Instigations Part 39

Note merely that the sacred author still conforms to vulgar opinion. He always speaks of G.o.d as of a man who informs himself of what is going on, who wants to see with his eyes what is being done on his estate, and who calls his people together to determine a course of action.

"And Abraham, having arrayed his people (there were of them three hundred and eighteen), fell upon the five kings and slew them and pursued them even to Hoba on the left side of Damas." From the south side of the lake of Sodom to Damas is 24 leagues, and they still had to cross Liban and anti-Liban. Unbelievers exult over such tremendous exaggeration. But since the Lord favored Abraham there is _no_ exaggeration.

"And that evening two angels came into Sodom, etc." The history of the two angels whom the Sodomites wanted to ravish is perhaps the most extraordinary which antiquity has produced. But we must remember that all Asia believed in incubi and succubae demons, and that moreover these angels were creatures more perfect than man, and that they were probably much better looking, and lit more desires in a jaded, corrupt race than common men would have excited. Perhaps this part of the story is only a figure of rhetoric to express the horrible lewdness of Sodom and of Gomorrah. We offer this solution to savants with the most profound self-mistrust.

As for Lot who offered his two daughters to the Sodomites in lieu of the angels, and Lot's wife metamorphosed into the saline image, and all the rest of the story, what can one say of it? The ancient fable of Cinyra and Myrrha has some relation to Lot's incest with his daughters, the adventure of Philemon and Baucis is not without its points of comparison with that of the two angels appearing to Lot and his wife. As for the pillar of salt, I do not know what it compares with, perhaps with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?

A number of savants think with Newton and the learned Leclerc that the Pentateuch was written by Samuel when the Jews had learned reading and writing, md that all these tales are imitation of Syrian fable.

But it is sufficient for us that it is all Holy Scripture; we therefore revere it without searching in it for anything that is not the work of the Holy Spirit. We should remember, at all times, that these times are not our times, and we should not fail to add our word to that of so many great men who have declared that the Old Testament is true history, and that everything invented by all the rest of the universe is mere fable.

Some savants have pretended that one should remove from the canonical books all incredible matters which might be a stumbling block to the feeble, but it is said that these savants were men of corrupt heart and that they ought to be burned, and that it is impossible to be an honest man unless you believe that the Sodomites desired to ravish the angels.

This is the reasoning of a species of monster who wishes to rule over wits.

It is true that several celebrated church fathers have had the prudence to turn all these tales into allegory, like the Jews, and Philo in especial. Popes still more prudent desired to prevent the translation of these books into the everyday tongue, for fear men should be led to pa.s.s judgment on what was upheld for their adoration.

One ought surely to conclude that those who perfectly understand this work should tolerate those who do not understand it, for if these latter do not understand it, it is not their fault; also those who do not understand it should tolerate those who understand it most fully.

Savants, too full of their knowledge, have claimed that Moses could not possibly have written the book of Genesis. One of their reasons is that in the story of Abraham, the patriarch pays for his wife's funeral plot in coined money, and that the king of Gerare gives a thousand pieces of silver to Sarah when he returns her, after having stolen her for her beauty in the seventy-fifth year of her age. They say that, having consulted authorities, they find that there was no coined money in those days. But it is quite clear that this is pure chicane on their part, since the Church has always believed most firmly that Moses did write the Pentateuch. They strengthen all the doubts raised by the disciples of Aben-Hesra and Baruch Spinoza. The physician Astruc, father-in-law of the comptroller-general Silhouette, in his book, now very rare, ent.i.tled "Conjectures on Genesis," adds new objections, unsolvable to human wisdom; but not to humble submissive piety. The savants dare to contradict every line, the simple revere every line. Guard against falling into the misfortune of trusting our human reason, be contrite in heart and in spirit.

"And Abraham said that Sarah was his sister, and the king of Gerare took her to him." We confess, as we have said in our essay on Abraham, that Sarah was then ninety years old; that she had already been kidnapped by one King of Egypt; and that a king of this same desert Gerare later kidnapped the wife of Abraham's son Isaac. We have also spoken of the servant Agar, by whom Abraham had a son, and of how Abraham treated them both. One knows what delight unbelievers take in these stories; with what supercilious smiles they consider them; how they set the story of Abimelech and this same wife of Abraham's (Sarah) whom he pa.s.sed off as his sister, above the "1001 nights" and also that of another Abimelech in love with Rebecca, whom Isaac also pa.s.sed off as his sister. One can not too often reiterate that the fault of all these studious critics lies in their persistent endeavour to bring all these things into accord with our feeble reason and to judge ancient Arabs as they would judge the French court or the English.

