A. (Page 30.)
Agadic Etymologies.

In another direction also the AgÂd is wont to supply the omissions of the Scripture. In passages where the Bible itself gives no reason for the choice or origin of a name, the AgÂd quite independently gives its own etymological reason: this peculiarity occurs excessively often (e.g. in the etymology of the name Miriam in the MidrÂsh to the Song of Songs, II. 12, that of the names of the two mid wives Shiphrah and Puah, who in addition are identified with Jochebed and Miriam, in the TalmÛd Bab. tr. SÔ?Â, fol. 11. b, etc.).^[740] Here I will bring forward out of a great number of instances one which affords an opportunity of exhibiting an interesting coincidence between the Jewish and the Mohammedan AgÂdÂ, and affords a proof how extensive and how far-reaching into the smallest detail are the loans taken by the Mohammedan from the Rabbinical theologians, and on the other hand how independently and how completely in an Arabian spirit these borrowed treasures were worked up.

In Gen. XLVI. 21, Benjamin’s sons are enumerated without any etymological observations. The AgÂd supplies the deficiency, and puts every one of the names of Joseph’s nephews into connexion with Benjamin’s melancholy remembrance of his lost brother. The interpretations in question are contained in the TalmÛd and MidrÂsh; and they are found in a different, but probably the most original form in the TargÛm Jerus. on the passage; and it is sufficient to refer to this. According to this, Benjamin named his ten sons ?al perishÛth de-YÔsÊph achÔhÎ ‘for the separation from his brother Joseph:’ thus Bela?, ‘because Joseph was devoured-away (i.e. torn away) from him,’ de-ithbela? minnÊh: Bekher, ‘because Joseph was his mother’s first-born,’ bukhr de-immÊh: AshbÊl, ‘from the captivity into which Joseph fell,’ de-halakh be-shibhyÂthÂ: GÊrÂ, ‘because Joseph had to live as a stranger in a foreign land,’ de-ithgar be-ar? nukhrÂ?Â: Na?amÂn, ‘because Joseph was charming and dear to him,’ da-haw nÂ?Îm we-ya??Îr: ÊchÎ, ‘because he was his brother (achÔhÎ):’ RÔsh, because he was the most excellent in his father’s house: MuppÎm, because he was sold to the land MÔph (Egypt): ChuppÎm, because Benjamin had exactly reached the age of eighteen years, that of maturity for marriage (chuppÂh) in men:^[741] Ard, from yÂrad ‘to go down,’ because Joseph had to go down to Egypt.

The Arabic pendant to this AgÂd I found in a book Zahr al-kimÂm fÎ ?i??at YÛsuf ?aleyhi al-salÂm, by the learned MÂlikite ?Omar b. IbrÂhÎm al-AusÎ al-An?ÂrÎ. It is the same book as ?ÂjÎ Chalf quotes (V. 381, no. 11386) by the name MajÂlis ?i??at YÛsuf,^[742] although the commencement given by him does not agree with the initial words of our Codex (No. 7 of the Supplement, in the Leipzig University Library). The book is divided into seventeen majÂlis, or sessions—an arrangement not uncommon in Arabic works of a hortatory character or touching on religious knowledge. Each mejlis contains a portion of the life of Joseph, always introduced by a verse of the ?orÂn, and abundantly mixed with poems and other episodes and intermezzos. It is an instructive source for the legend of Joseph among the Mohammedans. It would take us too far from the subject if I were to give a full characterisation of the book. I will therefore only mention that it betrays a close relation to the Jewish legend, and that the author generally gives frequent occasion for the conjecture that the Bible and the Jewish tradition were not strange to him or to the sources from which he drew. But everything appears here curiously altered. For example, the cry of Isaac when deceived, ‘The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau’ (Gen. XXVII. 22), is there given (fol. 5 recto) thus: al-lams lams ?Aysau w-al-rÎ? rÎ? Ya??Ûb ‘the touch is the touch of Esau, but the smell is the smell of Jacob’ (see Gen. XXVII. 27). The passage with which we have to do here occurs fol. 149 recto.

The scene is the brothers’ dinner in Joseph’s house. Each sits beside his full brother; Benjamin alone has none, and begins to weep bitterly. Then Joseph approaches him, and after a long dialogue makes himself known to Benjamin as his full brother, and talks with him. Afterwards Joseph asks him, ‘Youth, hast thou a wife?’ ‘Yes,’ replies Benjamin. ‘And children?’ ‘I have three sons.’ ‘What name gavest thou to the eldest?’ ‘?Îb (Wolf).’ ‘And why didst thou choose this name?’ ‘Because my brothers were of opinion that a wolf had devoured my brother, and I wished to have a memento of the catastrophe.’ ‘And what didst thou call the second?’ ‘I named him Dam (Blood).’ ‘And wherefore?’ ‘Because my brothers brought a coat dipped in blood, and I wished to preserve the memory of it.’ ‘And what is thy third son’s name?’ ‘YÛsuf, that my brother’s name may not be forgotten.’

