SPAIN'S PROSPERITY STIMULATES LITERATURE.—LAVISH PROVISIONS FOR EDUCATION.—CALIPHS PATRONS OF LEARNING.—VAST LIBRARIES EMBODYING THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE DAY.—POETRY ESPECIALLY FOSTERED.—STORY-TELLING.—JEWISH AND MOORISH POETRY CONTRASTED.—JEHUDA HA LEVY.—CHARISI.—GABIROL.—MOSES BEN EZRA.

When we turn to an examination of the position of the Jews and Moors of Spain in Literature, and behold their progress in this department of knowledge, we are not so much surprised as we were when we surveyed the wondrous advance both did make in the department of science, at a time when the rest of Europe was still under the spell of a mental torpor. The great epochs of the world's literature have ever had their origin during times of peace and prosperity. They may continue into turbulent times, and even outlive them, but never can they take root in them. Such an age Spain and its people were enjoying for many years under Moorish sway. The Moors had ended their conquests, and for a while the Jews enjoyed freedom from persecution. Peace prevailed, and prosperity gladdened the heart of man. Hills and dales yielded bountiful harvests. The rich mines of Spain brought to light the treasures of the earth. The long line of coast was crowded with vessels, which restlessly furrowed the oceans, exchanging the products of Europe for the wealth of the Orient. The commerce of the world centered in Spain; there, too, could be found its wealth. The age was ripe for literary activity.

The Jews were the first to open this epoch-making era of European literature. The past had shown that the Jewish mind needs no other impetus for earnest intellectual toil than an age of peace and prosperity, and the present marked no departure from the general rule. The Arab-Moors, sharing the general characteristics of the Jews, did not tarry long behind; as the Jews were mindful of the teachings of their sages, that the crown of learning is the greatest of honors, so did the Moors remember the words of the great Caliph Al Mamum: "They are the elect of God, they are His best and most useful servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties." And so great was the literary zeal of both these races that within comparatively few years there arose a literature upon grammar, lexicography, rhetoric, history, politics, biography, translation, statistics, music, fiction, poetry, law, ethics, theology, philosophy, much of which, despite our boasting of to-day, not only need not fear modern criticism, but is still authority. And it endured for nearly eight centuries, exceeding in duration that of any other literature, ancient or modern, and even after it was crushed, it continued to emit a steady luster through the clouds and darkness of succeeding centuries. Like a flood it overflowed the mountain barriers and went on, widely irrigating the arid fields of Europe.

The provisions for education were abundant. To every mosque and synagogue a free school was attached. Endowed colleges dotted the Saracen Empire, in which free tuition was given to all who were eager for knowledge, and stipends were cheerfully furnished the indigent students. In addition to this, many of the caliphs distinguished themselves not only for their scholarly attainments, but also for their munificent patronage of learning. They assembled the eminent scholars of their times, both natives and foreigners, at their court making it the familiar resort of men of letters, establishing a precedent which the Medicis later turned to excellent use. Above all, they were intent upon the acquisition of extensive libraries. They invited illustrious foreigners to send them their works, and munificently recompensed them. No donation was so grateful to them as a book. They employed agents in Egypt, Syria, Irak and Persia, for collecting and transcribing the rarest manuscripts; and their vessels returned freighted with cargoes more precious than the spices of the East. In this way they amassed magnificent collections—that of Alhakem Second amounted to 600,000 volumes.[26] Our own Harvard cannot reach half that number, even in the nineteenth century, and with the advantage of steam and printing press. Besides these royal libraries, seventy public libraries are named in Andalusia. The collections in the possession of individuals were sometimes very extensive. A private doctor refused the invitation of a sultan of Bokhara because the transportation of his books would have required 400 camels.

The subjects upon which these thousands upon thousands of volumes treat are so manifold, and the authors so numerous—the department of history, for instance, according to an Arabian author cited by D'Herbelot, could boast of 1,300 writers—that even a synoptical review of them would need more space and time than the scope of these discourses will allow, and so we dismiss them with the simple remark that such is their excellence, such the influence they exercised upon the literature of Europe that a careful perusal of the works still extant in the original or in translation will well repay the special student of any of the special branches of literature of which they treat.

The poetry of that period, however, refuses to be dismissed. She bids us halt. She, the queen of literature, is not accustomed to such slight. She was born to rule, she brooks no opposition, and so we pause. And after we have held sweet converse with her minstrel bards, and after we have perused a number of the almost countless volumes devoted to winged words of music and to poetic fancy, we regret not, that she made us pause. No longer do we think her boast an idle one that Spain, during the period that extends from the eighth to the fifteenth century, can show a greater number of poets than all the other nations combined. We need not ask the reason why. Any one acquainted with the extraordinary richness of both the Hebrew and its kindred—the Arabic language—their natural cadence, which lends itself to verse, the ease which both languages afford in passing from prose to poetry, and with the bent of mind of both races, poetical, delighting in figurative speech, in metaphor and allegory and fable, in luxuriant imagery and fanciful romance, any one acquainted with their Oriental predilection for the fairer sex, which could only express itself in languishing idyls or passionate lyric sonnets, any one knowing all this, will not wonder at the vastness of the Jewish and Moorish poetic literature.

