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 Ilustrações
© Lula Palomanes, 2019
Diretor Editorial
Christiano Menezes
Diretor Comercial
Chico de Assis
Gerente Comercial
Giselle Leitão
Diretor de Marketing Digital
Mike Ribera
Editores
Bruno Dorigatti
Raquel Moritz
Editores Assistentes
Lielson Zeni
Nilsen Silva
Capa e Projeto Gráfico
Retina 78
Designer Assistente
Guilherme Costa
Finalização
Sandro Tagliamento
Revisão
Maximo Ribera
Retina Conteúdo
Impressão e acabamento
Gráfica Geográfica

DADOS INTERNACIONAIS DE CATALOGAÇÃO NA PUBLICAÇÃO (CIP)

Angélica Ilacqua CRB-8/7057
Medo imortal / organizado por Romeu Martins ; ilustrado por Lula Palomanes. – Rio de Janeiro :
DarkSide Books, 2019.
464 p. (Medo clássico)
 ISBN: 978-85-9454-169-7
1. Contos de terror – Antologias 2. Terror na literatura
I. Martins, Romeu II. Palomanes, Lula
19-0666 | CDD 808.83
Índices para catálogo sistemático:
1. Contos de terror : antologias

[2019]
Todos os direitos desta edição reservados à
DarkSide® Entretenimento LTDA.
Rua Alcântara Machado 36, sala 601, Centro
20081-010 – Rio de janeiro – RJ – Brasil
[Link]
SUMÁRIO

Introdução Darkside

Machado de Assis
A igreja do diabo
A vida eterna
Um esqueleto
Sem olhos
A causa secreta
Pai contra mãe

Álvares de Azevedo
Noite na taverna

Bernardo Guimarães
A dança dos ossos

Fagundes Varela
A guarida de pedra
A cruz

Coelho Neto
A sombra
A casa “sem sono”
Aluísio Azevedo
Demônios

Afonso Celso
Fantasmas
Morto-vivo
Valsa fantástica

Inglês de Sousa
Acauã
O gado do valha-me deus
O baile do judeu

Medeiros de Albuquerque
Palestra a horas mortas
O soldado Jacob

Afonso Arinos
A garupa
Assombramento

João do Rio
Dentro da noite
O bebê de Tarlatana Rosa
A peste

Humberto de Campos
O monstro
Morfina
Os olhos que comiam carne
Júlia Lopes de Almeida
As rosas
Os porcos
O caso de Ruth
A neurose da cor
A valsa da fome
A alma das flores

Bibliografia
 A Bernadete Coelho, a Dona Dete,
que esteve na origem de tudo,
e a Ana Resende, arqueóloga do
impossível, pelo apoio entusiasmado.
 INTRODUÇÃO
DARKSIDE
por
ROMEU MARTINS
2019