But even names whose etymology occurs in the Bible itself are provided by the AgÂd with new etymological explanations: so e.g. Yi?chÂ?, is explained by yÂ? or yÊ?Ê chÔ? ‘A statute has gone or will go forth.’^[743]

B. (Page 34.)
A Hermeneutical Law of the AgÂdÂ.

The hermeneutic principle to which we have referred in the text, although not so well known to the Agadists as it was in other circles (for they have nowhere expressly declared it), is to be traced throughout their whole conception of Scripture. It is the principle that the intensity of the sense of a word increases with the enlargement of its from. This law was also set up by the Greek etymologists, and applied even to the point of pedantry by one of the oldest grammarians, Tryphon.^[744] With the Arabic grammarians it controls the entire grammatical field: ziyÂdet al-laf? (al-binÂ) tadullu ?ala ziyÂdet al-ma?na ‘the increase of the word (the form) points to increase of the meaning.’ In Agadic exegesis also it is often accepted as a valid rule of Scriptural interpretation. In the case of reduplicated forms especially, the reduplicated indicates a fuller concept than the unreduplicated: e.g. lÊbhÂbh compared with lÊbh (both denoting ‘heart’) is treated as signifying a ‘double heart,’ comprising the good and the evil impulse (yÊ?er ?Ôbh and yÊ?er hÂra?: SifrÊ on Deuter. VI. 5. § 32). So also in shephÎphÔn compared with shephÎ, the doubled ph is supposed to point to an enlargement of the signification.

But this word shephÎphÔn contains besides the reduplication of a radical letter an affix Ôn. This affix is also generally brought into connexion with an enlargement of the signification, exactly as is done by the interpreters of the ?orÂn with the corresponding Arabic affix Ân.^[745] An example from the AgÂd is as follows: in BerÊshÎth rabbÂ, sect. 97, YÔsÊ b. Chalapht says, 'The labours of bread-winning are double as laborious as the labours of child-birth, for of these it is said "With pain (be?e?ebh) thou shalt bear children" (Gen. III. 16), while of those it is said, "With painfulness (be?i??ÂbhÔn) thou shalt enjoy it [its fruits] all the days of thy life"' (ib. v. 17). Hence the Ôn affixed to ?e?eb is taken to indicate a doubling of the pain; just as the Ôn added to shephÎ in shephÎphÔn denoted lameness in both feet.

C. (Page 100.)
Pools and Whips of the Sun.

There is no doubt that the ancient idea which associates Pools with the rising and the setting sun was based on the conception that the rising sun emerged from water and the setting sun sank into water. In later times, when the original mythical circumstances had lost their clearness, the conception of the Sun’s Pools underwent a considerable modification. On this subject we must notice two different conceptions, both of which sound quite mythical, which are preserved in the Jewish and Arabic tradition. One of these supposed that the Sun exhibited such an eagerness for the performance of his work, that the whole world would be set on fire if its consequences were not moderated by various means for cooling down the heat; and these means are the Pools of the Sun. In the MidrÂsh on Ecclesiastes, I. 6, it is said: ‘It is reported in the name of Rabbi NÂthÂn that the ball of the Sun is fixed in a reservoir with a pool of water before him; when he is about to go forth he is full of fire, and God weakens his force by that water, that he may not burn up the whole world.’ A similar account is found in the ShÔchÊr ?Ôbh on Ps. XIX. 8, and in the same MidrÂsh on v. 8 the Talmudic theory of the upper waters (mayÎm hÂ-?elyÔnÎm, which are said to be above the heaven) is brought into connexion with this idea. Another conception is diametrically opposite to this. According to this view, the Sun at first resists the performance of his business, and is only moved to do it by force and violent measures. In the MidrÂsh Êkh rabbÂ, Introduction, § 25, the Sun himself complains that he will not go out till he has been struck with sixty whips, and received the command ‘Go out, and let thy light shine.’ Among the Arabs the poet Umayy b. AbÎ-?-?alt discourses at length on the compulsion which must be exerted on the Sun before he is willing to bestow the benefit of his light and warmth on mortals:

According to the tradition of ?Ikrim seven thousand angels are daily occupied with keeping the Sun in order.^[747] The first conception also is represented in Mohammedan tradition. A sentence of tradition quoted by al-SuyÛ?Î (TashnÎf al-sam? bi-ta?dÎd al-sab?)^[748] says that the Sun is pelted every day with snow and ice by seven angels, that his heat may not destroy the earth. This mode of cooling is the Mohammedan equivalent for the Pool of the Sun. Mohammedan tradition speaks, moreover, also of a Pool of the Moon.^[749]

D. (Page 100.)
Solar Myth and Animal-Worship.

The Egyptian animal-worship, indeed animal-worship in general, can only be traced back to mythical conceptions, which, when the myth passed into theology and the true understanding of it became rare and then ceased altogether, gained a new meaning quite different from the original. Animal-worship is accordingly one of the sources for the discovery of mythological facts. This is especially the case with the Egyptian animal-worship, which, as Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride, c. VIII.) says of the religion of the Egyptians, is founded par excellence on a?t?a f?s???, since the same impulse which is reflected in the figurative portion of the Hieroglyphic system of writing led the Egyptians to employ animals in mythology with equal profuseness. Thus, e.g. the often discussed Cat-worship of the Egyptians is traced back to one point of their Solar myth. The old Egyptian myth unquestionably called the Sun the Cat; of which a clear trace is left in the XVIIth chapter of the Book of the Dead.^[750] Like the Sun, says Horapollo, the pupil of the cat’s eye grows larger with the advance of day, till at noon it is quite round; after which it gradually decreases again. The Egyptian myth imagined a great cat behind the Sun, which is the pupil of the cat’s eye. In the later Edda (I. 96, Gylf. 24) also Freya is said to drive out with two cats to draw her car. In the above-quoted chapter of the Book of the Dead, which Brugsch, who cites the passage of Horapollo, analyses in an interesting essay,^[751] it is frequently said that the cat is frightened by a scorpion which approaches on the vault of heaven, intending to block the way of the cat and cover its body with dirt. Brugsch identifies the scorpion with Sin; but to me it seems more probable that we have here an echo of the old myth of the Cat, i.e. a Solar myth, in which the Sun does battle against the Dragon or serpentine monster that obscures or devours him. Instead of the mythical expression, that Darkness covers up the Sun, it is said here that ‘The Dragon of storms or night covers the Cat’s body with dirt.’

