Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/347

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 325 of a serpent, the five hundred of a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this copious dictionaiy was entrusted to the memory of an ilhterate people. The monuments of the Homerites were inscribed with an obsolete and mysterious character ; but the Cufic letters, the groundwoi'k of the present alphabet, were invented on the banks of the Euphrates ; and the recent in- vention was taught at Mecca by a stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The arts of grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric were unknown to the freeborn eloquence of the Arabians ; but their penetration was sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious,"*'^ and their more elaborate com- positions were addressed with energy and effect to the minds of their hearers. The genius and merit of a rising poet was cele-L«v« of poetry brated by the applause of his own and the kindred tribes. A solemn banquet was prepared, and a chorus of women, striking their tymbals, and displaying the pomp of their nuptials, sung in the presence of their sons and husbands the felicity of their native tribe ; that a champion had now appeared to vindicate their rights ; that a herald had raised his voice to immortalise their renown. The distant or hostile tribes resorted to an annual fair, which was abolished by the fanaticism of the first Moslems : a national assembly that must have contributed to refine and harmonize the barbarians. Thirty days were employed in the exchange, not only of corn and wine, but of eloquence and poetry. The prize was disputed by the generous emulation of the bards ; the victorious performance was deposited in the archives of princes and emirs ; and we may read in our own language the seven original poems which were inscribed in letters of gold and suspended in the temple of Mecca. "^^ The Arabian poets were the historians and moralists of the age ; and, if they sympathized with the prejudices, they inspired and crowned the virtues, of their countrymen. The indissoluble '*• A familiar tale in Voltaire's Zadig (le Chien et le Cheval) is related to prove the natural sagacity of the Arabs (d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient, p. 120, 121 ; Gag- nier, Vie de Mahomet, toni. i. p. 37-46) ; but d'Arvieu.x, or rather La Roque (Voy- age de Palestine, p. 92), denies the boasted superiority of the Bedoweens. The one hundred and sixty-nine sentences of Ali (translated by Ockley, London, 1718) afford a just and favourable specimen of Arabian wit. [Metre and rhetoric were familiar to the early Arab poets.] ■*■* Pocock (Specimen, p. 158-161) and Casiri (Bibliot. Hispano-.Arabica, tom. i. p. 48, 84, &c., 119, tom. ii. p. 17, &c. ) speak of the -Arabian poets before Mahomet ; the seven poems of the Caaba have been published in English by Sir U'iliiam Jones ; but his honourable mission to India has deprived us of his own notes, far more interesting than the obscure and obsolete te.t. [Th. Noldeke, Poesie der alten Araber, 1864; Lyall, Ancient Arabic Poetry, 1885; Fresnel, Lettres sur I'histoire des .Arabes, 1836; Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur I'histoire des .Arabes. The legend of the seven poems hung in the Kaaba has no foundation.]