O ano é 1897.
O irlandês Bram Stoker (1847–1912) publica Drácula, o romance que
vai mudar sua vida. Narrando sob a forma de cartas as aventuras e
desventuras de um jovem advogado inglês, Jonathan Harker, que se
envolve com o vampiro conde Drácula, Stoker não criou propriamente a
figura do monstro — que já aparecera em obras como O Vampiro, de 1819,
de John Polidori (1795–1821) —, mas certamente escreveu o maior
clássico do gênero. Hoje é difícil dissociar a imagem do vampiro da criatura
de seu romance, a tal ponto que falamos da “herança de Drácula” ou dos
“herdeiros de Drácula” ao nos referirmos a histórias escritas na mesma
época ou após a sua publicação.
No mesmo ano e na mesma Inglaterra da rainha Vitória, o inglês H.G.
Wells (1866–1946), que já havia publicado A Máquina do Tempo e A Ilha do
Dr. Moreau nos anos anteriores, estava às voltas com o lançamento de O
Homem Invisível ao mesmo tempo em que escrevia os capítulos iniciais de
A Guerra dos Mundos para as revistas Pearson’s, do Reino Unido, e
Cosmopolitan, dos Estados Unidos. Sua trama sobre uma invasão de
marcianos seria encadernada pelo editor londrino William Heinemann
(1863–1920), no ano seguinte, e curiosamente ajudaria a espalhar o pânico
na Costa Leste dos Estados Unidos quarenta anos depois, quando o futuro
cineasta Orson Welles (1915–1985) dramatizaria o texto no formato de
boletins de rádio.
 Ouvintes desavisados acreditaram na veracidade do programa e saíram
às ruas temendo por suas vidas.
A mistura de terror e admiração suscitada pelo novo mundo descrito
por H.G. Wells lembrava, de certa forma, os desenvolvimentos científicos e
as discussões filosóficas narradas por Mary Shelley (1797–1851) em seu
romance Frankenstein, ou o Prometeu Moderno, mas que não eram
exclusivas dos romances de língua inglesa. Rival literário de Wells, Jules
Verne (1828–1905) também popularizava na França o embrionário gênero,
que viria a ser conhecido depois como ficção científica com sua coleção
Viagens Extraordinárias. Wells, Shelley e Verne, separados pelo tempo e
pelo espaço, ainda hoje figuram nas intermináveis discussões de fãs e
estudiosos acerca da paternidade da FC.
•••
Que tal voltarmos para os Estados Unidos e darmos uma olhada no que
acontecia por lá em 1897? Na cidade de Providence, capital do pequeno
estado de Rhode Island, na região conhecida como Nova Inglaterra, um
precoce menino de sete anos, chamado Howard Phillips escreve sua
primeira obra de ficção, a qual deu o título de “The Noble Eavesdropper”
(algo como “O nobre bisbilhoteiro”).
O texto acabou se perdendo, infelizmente, mas, em sua volumosa
correspondência com leitores e colegas de ofício, o autor classificou a
experiência como sendo o único conto que escreveria antes de ler
qualquer coisa de seu conterrâneo Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), outro
escritor que viveu na região da Nova Inglaterra, mas em Boston, no estado
de Massachusetts. De fato, nos anos seguintes, assinando como H.P.
Lovecraft (1890–1937), o morador de Providence daria continuidade à obra
de Poe, unindo a literatura gótica à ficção científica, e elevando o horror a
uma escala cósmica.
•••
E bem mais para o sul, aqui no Brasil, no marcante ano de 1897, o que
estaria acontecendo em termos literários? Nada menos do que a fundação
da Academia Brasileira de Letras — instituição cultural inspirada no modelo
existente na França desde 1635 —, que passaria a reunir os quarenta
maiores escritores e intelectuais do país, com a missão de preservar o
idioma e a memória cultural brasileira. Machado de Assis (1839–1908), até
hoje considerado o melhor e mais importante de nossos escritores,
encabeçava o movimento pela criação da entidade.
Autor de romances que criticaram e radiografaram a realidade
nacional, Machado foi escolhido de maneira unânime por seus pares como
o primeiro presidente da ABL (não por acaso, também conhecida como “A
casa de Machado de Assis”).
Mas o que poderia unir a elite intelectual de nosso país, escritores
eruditos, romancistas da alma nacional, liderados pelo maior nome de
nossa literatura, a autores populares que escreviam histórias sobre
vampiros, cadáveres revividos pela ciência, marcianos imperialistas e
demônios do espaço profundo? Pois o objetivo desta antologia é
justamente lembrar que existem, sim, muitos pontos de convergência
entre esses mundos.
Tanto os membros fundadores da ABL quanto os acadêmicos que os
substituíram nas décadas seguintes eram pessoas de seu tempo,
perfeitamente cientes do que ocorria em termos literários nos grandes