I mention here this important argument affecting the origin of animal-worship, not on account of the Cat, but in order to point to an element of the Egyptian animal-worship which hangs together with the mythical mode of regarding the Sun which has been more fully worked out in the text—that he sinks into the water in the evening, so as to come to land again in the morning. It is well known that in many parts of Egypt the Crocodile enjoyed divine honours. Now this worship appears to be connected with the fact that in the above respect the Crocodile is, so to speak, a mythological hieroglyph of the Sun, and doubtless figured in the Solar myth as a designation of the Sun. The Crocodile passes the greater part of the day on the dry land, and the night in the water. Herodotus (II. 68) says, t? p????? t?? ????? d?at??e? ?? t? ????, t?? d? ???ta p?sa? ?? t? p?ta?. Plutarch shows admirable tact, especially in his sober intelligence in relation to the mythical use made of living creatures that abide in the water or grow up out of it, and consequently understands the relation of the Lotus-flower to the Sun in this sense: ??t?? ??at???? ????? ???f??s? t?? ?? ????? ????? ???????? ??a??? a???tt?e??? (De Iside et Osiride, c. XI.). Yet in treating of the Crocodile he strangely heaps hypothesis upon hypothesis (ibid. c. LXXV.), and exhibits superior insight only in so far as he endeavours to find in the nature of the Crocodile the origin of the worship paid to it, whereas Diodorus is satisfied with the utilitarian explanation that the Crocodile keeps robbers at a distance from the Nile (I. 89). But on this point he does not, as on many others, hit the nail on the head.

The reverse of the Crocodile-worship is that of the Ichneumon in the country now called FayÛm. According to the classical reporters, this animal was sacred to Buto, who was identified with the Leto of the Greeks. Now Max MÜller (Chips etc. II. p. 80) has convincingly proved Leto or Latona to be one of the names of the Night. The Ichneumon, accordingly, is likewise a mythical designation of the Night in its relation to the Sun (Cat, Crocodile); for the special characteristic of the Ichneumon, with which the worship paid to it is connected, is its peculiar hostility to cats and crocodiles.

The part played by the Cow also in animal-worship must be traced back to the Solar myth as its primary origin. It is well known that one of the very commonest appellations of the Sun in mythology is this—the Cow. The Sun’s rays are described as the Cow’s milk; especially in the Vedas this is one of the most familiar conceptions. The worship of the Scarabeus among the Egyptians must also be based on a close connexion with the Solar myth, although the point of attachment to that mythological group is not obvious in this case to us, who are so far removed from the mythical mind. However, even Plutarch^[752] endeavours to discover some point of similarity which might serve as tertium comparationis, and finds it in the Scarabeus’ mode of generation.

The animal-worship was not based upon any experience of the usefulness or hurtfulness of the animals, but always stands in close connexion with the Solar myth, of which it is only a theological and liturgical development. This is most conspicuously evident from the fact that, besides real existing animals, there were also imaginary ones that received divine honours, and played a very prominent part, as, for example, the Phenix. But this word also is only an ancient mythical designation of the Sun. The Phenix is ‘a winged animal with red and golden feathers;’^[753] a description of the Sun from the mythical point of view, as must be sufficiently obvious from what was expounded on p. 116. The Phenix comes every five hundred years—at the end of each great Solar period. When the myth-creating stage had been overpassed, and the name Phenix disappeared from the inventory of names of the Sun, the word, surviving the myth itself, and the remains of a misunderstood mythical conception attached to the word, might produce the superstition of the real existence of the bird Phenix. And it is these very remains that permit and render possible the reconstruction of the mythical significance.^[754] Even religious usages may have their source in the ancient mythical circle of ideas. From Herodotus we learn that the Egyptians were forbidden to sacrifice or eat the Cow, but that the Ox was not so protected.^[755] This is closely connected with mythical ideas. To the Cow, whose milk and horns are the mythical representatives of the rays, whether of the Sun or of the Moon, extensive divine veneration could more naturally be paid than to the Ox, who less perfectly exhibits what the myth tells of the Sun, inasmuch as he has not the milk; and the veneration would naturally carry with it the idea, that it was forbidden either to kill or to eat of the sacred animal.

To the mythical conception discussed in the text, which regards the Sun as an Eye, must be added another parallel view, that of the Sun as a Well. Language and myth here show remarkable uniformity, which helps the identification. Many languages have the same name for Well and Eye, as if they followed the mathematical law that when two things are each equal to a third, they are equal to each other. So it is in Semitic (?ayin, ?ayn, etc.); in Persian tsheshm and tsheshmeh; in Chinese ian, which word denotes both well and eye. The thirty-four wells near Bunarbashi, which was formerly believed to be the site of the Homeric Ilion, are called by the people, using a round number, ‘the forty eyes.’ For the Sun is not only a seeing eye, but also a flowing well. It is possible that the weeping eye, which is actually a flowing well (see Jer. VIII. 23 [IX. 1] we-?Ênay me?Ôr dim? ‘would that my eyes were a fountain of tears’), may serve to mediate between the two senses. Heinrich Heine, in his ‘Nordsee-cyclus’ (‘Nachts in der KajÜte’) says:

Freya, an acknowledged solar figure, whose car is drawn by cats, weeps golden tears for her lost husband.^[757] Here the tears of the Sun’s eye are his golden rays.