The Moors excelled in what was then known as the art of "story telling." They had brought it with them from the East and the enchanting moonlight evenings of Andalusia, and the sequestered, fairy-like gardens, with their shady cypress trees, and their cascades, and their flowering shrubs, and their bowers of roses, and their crypt-like grottoes, all these tended to keep the love for their art alive. With them "this story telling," both in prose and poetry, took the place of theatrical representation. Those of you familiar with one of the many extant prose collections of stories such as "The Arabian Nights," can readily form an opinion of the great charm that branch of literature must have had in the original language for the Moorish people. Physicians often ordered "story telling" as a prescription for their patients, to mitigate their sufferings, to calm their agitation and to give sleep after protracted insomnia, or to beguile the ennui of the grandees, or to recreate them after their fatigues. The "munshids" or "story tellers" found their vocation a very honored and a very profitable one, and they took great pains to foster that art.

These stories and their lyric poetry exercised a potent influence over the literature of Southern and Western Europe. It can be traced in the reproduction of many stories as well as in the structure of the French "fabliaux" and "chansons de geste" of the "jongleuers", "trouveres" of the North; and is more particularly to be observed in "le gai saber" of Provencal troubadours. It extended into Italy, and is found in the charming stanzas of Ariosto, and in the "twice told tales" of Boccaccio's "Decameron."

In a word, the entire fiction and poetry of Southern Europe, up to the Renaissance, owes as much to the Spanish-Arabians for matter and form, as it does to the Latin language.[27] Still more, when we remember that our English Chaucer borrowed the scheme of his "Canterbury Tales" from several of the stories of Boccaccio, and other Italian writers, and that other English writers imitated Chaucer in borrowing plots and subjects from Italy and France and Spain, we may well claim that the Arabian idea has penetrated into the North, and left its profound impression upon English literature.[28]

But in the purer poetry, in touching tenderness of pathos, in sublimity of thought and majesty of diction, in those lofty flights where hope blends with sorrow, and with a religious fervor that is tempered by celestial sweetness and warmth of heart, here, the Jewish poets of Spain not only excel their Moorish rivals, but every poet before or since. Once more Israel's sons and daughters took their harps of Judea from off the mourning willows, and the Songs of Zion, the Glory of Israel, and the Praises of the Universal Father resounded again as sweet in the fairy land of Andalusia, as formerly upon the banks of the Jordan. They consecrated their Muse to the purest and holiest purposes. The epigram of Aben Esra, one of the immortal poets of this age, tells briefest and best the uses to which poetry lent itself among the various nations. He wrote:

We do not mean to convey by this, that the Jewish poets of Spain devoted themselves only and exclusively to the sacred song. Jehuda Ha-Levi thus sings of love and wine as fiery as e'er did Moorish bard.[29]

LOVE-SONG.

SEPARATION.

Thus sings Moses ben Esra;

—Extracts from the Book of Tarshish or "Necklace of Pearls."

It was not for want of cause that the sedate greybeards of Cordova applied for legal aid to have the passionate love songs of Abraham Ibn Sahal prohibited, for there was not a youth or maiden in the city who could not repeat them by heart. And as to songs of war and wit and spirit, the "Makamen" of Jehuda ben Salamo ben Alchofni, better known as "Charisi" gives ample proof to assure us that the Jews might have become dangerous rivals to the Roman and Greek writers had they fostered that phase of poetry as did these. Thus sings Charisi;

LOVE SONG OF CHARISI.

And as to the curious riddles which India's bards did tell, let us translate one or two, from Jehuda Ha-Levi to show that even into this field of poetic fancy the Jewish mind did wander, and it plucked there fruit as choice as India's bards did ever pluck. Ha-Levi asks, Who solves this:

Or this:

As to their skill in reflective and descriptive poetry, let the following specimens show:

NIGHT-THOUGHTS.

TO A DETRACTOR.

WINE AND GRIEF.

DEFIANCE.

A DEGENERATE AGE.

TO THE WEST WIND.

(Extracts from the Book of Tarshish, or "Necklace of Pearls.")

But with all their distinguished merits in these branches of poetic literature, they laid no claims to recognition, nor shall we claim it for them. Their aspiration was higher. Their lay was sacred. Their ideal of poetic grandeur was the writing and singing of majestic hymns, and they have given us a hymnology, a collection of pure and sacred songs, that has never yet been equalled. We know not what rational religious fervor is, we know not what real piety is, we know not what joyful ectasy is, nor what tearful and penitent tenderness means, we know not what trust in, and love of God is, we know not what it is to hear the heart speak to and of God, and the soul sing her Maker's praise, we know not what passionate devotion to, and deathless love for, Israel's cause, for the memory of her glorious past and for the hopes of her future is, we know not what all these are and mean, until we have read some of the hymns and sacred odes and elegies and meditations of the Jewish poets of Spain. Turn to your "Day of Atonement" services; read there the inexpressibly beautiful contributions to sacred poetic literature by Rabbi Solomon ben Jehuda Gabirol, or Rabbi Joseph ben Ibn Abitur, or Rabbi Bechai ben Joseph, or Rabbi Moses ben Esra, or the greatest of them all Rabbi Jehuda ben Samuel Ha-Levi, and answer it, where have you seen and where have you read or heard, anything that will bear comparison, with their religious poetry? Let us see the following from Gabirol:

MEDITATIONS.

HYMN.

Or this of Moses ben Esra.

IN THE NIGHT.

Read the following stanzas culled from Ha-Levi's "Elegy on Zion" and ask yourselves, where is the sacred epic that will compare with it?

ON THE VOYAGE TO JERUSALEM.

ISRAEL, THE DOVE.[30]

Noble Ha-Levi, poet by the grace of God humbly we implore thy pardon for so feebly speaking of thee and thy glorious work! Would that we had the gift to speak of thee as thou deservest. Fill us thou sweet singer of Israel, with poetic instinct, and fill us, too, with thy religious zeal and fervor. Fill us with such a love for Israel and her cause, that we too might as thou didst toil for the of our people and our God.[31]