"The soul of Sichem, son of King Hemor, cleaved to the soul of Dinah, and he charmed his sadness with her tender caresses, and he went to Hemor his father, and said unto him: Give me this woman for wife." Here the savants are even more refractory. What! a king's son marry a vagabond's daughter, Jacob her father loaded with presents! The king receives into his city these wandering robbers, called patriarchs; he has the incredible and incomprehensible kindness to get himself circ.u.mcised, he and his son, his court and his people, in order to condescend to the superst.i.tion of this little tribe which did not own a half league of land! And what reward do our holy patriarchs make him for such astonishing kindness? They wait the day when the wound of circ.u.mcision ordinarily produces a fever. Then Simeon and Levi run throughout the city, daggers in hand; they ma.s.sacre the king, the prince, his son, and all the inhabitants. The horror of this St.

Bartholemew is only diminished by its impossibility. It is a shocking romance but it is obviously a ridiculous romance: It is impossible that two men could have killed a whole nation. One might suffer some inconvenience from one's excerpted foreskin, but one would defend oneself against two scoundrels, one would a.s.semble, surround them, finish them off as they deserved.

But there is one more impossible statement: by an exact supputation of date, we find that Dinah, daughter of Jacob, was at this time no more than three years of age; even if one tries to accommodate the chronology, she could not have been more than five: it is this that causes complaint. People say: What sort of a book is this? The book of a reprobate people, a book for so long unknown to all the earth, a book where right, reason and decent custom are outraged on every page, and which we have presented us as irrefutable, holy, dictated by G.o.d himself? Is it not an impiety to believe it? Is it not the dementia of cannibals to persecute sensible, modest men who do not believe it?

To which we reply: The Church says she believes it. Copyists may have introduced revolting absurdities into reverend stories. Only the Holy Church can be judge of such matters. The profane should be led by her wisdom. These absurdities, these pretended horrors do not affect the basis of our religion. Where would men be if the cult of virtue depended on what happened long ago to Sichem and little Dinah?

"Behold the Kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before the children of Israel had a king."

Behold another famous pa.s.sage, another stone which doth hinder our feet.

It is this pa.s.sage which determined the great Newton, the pious and sage Samuel Clarke, the deeply philosophical Bolingbroke, the learned Leclerc, the savant Freret, and a great number of other scholars to argue that Moses could not have been the author of Genesis.

We do indeed confess that these words could only have been written at a time when the Jews had kings.

It is chiefly this verse which determined Astruc to upset the whole book of Genesis, and to hypothecate memories on which the real author had drawn. His work is ingenious, exact, but rash. A council would scarcely have dared to undertake it. And to what end has it served, this ungrateful, dangerous work of this Astruc? To redouble the darkness which he set out to enlighten. This is ever the fruit of that tree of knowledge whereof we all wish to eat. Why should it be necessary that the fruits of the tree of ignorance should be more nourishing and more easy to manage?

But what matter to us, after all, whether this verse, or this chapter, was written by Moses, or by Samuel or by the priest from Samaria, or by Esdras, or by any one else? In what way can our government, our laws, our fortunes, our morals, our well being, be tied up with the ignorant chiefs of an unfortunate barbarous country, called Edom or Idumea, always peopled by thieves? Alas, these poor shirtless Arabs never ask about our existence, they pillage caravans and eat barley bread, and we torment ourselves trying to find out whether there were kinglets in one canton of Arabia Petra before they appeared in the neighboring canton to the west of lake Sodom.

_O miseras hominium mentes! O pectora caeca!_[5]

[1] Translated from an eighteenth-century author.

[2] The reader will remember in Landor's Chinese dialogues, when the returned mandarin is telling the Emperor's children about England, there is one place where they burst into giggles "because they had been taught some arithmetic."

[3] The reader is referred to our heading: "Subject to authority".