The Sun being a Well, the light of his rays is the moisture that flows from the well. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead the Sun is called r pu num Âtef nuteru ‘the Sun, the primitive water, the father of the gods.’^[758] Lucretius (De Rerum Natura, V. 282) calls the Sun

‘who fructifies the heaven with ever-new brilliancy.’ The same view prevails also on Semitic ground. In Hebrew and Arabic the root nÂhar denotes equally ‘to flow’ and ‘to shine.’ NÂhÂr (Heb.), nahar (Ar.), is ‘a river,’ nahÂr (Ar.) ‘the brightness of the sun by day.’ In ?Abd-al-Ra?mÂn al-AsadÎ’s poem in defence of the tribe of Asad against a satire of Ibn MayyÂd of the tribe of Murr, the setting of the Sun is called in?ibÂbuhÂ^[759] ‘his pouring himself out,’ his condition when he has poured forth all his rays:

The poet ?arafÂ, to express the idea that the Sun lends or spends his rays, uses the verb to ‘give to drink’ (sa?at-hu iyÂt ush-shamsi, Mu?alla?Â, v. 9.), and the same idiom is used of the light of the stars. The word kaukab, which in Semitic generally denotes star, also signifies a well-spring, e.g. ‘and may no well-spring (kaukab) irrigate the pasture’ (AgÂnÎ, XI. 126. 15). Compare a passage in the introduction to the Commentary on the ?orÂn called al-KashshÂf by ZamachsharÎ (de Sacy, Anthologie gramm. ar. p. 120. 8, text), where the two significations of the word occur close together. To this place belongs also a sentence delivered by Rabbi Ami in the Babylonian TalmÛd, Ta?anÎth, fol. 7 b. He explains the words al-kappayÎm kissÂÔr in Job XXXVI. 32, thus: ‘On account of the sin of their hands he (God) holds back the rain,’ as by ‘light’ rain must be meant (Ên Ôr ell mÂ?Âr), and gives the same interpretation of the word Ôr ‘light’ in another passage, Job XXXVII. 11, ‘he also loads the cloud with moisture, spreads abroad the cloud of his rain’ (yÂphÎ? ?anan ÔrÔ). But of what fluid the rays of the heavenly bodies are composed is not fixed and determined by the myth. In the Vendidad, XXI. 26, 32, 34, ‘the Sun, moon, and stars are rich in Milk.’ No less frequent is the idea that the heavenly bodies make water.^[760] This latter view of the Sun’s rays as a liquid is remarkably reflected in the Hungarian language; and I will therefore note some facts relating to the subject, which will be interesting to the investigators of Comparative Mythology. It is especially noteworthy that in old Hungarian the word hugy, which in the modern language means only ‘urine,’ was employed for ‘star.’ In the Legend of St. Francis, an ancient document of the Hungarian language, the Latin stellarum cursus is translated hugoknak folyÁsa 'the flowing of the hugyok.' To the same root belong probably some proper names also, collected by Rev. Aron SzilÁdy (Magyar Nyelvor, I. 223), e.g. Hugdi, Hugod, Hugus (which should be read Hugydi, Hugyad, Hugyos), which must surely signify ‘shining,’ fÉnyes. The same view of light as a fluid is also preserved in the later language, in which with sugÁr ‘ray’ the verb Ömlik ‘to pour itself out’ is employed, as in many other languages.

F. (Page 113.)
Cain in Arabic.

The names of the first brothers in the Biblical legend of the Mohammedans are HÂbil and ?Âbil. Even D’Herbelot (BibliothÈque Orientale, S.V. Cabil) explains: ?Âbil, ‘Receiver,’ as an Arabic diversion of the etymon with which the Hebrew text supplies the name, viz. kÂnÎthÎ, ‘I have gained or received a man for Jahveh.’ Still we must doubt whether the name ?Âbil has any etymological foot-hold in this group. Nor can it, as Chwolson supposes, be traced to a transcriber’s error which had been propagated so as to become fixed.^[761] It is founded on a peculiar fancy of the Arabs for putting together pairs of names. This process may be observed to take place in one of two modes. First, the Arabs are fond of employing in groups of names various derivatives of the same root: e.g. they call the two angels of the grave Munkar and Nekir; the two armies in the story of Alexander Munsik and NÂsik, a sort of YÂjÛj and MÂjÛj;^[762] and in the story of Joseph the two Midianites who lifted Joseph out of the pit are BashshÂr and BushrÂ.^[763] To the same category belong ShiddÎd and ShaddÂd, the two sons of ?Âd; MÂlik and MilkÂn, the sons of KinÂnÂ.^[764] This fancy passed from legend into actual life, where it often decided the names to be given to children, e.g. ?asan and ?useyn the two sons of ?AlÎ, and larger groups, as the three brothers NabÎh, Munabbih, and NabahÂn (AgÂnÎ, VI. 101), AmÎn, Ma?mÛn, and Musta?min the three sons of the Khalif HÂrÛn ar-RashÎd. The practice is observable not only in the names of contemporaries, but also in genealogical series of names both of prehistoric and of historic times: e.g. HuzÂl b. Huzeyl b. HuzeylÂ, a man belonging to the ?Adites (Commentaire historique sur le poËme d’Ibn Abdoun par Ibn Badroun, ed. Dozy, Leyden 1848, p. 67. 1 text); the ThamÛdite ?udÂr b. ?udeyr (?arÎrÎ, Mak. p. 201); SÂ?irÛn b. As?ÎrÛn al-Jarma?Î, builder of the fortress ?a?r, the conquest of which is bound up with a story full of terrific tragedy (YÂ?Ût, II. 284. 12), etc. An interesting example of such grouping of nouns in modern popular rhetoric occurs in Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (II. 146 of the ed. in two vols.). Secondly, in pairing names, the Arabs are fond of allowing assonance to prevail. So we have RahÂm and RayÂm, HÂrÛt and MÂrÛt, HÂwil and ?Âwil, (see Bacher, ibid.), YÂjÛj and MÂjÛj for the Biblical GÔg and MÂgÔg. From the last instance it is evident that the inclination to form assonant pairs of names is not foreign to the Hebrews; another Hebrew instance is EldÂd and MÊdÂd, and from Talmudical literature ChillÊ? and BillÊ?. The assonance occurs not only at the end of the words, the initial syllable being indifferent, but also inversely in the first syllable, the end of the word being indifferent. An instance of the latter is found in the names of the orthodox survivors of the ?Ad and ThamÛd peoples in the Mohammedan legend, JÂbal? and JÂbars (or JÂbar?, see YÂ?Ût, II. 2; but certainly not Jabulka and Jabulsa, as Justi writes in the Ausland for 1875, p. 306). Moreover, this love of assonance natural to Arabic writers extends beyond the proper sphere of Arabic legends to foreign parts. An instance is found in the Romance of ?Antar, XXIX. 72. 10, where two Franks, brothers, slain by ?Antar, are called Saubert and Taubert. No doubt the writer had heard of Frankish names ending in bert; he had already mentioned a king Jaubert. The tendency to form such assonant names is so prevalent that the correct sounds of one of the two are unhesitatingly corrupted for the sake of assonance. This was the case with YÂjÛj and MÂjÛj; another well-known instance is the pair of names Soliman and Doliman for Suleyman and DÂnishmand. The Biblical Saul is called in the Mohammedan legend ?ÂlÛt, for the sake of assonance with JÂlÛt (Goliath).^[765] It is also noteworthy that the first species of assonance is to be observed not only in personal names, but also in geographical proper names, e.g. Kad and Kudeyy, two hills near Mekka (YÂ?Ût, IV. 245. 15), Achshan and Chusheyn, also hills (ibid. I. 164. 12, and see the proverbs referring to them in al-MeydÂnÎ, I. 14. 2); Sharaf and Shureyf, localities in Nejd (Ibn Dureyd, 127. 15.)