centros do mundo. É normal que entre sua vasta produção, em meio a
contos, novelas, romances, peças de teatro, artigos de jornal, crônicas e
outras modalidades de escrita, nossos imortais ocasionalmente se
ocupassem com histórias produzidas para gerar o medo e o senso de
aventura em seus leitores, da mesma forma que Stoker, Polidori, Shelley,
Verne, Wells, Poe e Lovecraft, entre tantos outros escritores espalhados
pelo mundo na mesma época.
•••
A coletânea reúne contos, passando por uma novela e algumas amostras
de poesia, de autores que inspiraram, fundaram e fizeram parte da nossa
mais prestigiosa associação de escritores e intelectuais, criada no mesmo
ano de lançamento de Drácula, de O Homem Invisível, da versão em
folhetim de A Guerra dos Mundos e do conto perdido “The Noble
Eavesdropper”. A intenção é preencher o vazio deixado pela crítica
acadêmica no Brasil, que, no século XX, optou por privilegiar um ideal
literário que tivesse como missão construir uma identidade nacional.
 Após a Proclamação da República, em 1889, a intelectualidade
brasileira desejava cortar todos os laços que nos prendiam ao passado
colonial e às influências europeias, então consideradas nocivas, e
pavimentar um futuro baseado em uma literatura acima de tudo realista,
que tratasse dos nossos cenários e do nosso povo. Desta forma, foi feita
uma revisão no que já se havia publicado no país para destacar obras que
correspondessem à nova diretriz estética e ideológica, mesmo que o preço
a pagar fosse o esquecimento de textos de qualidade de autores canônicos
que privilegiassem outras formas de entretenimento intelectual.
Como observou o pesquisador Lainister de Oliveira Esteves, em sua
tese de doutorado Literatura nas Sombras: Usos do Horror na Ficção
Brasileira do Século XIX, defendida em 2014, nesse contexto, houve
deliberadamente uma mudança de padrão: “Interpretada como desvio
momentâneo, a literatura de matriz byroniana, por exemplo, rapidamente
se esgota e é substituída por tendências referenciadas em Victor Hugo”.
Este último, claro, é o gigante das letras francesas, responsável por obras
como o monumental Os Miseráveis, escrito no ano de 1862, o tipo de livro
realista e carregado de crítica social idealizado por nossos intelectuais.
Já o termo byroniano diz respeito ao poeta gótico inglês Lorde Byron
(1788–1824). Para dar apenas um exemplo de sua influência — que
passava a ser considerada nociva —, foi ele o responsável pelo encontro de
intelectuais em uma residência de verão na Suíça que está na origem de
duas obras já mencionadas aqui: O Vampiro, de John Polidori, e
Frankenstein, de Mary Shelley. Aqui no Brasil, como veremos à frente, ele
também inspirou alguns de nossos mais conhecidos escritores.
“A missão cívica e a vocação nacionalista das letras brasileiras teriam
como um de seus mais sensíveis efeitos imediatos o veto à imaginação que
redundaria no caráter necessariamente realista da literatura do século XIX”,
continua Lainister Esteves.
Organizadas na chave autoral que privilegia obras centrais, as
histórias literárias tendem a desprezar motivos considerados
menores, como evidentemente acontece com o horror. A
construção de uma autoridade literária, cujo objetivo principal é a
consolidação de uma noção romântica de gênio criador e de obra-
prima, encontra no nacional seu motivo ideal. A legitimação de uma
 originalidade que se pretende evidente e que, portanto, deve
romper com tradições literárias estrangeiras, transforma o
nacionalismo em expressão da particularidade, que passa a ser o
elemento necessário para a consagração da tipologia do autor
romântico.
As consequências desta caça às bruxas, às tradições estrangeiras e à
imaginação devem ser bem claras: houve um abandono e um
esquecimento proposital de boa parte de nossa literatura. Com o novo
paradigma reforçado nos currículos escolares, adotado nas pesquisas de
pós-graduação das universidades, incentivado por meio de bolsas de
estudo e de premiações, além de artigos na imprensa, o modelo se firmou
ao longo do século passado a tal ponto que, para boa parte — se não, a
maioria — dos brasileiros, a literatura nacional de qualidade jamais
produziu algo que não fosse identificado com o realismo e com o
naturalismo.
O horror, assim como outras manifestações do fantástico (como a
fantasia e a ficção científica), passou a ser um produto quase
exclusivamente de importação. E, não por acaso, são best-sellers das
livrarias em solo pátrio. Isso para nem mencionar o sucesso que costumam
fazer em eventuais adaptações para outras mídias, como o cinema e a TV.