[4] In Fenollosa's notes on Kutsugen's ode to "Sir in the Clouds," I am unable to make out whether the girl is more than a priestess. She bathes in hot water made fragrant by boiling orchids in it, she washes her hair and binds iris into it, she puts on the dress of flowery colors, and the G.o.d illimitable in his brilliance descends; she continues her attention to her toilet, in very reverent manner.

[5] Our author's treatment of Ezekiel merits equal attention.

VII

ARNAUT DANIEL

RAZO

En Ar. Daniel was of Ribeyrac in Perigord, under Lemosi, near to Hautefort, and he was the best fashioner of songs in the Provencal, as Dante has said of him in his Purgatorio (XXVI, 140), and Ta.s.so says it was he wrote "Lancillotto," but this is not known for certain, but Dante says only "proze di romanzi." Nor is it known if Benvenuto da Imola speaks for certain when he says En Arnaut went in his age to a monastery and sent a poem to the princes, nor if he wrote a satire on Boniface Castillane; but here are some of his canzos, the best that are left us; and he was very cunning in his imitation of birds, as in the poem "Autet," where he stops in the middle of his singing, crying: "Cadahus, en son us," as a bird cries, and rhyming on it cleverly, with no room to turn about on the words, "Mas pel us, estauc clus," and in the other versets. And in "L'aura amara," he cries as the birds in the autumn, and there is some of this also in his best poem, "Doutz brais e critz."

And in "Breu brisaral," he imitates, maybe, the rough singing of the _joglar engles_, from whom he learnt "Ac et no l'ac"; and though some read this "escomes," not "_engles_," it is likely enough that in the court of En Richart there might have been an English joglar, for En Bertrans calls Richart's brother "joven re Engles," so why should there not be a joglar of the same, knowing alliterations? And he may, in the ending "piula," have had in mind some sort of Arabic singing; for he knew well letters, in Langue d'Oc and in Latin, and he knew Ovid, of whom he takes Atalanta; and may be Virgil; and he talks of the Palux Lerna, though most copyers have writ this "Uzerna," not knowing the place he spoke of. So it is as like as not he knew Arabic music, and perhaps had heard, if he not understood the meaning, some song in rough Saxon letters.

And by making song in _rimas escarsas_ he let into Provencal poetry many words that are not found elsewhere and maybe some words half Latin, and he uses many more sounds on the rhyme, for, as Canello or Lavaud has written, he uses ninety-eight rhyme sounds in seventeen canzos, and Peire Vidal makes use of but fifty-eight in fifty-four canzos and Folquet of thirty-three in twenty-two poems, and Raimbaut Orenga uses 129 rhymes in thirty-four poems, a lower proportion than Arnaut's. And the songs of En Arnaut are in some versets wholly free and uneven the whole length of the verset, then the other five versets follow in the track of the first, for the same tune must be sung in them all, or sung with very slight or orderly changes. But after the earlier poems he does not rhyme often inside the stanza. And in all he is very cunning, and has many uneven and beautiful rhythms, so that if a man try to read him like English iambic he will very often go wrong; though En Arnaut made the first piece of "Blank Verse" in the seven opening lines of the "Sols sui"; and he, maybe, in thinning out the rhymes and having but six repet.i.tions to a canzone, made way for Dante who sang his long poem in threes. But this much is certain, he does not use the rhyme _-atage_ and many other common rhymes of the Provencal, whereby so many canzos are all made alike and monotonous on one sound or two sounds to the end from the beginning.

Nor is there much gap from "Lancan vei fueill'" or "D'autra guiza" to the form of the sonnet, or to the receipt for the Italian strophes of canzoni, for we have both the repet.i.tion and the unrepeating sound in the verset. And in two versets the rhymes run _abab cde abab cde_; in one, and in the other _abba cde abba cde_; while in sonnets the rhymes run _abab abab cde cde_; or _abba abba cde cde_. And this is no very great difference. A sonetto would be the third of a _son_.

And I do not give "Ac et no l'ac," for it is plainly told us that he learnt this song from a jongleur, and he says as much in his coda:

Miells-de-ben ren Sit pren Chanssos grazida C'Arnautz non oblida.