This phonological tendency produced also the name ?Âbil as an assonant with HÂbil. The name ?ayÎn ‘Cain’ was originally pronounced by the Arabs in its Hebrew form, which was particularly easy, because ?ayn is an old Arabic proper name.^[766] Through the force of assonance ?ayÎn was changed in the mouth of the people into ?Âbil, and this form made its way at a later time into literature and became general. Mas?ÛdÎ still knows the name ?ayin, and expressly condemns the form ?Âbil as incorrect (Les Prairies d’or, I. 62); and he quotes a verse from which it appears that the Biblical etymology from ?ÂnÂ, which is equally applicable to the Arabic language, is known to him:

The same is also evident from the fact that Mohammedan tradition makes ?Âbil live at a place ?aneyn near Damascus (YÂ?Ût, II. 588. 11), which can only be explained from its phonetic resemblance to ?Âyin. Moreover, the connexion in which Abulfaraj (Historia Dynastiarum, p. 8) puts the invention of musical instruments with the daughters of Cain,^[767] affords evidence for the former employment of the Biblical form of the name by the Arabs, since this tradition depends upon the Arabic word ?ayn ‘female singer.’

In the Oriental Christian Book of Adam, which Dillmann has translated, the word ?ayin is interpreted ‘Hater;’ ‘for he hated his sister in his mother’s womb, and therefore Adam named him ?ayin.’ Dillmann justly conjectures that this idea is suggested by a derivation of the name from ?innÊ ‘to be jealous of some one.’^[768]

G. (Page 116.)
Grammatical Note on Joel II. 2.

I reserved the justification of the use which I made of the verse Joel II. 2 for a short excursus here. It is well known that in the Semitic languages the passive participle is frequently used instead of the active, similarly to the English possessed of instead of possessing, and the German Bedienter for Bedienender. In Arabic (in which the native grammarians call this usage maf?Ûl bima?na-l-fÂ?il) ?ijÂb mastÛr ‘the concealed curtain,’ is said for ‘the concealing,’ sÂtir (?orÂn, XVII. 47; compare al-?arÎrÎ, 2nd ed., p. 528. 17) etc., in Aramaic achÎd ?Âmart ‘the conqueror of the world,’ for ÂchÊd; rÂphÛ? ‘digger,’ for rÂphÊ? (Talm. Babyl. SÔtÂ, 9 b.); in Samaritan kethÛbh ‘the writer,’ (Le Long, Bibl. sacra, p. 117; de Sacy, MÉmoire sur la version arabe des livres de MoÏse, in the MÉm. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, 1808, p. 16); in later Hebrew lÂ?Ûach ‘buyer’ instead of lÔ?Êach kephÛy ?Ôbh ‘one who conceals the good he has received,’ hence ‘unthankful’ (see supra, p. 193), instead of kÔphe; dÔbh cha?Ûph ‘a tearing bear,’ for chÔ?Êph (Targ. II. Gen. XLIX. 27). So also frequently in Biblical Hebrew, e.g. aha cherebh ‘holding swords’ for ÔchazÊ, Song of Songs, III. 8); ?erÛkh milchÂm ‘arranging battle’ for ?ÔrÊkh (Joel II. 5, compare Jer. VI. 23, L. 42, where the verb ?-r-kh, when used of drawing up the lines for battle, is followed by the preposition le; this, however, can be omitted, as in kÔhÊn meshÛach milchÂm ‘a priest anointed for war,’ in the Mishna). I put in the same category the shachar pÂrÛs in the verse now being considered, where in my opinion the passive pÂrÛs stands for the active pÔrÊs.

