes a paper unique or distinct from other papers to the extent that it stands out.

25. Yuppiness-The term yuppy came from the acronym YUP which stands for “young urban professional”. It possesses the qualities of a young urban professional in the sense that it is characterized by newness or freshness, modernity, and professionalism.

26. Zeal-An eager or enthusiastic writer produces a paper with zeal.

Style:
Making Sentences Say What You Mean (p. 37, Walter)—




To be discussed on the board!

Mi Ultimo Adios

Mi último adiós

¡Adiós, Patria adorada, región del sol querida,
Perla del mar de oriente, nuestro perdido Edén!
A darte voy alegre la triste mustia vida,
Y fuera más brillante, más fresca, más florida,
También por ti la diera, la diera por tu bien.

En campos de batalla, luchando con delirio,
Otros te dan sus vidas sin dudas, sin pesar;
El sitio nada importa, ciprés, laurel o lirio,
Cadalso o campo abierto, combate o cruel martirio,
Lo mismo es si lo piden la patria y el hogar.

Yo muero cuando veo que el cielo se colora
Y al fin anuncia el día tras lóbrego capuz;
si grana necesitas para teñir tu aurora,
Vierte la sangre mía, derrámala en buen hora
Y dórela un reflejo de su naciente luz.

Mis sueños cuando apenas muchacho adolescente,
Mis sueños cuando joven ya lleno de vigor,
Fueron el verte un día, joya del mar de oriente,
Secos los negros ojos, alta la tersa frente,
Sin ceño, sin arrugas, sin manchas de rubor

Ensueño de mi vida, mi ardiente vivo anhelo,
¡Salud te grita el alma que pronto va a partir!
¡Salud! Ah, que es hermoso caer por darte vuelo,
Morir por darte vida, morir bajo tu cielo,
Y en tu encantada tierra la eternidad dormir.

Si sobre mi sepulcro vieres brotar un día
Entre la espesa yerba sencilla, humilde flor,
Acércala a tus labios y besa al alma mía,
Y sienta yo en mi frente bajo la tumba fría,
De tu ternura el soplo, de tu hálito el calor.

Deja a la luna verme con luz tranquila y suave,
Deja que el alba envíe su resplandor fugaz,
Deja gemir al viento con su murmullo grave,
Y si desciende y posa sobre mi cruz un ave,
Deja que el ave entone su cántico de paz.

Deja que el sol, ardiendo, las lluvias evapore
Y al cielo tornen puras, con mi clamor en pos;
Deja que un ser amigo mi fin temprano llore
Y en las serenas tardes cuando por mí alguien ore,
¡Ora también, oh Patria, por mi descanso a Dios!

Ora por todos cuantos murieron sin ventura,
Por cuantos padecieron tormentos sin igual,
Por nuestras pobres madres que gimen su amargura;
Por huérfanos y viudas, por presos en tortura
Y ora por ti que veas tu redención final.

Y cuando en noche oscura se envuelva el cementerio
Y solos sólo muertos queden velando allí,
No turbes su reposo, no turbes el misterio,
Tal vez acordes oigas de cítara o salterio,
Soy yo, querida Patria, yo que te canto a ti.

Y cuando ya mi tumba de todos olvidada
No tenga cruz ni piedra que marquen su lugar,
Deja que la are el hombre, la esparza con la azada,
Y mis cenizas, antes que vuelvan a la nada,
El polvo de tu alfombra que vayan a formar.

Entonces nada importa me pongas en olvido.
Tu atmósfera, tu espacio, tus valles cruzaré.
Vibrante y limpia nota seré para tu oído,
Aroma, luz, colores, rumor, canto, gemido,
Constante repitiendo la esencia de mi fe.

Mi patria idolatrada, dolor de mis dolores,
Querida Filipinas, oye el postrer adiós.
Ahí te dejo todo, mis padres, mis amores.
Voy donde no hay esclavos, verdugos ni opresores,
Donde la fe no mata, donde el que reina es Dios.

Adiós, padres y hermanos, trozos del alma mía,
Amigos de la infancia en el perdido hogar,
Dad gracias que descanso del fatigoso día;
Adiós, dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegría,
Adiós, queridos seres, morir es descansar.


José Rizal, 1896