"Give thanks my song, to Miells-de-ben that Arnaut has not forgotten thee." And the matter went as a joke, and the song was given to Arnaut to sing in his repertoire "E fo donatz lo cantar an Ar Daniel, qui et aysi trobaretz en sa obra." And I do not give the tenzon with Trues Malecs for reasons clear to all who have read it; nor do I translate the sestina, for it is a poor one, but maybe it is interesting to think if the music will not go through its permutation as the end words change their places in order, though the first line has only eight syllables.

And En Arnaut was the best artist among the Provencals, trying the speech in new fashions, and bringing new words into writing, and making new blendings of words, so that he taught much to Messire Dante Alighieri as you will see if you study En Arnaut and the "De Vulgari Eloquio"; and when Dante was older and had well thought the thing over he said simply, "il miglior fabbro." And long before Francesco Petrarca, he, Arnaut, had thought of the catch about _Laura_, laura, l'aura, and the rest of it, which is no great thing to his credit. But no man in Provencal has written as he writes in "Doutz brais": "E quel remir" and the rest of it, though Ovid, where he recounts Atalanta's flight from Hippomenes in the tenth book, had written:

"c.u.m super atria velum "Candida purpureum simulatas inficit umbras."

And in Dante we have much in the style of:

"Que jes Rozers per aiga que l'engrois."

And Dante learned much from his rhyming, and follows him in _agro_ and _Meleagro_, but more in a comprehension, and Dante has learned also of Ovid: "in Metamorphoseos":

"Velut ales, ab alto "Quae teneram prolem produxit in aera nido,"

although he talks so much of Virgil.

I had thought once of the mantle of indigo as of a thing seen in a vision, but I have now only fancy to support this. It is like that men slandered Arnaut for Dante's putting him in his Purgatorio, but the Trucs Malecs poem is against this.

En Arnaut often ends a canzone with a verset in different tone from the rest, as markedly in "Si fos Amors." In "Breu brisaral" the music is very curious, but is lost for us, for there are only two pieces of his music, and those in Milan, at the Ambrosiana (in R 71 superiore).

And at the end of "Doutz brais," is a verset like the verset of a sirvente, and this is what he wrote as a message, not making a whole sirvente, nor, so far as we know, dabbling in politics or writing of it, as Bertrans de Born has; only in this one place is all that is left us.

And he was a joglar, perhaps for his living, and only composed when he would, and could not to order, as is shown in the story of his remembering the joglar's canzone when he had laid a wager to make one of his own.

"Can chai la fueilla" is more like a sea song or an _estampida_, though the editors call it a canzone, and "Amors e jois," and some others were so little thought of, that only two writers have copied them out in the ma.n.u.scripts; and the songs are all different one from another, and their value nothing like even. Dante took note of the best ones, omitting "Doutz brais," which is for us perhaps the finest of all, though having some lines out of strict pertinence. But "Can chai la fueilla" is very cleverly made with five, six, and four and seven. And in "Sols sui" and in other canzos verse is syllabic, and made on the number of syllables, not by stresses, and the making by syllables cannot be understood by those of Petramala, who imagine the language they speak was that spoken by Adam, and that one system of metric was made in the world's beginning, and has since existed without change. And some think if the stress fall not on every second beat, or the third, that they must have right before Constantine. And the art of En Ar. Daniel is not literature but the art of fitting words well with music, well nigh a lost art, and if one will look to the music of "Chansson doil motz," or to the movement of "Can chai la fueilla," one will see part of that which I mean, and if one will look to the falling of the rhymes in other poems, and the blending and lengthening of the sounds, and their sequence, one will learn more of this. And En Arnaut wrote between 1180 and 1200 of the era, as nearly as we can make out, when the Provencal was growing weary, and it was to be seen if it could last, and he tried to make almost a new language, or at least to enlarge the Langue d'Oc, and make new things possible. And this scarcely happened till Guinicello, and Guido Cavalcanti and Dante; Peire Cardinal went to realism and made satirical poems. But the art of singing to music went well nigh out of the words, for Metastasio has left a few catches, and so has Lorenzo di Medici, but in Bel Canto in the times of Durante, and Piccini, Paradeis, Vivaldi, Caldara and Benedetto Marcello, the music turns the words out of doors and strews; them and distorts them to the tune, out of all recognition and the philosophic canzoni of Dante and his times--men are not understandable if they are sung, and in their time music and poetry parted company; the canzone's tune becoming a sonata without singing.