But to understand my explanation of the verse it must also be noticed that verbs which are regularly employed with a certain noun as subject or object in Hebrew can dispense with the noun, which then is implicitly included in the verb: a very natural proceeding. If I say, for instance, ‘he clapped,’ the verb contains in itself the notion ‘his hands.’ It is an elliptic, or rather pregnant construction where a noun is omitted, similar to that which is used to express motion by a verb not in itself implying motion;^[769] e.g. Num. XX. 26, we-AharÔn yÊ?ÂsÊph ÛmÊth shÂm ‘Aaron was gathered [to his fathers or his people] and died there.’ The words ‘and died there,’ render superfluous the complement el ?ammÂw ‘to his peoples,’ which is added in v. 24. Similarly with s-ph-? ‘to clap’ the object kappayÎm ‘the hands’ can be omitted (Job XXXIV. 37; perhaps also Is. II. 6), etc. In the same list I put the pÂrÛs or pÔrÊs of our passage: kenÂphayÎm ‘the wings’ or kenÂphÂw ‘its wings’ being omitted. The expression ‘the spreading dawn’ is intelligible by itself, as ‘the dawn that spreads out its wings.’ But the fact that the complementary object after pÂrÛs could be omitted proves how general was the conception of the Bird of the Dawn with outstretched wings, which found this mode of expression.

H. (Page 153.)
Hajnal.

The Hungarian language shows how speech wavers in determining the colour of the rising Sun. The Hungarian word for Dawn, hajnal, is etymologically related to hÓ, which means snow. Therefore, the former must have originally denoted ‘the white;’^[770] and hajnalpir, ‘the morning Redness,’ is literally ‘the Redness of the White.’ And the conception of the redness of the dawn has overcome that which must have prevailed when the expression hajnal came into use, but which is now only recognisable by the help of grammatical analysis. This is evident also from the fact that in the district of ÉrmellÉk people of red complexion are derisively called hajnal (i.e. like the red dawn, but strictly the white dawn).^[771]

I. (Page 155.)
The Sun growing Pale and the Moon Red.

Although, as we have seen, mythology ascribes a reddish as well as a white colour to the Sun, yet it must be observed that this is so only at the earliest stage of the myth. A later period prefers to connect the Sun with the conception of a reddish or yellow colour, leaving the white to the Moon, as more appropriate. LÂbhÂn, ‘the white,’ has not fixed itself in the language as a name of the Sun, whereas its feminine LebhÂn has, as a name of the Moon. The conception of colour which the myth attaches to Sun and Moon is well illustrated by a passage in which it is said that both Sun and Moon lose their natural colour through shame, viz., Is. XXIV. 23 wechÂpher hal-lebhÂn Û-bhÔsh ha-chammÂ, ‘The moon turns red and the sun pale, for Jahveh of hosts rules on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem.’ The distribution of the expressions for shame, bÔsh and chÂphar, which elsewhere also stand in parallelism, is here not arranged haphazard, since the Sun and the Moon are spoken of—objects which are imagined to be provided with distinct colours of their own—but must correspond to the natural colours of each. Of men both verbs are employed without distinction; but ‘making white’ is the prevalent expression for putting to shame, so that in a later age, ‘to make white the face of a neighbour’ became a fixed formula in that sense (ham-malbÎn penÊ chabhÊrÔ or achwÂr appÊ, BÂbh Me?Î? fol. 58 b; compare Levy, Chald. WÖrterb. I. 245 a; II. 173 a), and drove the ‘causing to blush red’ out of the field. The word bÔsh for ‘to be ashamed’ is moreover even in the earlier times commoner than ch-ph-r. The former denotes ‘to grow white,’ and belongs etymologically to the same group as the Arabic bÂ?, whence abyad ‘white;’ the latter belongs to the group of the Arabic ?-m-r (with a change of the labials p and m), whence a?mar ‘red.’ Accordingly, the expression that the Sun bÔsh ‘turns white,’ and the Moon chÂpher ‘turns red’ presupposes the idea of a reddish sun (EdÔm) and a white moon (lebhÂnÂ).

The same relation between the colours of the Sun and the Moon is also assumed by the old Persian poet AsadÎ in his ‘Rivalry between Day and Night,’ a poem to which we had occasion to refer on p. 95. In it Day says to Night:^[772] ‘Although the Sun walks yellow, yet he is better than the Moon; although a gold-piece is yellow, yet it is better than a silver groat.’

The following is a literal translation of a passage in the TalmÛd, which shows what speculations there were in a late age on the colour of the Sun, and how, even when the technical terms of language were far advanced towards settlement, people were by no means clear what idea of colour was to be attached to the Sun. The passage occurs in the tract BÂbh BathrÂ, fol. 84 a. of the Babylonian TalmÛd. To enable the reader to understand it, I need only premise that it is a discussion on a word expressing colour, namely, shechamtÎth. In the Mishn to which this extract of the TalmÛd refers, the following words occur:

ShechamtÎth we-nim?Â?ath lebhÂnÂ, lebhÂn we-nim?Â?ath shechamtÎth shenÊhem yekhÔlÎn lachazÔr bÂhen, ‘When the buyer and the seller have come to terms about wheat, which is to have the colour shechamtÎth, and the seller delivers white, or vice versa, then they can both annul the sale.’ Now in the TalmÛd it is taken for granted that this colour-word is derived from chamm ‘sun,’ and means ‘sun-coloured.’

RÂbh PÂp says, ‘As it is said [that the seller delivers] white [as the opposite to what was required], it is manifest that the sun is red (sÛma?tÎ); and in fact it is red at rising and setting; and it is only the fault of our vision, which is not powerful enough, that we do not see it the whole day long of this colour. Question: It is said [of one species of leprosy], A colour deeper than that of the skin (Lev. XIII. several times), that is the colour of the sun, which appears deeper than that of the shade, whereas the passage manifestly speaks of the white colour of leprosy? [so that the colour of the sun would be white.] Answer: Both is true of the colour of leprosy: it resembles the sun-colour insofar as this is deeper than the shade [and this passage speaks of a species of leprosy in which the colour is deeper than that of the skin]; but it fails to resemble the sun-colour insofar as the latter is red while it is itself white. But the putting of the question [which took for granted the white colour of the sun] assumed the idea that the [originally white] sun takes a red tint at rising and setting only because at rising it passes by the roses of the Garden of Eden, and at setting passes the gates of GÊhinnÔm [Hell, and in each case the red tint of the object passed is reflected on the sun itself]. Some assume the inverse condition [and suppose that the colours which lie at the opposite side of the heaven—at rising that of Hell, and at setting that of the roses of Paradise—are reflected on the sun].’

L. (Page 189.)
Transformation of Foreign Stories in Mohammedan Legends.

The Mohammedan legends and popular traditions present instances of borrowing stories which in some foreign cycle of legends are connected with favourite heroes of that cycle, by substituting for the foreign heroes those who are well known in Mohammedan tradition. In this manner many Iranian local traditions and stories were changed and interpreted in a Mohammedan sense after the subjection of the mind of ÎrÂn to the dominion of IslÂm. This phenomenon meets us at every step in the history of the religions and stories of the East and West. I will here limit myself to the quotation of a single instance. The mountain DemÂwend in the region of Reyy plays an important part in the old Iranian story of the war of the great king FerÎdÛn with Zohak Buyurasp; to this mountain the conqueror of the demons chained the inhuman monster and made it powerless for evil. Now the Mohammedan cycle of legends borrowed SuleymÂn (Solomon) from the Jews, and invested him with the characteristics which the AgÂd narrates of the great king of the Hebrews; which characteristics, by the way, themselves point strongly to the influence of the Iranian story of FerÎdÛn. Among these is especially to be reckoned the subjection of the demons by the mysterious ring, which passed from the AgÂd into the ?orÂn (SÛr. XXI. v. 82) and into Islamite tradition. When DemÂwend had become Mohammedan ground, it had to divest itself of memories of the old fabled Iranian king. ‘The common people believe,’ it is said in YÂ?Ût, II. 607, ‘that SuleymÂn son of DÂ?Ûd chained to this mountain one of the rebellious Satans named ?achr, the Traitor; others believe that FerÎdÛn chained Buyurasp to it, and that the smoke which is seen to issue from a cavern in it is his breath.’ We learn, moreover, from this note that the original story still possessed vitality alongside of the transformation. The preservation of old national memories was promoted partly by the intellectual movement excited in ÎrÂn by the ‘King’s Book’ (ShÂh-nÂmeh), partly by national historians of a remarkable type, who were at the same time proficient in Arabic philology and interested in the preservation of old memories of their own nation.^[773] Appropriation and transformation of Greek myths are probably rarer. The case quoted in the text is an instance of such appropriation, in which the place of the less-known personages of the Greek myth is occupied by the more familiar ones of Nimrod and his family. There are, however, also cases in which the name is changed, although the abandoned one is quite as familiar as that newly imported into the legend. An instance of this, from YÂ?Ût’s Geographical Dictionary, IV. 351. 16 sq., is as follows. The writer is speaking of a place called al-LajÛn west of the Jordan, and says: ‘In the middle of the village of al-LajÛn is a round rock with a dome (?ubbÂ) over it, which is believed to have been a place of prayer of Abraham. Beneath the rock is a well with abundant water. It is narrated that on his journey to Egypt Abraham came with his flocks to this place, where there was insufficient water, and the villagers begged him to go on farther, as there was too little water even for themselves; but Abraham struck his staff against the rock, and water flowed copiously from it. The rock exists to this day.’ No further examination is needed to show that this Mohammedan legend is only a transformation of the Biblical one of Moses striking the rock and providing water for his thirsty people. Yet IbrÂhim has been substituted for MÛsa, a name equally familiar to Mohammedan legends.

This miracle of making water gush out by striking a hard substance with a staff is, moreover, a very favourite one in legends, and is repeated on other occasions, notably in the legend of King Solomon. It is said that the well at LÎnÂ, a watering station in the land of Negd in Arabia, was dug by demons in the service of SuleymÂn. For he once, having left Jerusalem on a journey to Yemen, passed by LÎnÂ, when his company were seized with terrible thirst, and could find no water. Then one of the demons laughed. ‘What makes you laugh so?’ asked SuleymÂn. The demon replied, ‘I am laughing at your people being so thirsty, when they are standing over a whole sea of water.’ So SuleymÂn ordered them to strike with their sticks, and water immediately gushed out. (YÂ?Ût, ibid. p. 375. 22 sq.)

M. (Page 212.)
The Origins.

As an example of this, I may mention that, in opposition to the Biblical Myth of Civilisation, which brings the planting of the vine into connexion with Noah, the Rabbinical AgÂd makes even Adam enjoy the fruit of the vine, which was the forbidden fruit of Paradise.^[774] The Mohammedan legend names the Canaanitish king Daramshil, contemporary with Noah, as the first wine-drinker, saying that he was the first who pressed and drank wine: auwal man-i?ta?ar-al-chamr washaribahÂ.^[775] I also observe in passing that a feature of the Noah-legend of the Arabs which is mentioned in my article quoted below, viz. longevity, seems to have a connexion with the old Solar myth. Long life distinguishes the posterity of Adam in Genesis, and reaches its maximum in Methuselah. The longevity which in the popular belief, especially in Italy, is ascribed to the Cuckoo (A. de Gubernatis, p. 519) is accounted for by its solar character in the myth. Noah’s longevity passed into a by-word in Arabic: ?umr NÛ? ‘the length of life of Noah.’ In the writings of the poet Ru?b we find—

‘I said, If I were made to live the lifetime of the lizard or the lifetime of Noah at the time of the flood.’^[776] MarzÛ? al-MekkÎ says, in a poem to Mo?ammed al-AmÎn: Fa?ish ?umra NÛ?in fÎ surÛrin wa-gib?atin, ‘Live the lifetime of Noah in joy and comfort’ (AgÂnÎ, XV. 67. 4); and similarly AbÛ-l-?Al (Sa?? al-zand, I. 65. v. 4.):

‘Then be in the government, O best of created beings, a Solomon, and be in length of life a Noah.’ And we also find in ?Âfi?:^[777]

But a collateral reason for Noah being made a special example of longevity may be found in the South-Semitic signification of the verb nÔch. In Ethiopic Noah is called NÔch, and the verb denotes longus fuit. And in an Ethiopic poem (in Dillmann’s Chrestomath. Aethiop., 111. no. 13. v. 1) it is said of Methuselah’s longevity, ÔzawahabkÔ nÛch mawÂ?el la-MatÛsÂlÂ.

N. (Page 254.)
Influence of National Passion on Genealogical Statements.

The same tendency which among the Hebrews caused the origin of the Ammonites and Moabites to be referred to the incestuous intercourse of Lot’s daughters with their father, produced exactly the same result many centuries later in a different yet related sphere. It is known to students of the history of the civilisation of IslÂm that the best Persians, despite their subjection to the sceptre of IslÂm, strove long and actively against Arabisation, which they regarded as quite unworthy of the Persian nation, to them the more talented of the two. This reaction caused the publication of many literary documents; and produced especially one very curious and not yet fully appreciated movement, which originated in the circle of the Shu?ÛbÎyyÂ.^[778] In order to appear as a member of the great family of IslÂm of equal birth with the Arabs, the Persians took care to weave their own early history into the legends of that religion. This was managed in two ways. First, they were anxious to trace their genealogy to a son of Abraham, so as to possess a counterpoise to the Arabs and their father Ishmael. Thus it was managed to refer the non-Arabs to Isaac, with a collateral intention of representing this descent as nobler than that from Ishmael.^[779] And we also meet with an allegation, in the KitÂb al-?ayn, that Abraham had another son besides Isaac and Ishmael, named FarrÛch, from whom the non-Arabs (al-?ajam) descend.^[780] Secondly, the genealogical sacred history is perverted in a sense hostile to the Arabs. Thus, for instance, Ishmael is not allowed to be the son whom Abraham is about to sacrifice to AllÂh, but Isaac the ancestor of the non-Arabs, as the Hebrew tradition has it^[781]; and the story of the well Zemzem is put into connexion with SÂbÛr the Persian king and with other reminiscences.^[782] In the Commentaire historique sur le poËme d’Ibn Abdoun par Ibn Badroun, published by Prof. Dozy, page 7 of the Arabic text, we find various assertions relative to the derivation of the Persians. The majority of these genealogies trace the Persians back by various ways to SÂm b. NÛ? (Shem, son of Noah); one derives them from Joseph, son of Jacob. The ethnological derivation of a nation from SÂm in the view of the Arabs certainly involves no idea of special excellence in the nation concerned; for even the enigmatical NasnÂs of the Arabic fables, a sort of monstrous half-men, half-birds (apes are also called so in vulgar Arabic), are allowed to have a Semitic genealogy.^[783] But, at all events, no hostile intention lurks in the pedigree from SÂm. Thus the above genealogies, while possessing no tendency directly hostile to the Persians, are far from placing that nation in the foreground, and allow an unexpressed idea of the eminence of the Arabian nation to shine through. The case is very different with another derivation propounded in the same passage. This makes the Persians to belong to the descendants of Lot, their ancestors being the fruit of his incest with his two daughters. The Samaritans say the same of the Druses.^[784] I believe this genealogy is based on intention only—like the identical story told by the ancient Hebrews of Ammon and Moab. A local tradition, existing at JeyrÛd, a village to the north of Damascus, on the road to Palmyra, speaks of a tribe of the people of Lot as having dwelt on the ground now covered by a salt lake (Memla?a or MellÂ?a), whose city was destroyed by the wrath of God.^[785] This story perhaps originated in some war of the later Mohammedan population against the older inhabitants or against Beduins who had taken up an abode there. It must also be observed that Mohammedan writers exhibit a prevailing tendency to remove far to the north, to ?am and ?aleb (Aleppo) in Syria, the mu?tafik or ma?lÛbÂ, i.e. the Sodom of the Bible. This follows from YÂ?Ût, III. 59, 124. In the particular case just mentioned, no doubt the existence of the salt lake cooperated in the creation of the local tradition (in the language of the TalmÛd the notion of the Yam ?am-melach ‘Sea of salt’ is greatly generalised and becomes almost a figure of rhetoric; see the passages in the TÔsÂphÔth on PesÂchÎm, fol. 28 a. init. ?AbhÔdath); on the lake Yammune on the north of Lebanon, see Seetzen’s Reisen, I. 229, 302, II. 338, referred to by Ewald, History of Israel, I. 314. Similarly a later Arabic local tradition localised an episode of the Sodom-story on the transjordanic shore of the Dead Sea. For it is evident that the story of the conversion of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt is the source of the following popular tradition noted by Palmer (Desert of the Exodus, p. 483). Not far from the Dead Sea, in the former country of Moab, at a place called El-YehÛdÎyy ‘the Jewess,’ there is a great black mass of basalt, said to have been originally a woman, who was thus changed into stone as a punishment for having denied the ‘certainty of death’—a somewhat obscure expression.