Felizmente, como demonstra a pesquisa de doutorado citada, no século
XXI, a universidade brasileira começa a rever essa atitude e, cada vez mais,
produz novos estudos, na forma de ensaios, artigos em revistas
acadêmicas, teses e dissertações, que jogam luz em nosso passado
byroniano. Nas apresentações dos autores e de seus textos que faremos
nesta compilação, sempre que possível vamos referenciar alguns desses
trabalhos universitários, principalmente, mas não exclusivamente, os
produzidos pelo Grupo de Estudos do Gótico no Brasil, estabelecido desde
2014 na Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). É uma maneira de
demonstrar os novos tempos da aceitação e da valorização da literatura de
horror em nosso país.
•••
Antes de dar lugar aos textos que são a razão de ser desta coletânea, vale
uma última observação. Quem passou o olho pelo SUMÁRIO talvez tenha
notado, entre o nome de tantos imortais da ABL que em um momento ou
outro estudou na escola ou na universidade, a presença de uma estranha:
Júlia Lopes de Almeida (1862–1934), nascida no Rio de Janeiro, filha de
pais portugueses, casada com um poeta também de Portugal, pioneira
entre as romancistas brasileiras e escritoras de livros infantis em nosso
país.
Seu nome não consta em nenhuma relação de membros da Academia
Brasileira de Letras por uma razão simples. Apesar de ter sido uma das
intelectuais que mais se mobilizaram no período, participando de várias
reuniões para a fundação da entidade, ela acabou vetada na última hora.
Nossa Academia não copiou o modelo francês apenas quanto ao número
de membros, o uso do fardão e o hábito de chamar seus integrantes de
imortais. A instituição nacional também adotou a restrição gaulesa quanto
à participação de mulheres em suas dependências. Dessa forma, quarenta
homens foram os membros fundadores da instituição, que por sua vez
escolheram outros quarenta homens como patronos das cadeiras que eles
passariam a ocupar de maneira vitalícia, até o momento da morte de um
deles, quando outro homem seria eleito para substituí-lo. A hegemonia
masculina só foi abolida por aqui oitenta anos após a criação daquela
entidade, quando a cearense Rachel de Queiroz (1910–2003) foi eleita. Era
já avançado o ano de 1977 naquela ocasião.
A descoberta de que a candidatura de Júlia havia sido proposta por
Lúcio de Mendonça (1854–1909), advogado, escritor e um dos
idealizadores da Academia, se deve à pesquisadora Michele Asmar Fanini,
que, em meados dos anos 2000, se debruçou nos arquivos da instituição
para investigar a presença feminina em seus salões nobres. “Eu, que então
mirava a ABL pós-1976, quando as candidaturas deixaram de ser uma
prerrogativa masculina, passei também a me dedicar aos seus primeiros
oitenta anos de existência, marcados pela presença feminina como parte
do inenarrável”, escreveu Fanini em um artigo para a Folha de S. Paulo, em
2017.
No mesmo ano, durante as comemorações do aniversário de 120 anos
da Academia, os imortais organizaram uma homenagem, celebrando uma
imaginária cadeira de número 41, em honra daqueles que, por um motivo
ou outro, jamais foram escolhidos para usar o fardão. A primeira da lista de
homenageados foi justamente Júlia Lopes de Almeida. Como o leitor há de
conferir nos textos que encerram este livro, sua presença aqui é uma
questão de justiça e de reconhecimento de sua qualidade como autora.
Como diriam os advogados, é uma matéria de direito, ainda que não de
fato, que ela esteja incluída em nosso livro, ao lado de seus pares.
Sendo assim, além de Júlia, integram Medo Imortal, seis membros
fundadores da Academia, três dos patronos escolhidos por eles e outros
três acadêmicos eleitos nos primeiros anos de existência da ABL. Desta
forma, o livro que o leitor tem em mãos buscou traçar o panorama dos
primeiros cem anos de produção da literatura de horror no Brasil,
conforme ela foi produzida entre a segunda metade do século XIX e a
primeira do século XX pelos mais renomados escritores que já atuaram
nestas terras.
São José da Terra Firme
Santa Catarina
 INTRODUÇÃO

MACHADO
de
ASSIS
1839–1908

Parece justo que se comece uma antologia como esta com aquele que não
só foi um dos fundadores e o primeiro presidente da Academia Brasileira
de Letras como também ainda hoje é considerado por virtual unanimidade
o maior e mais universal de nossos escritores.
Sendo conhecido como Bruxo do Cosme Velho e um autor
incontomável em tantos gêneros e formatos literários — do romance ao
conto, da poesia à crônica, das sátiras de costume e de política ao Realismo
— não seria justamente às narrativas de terror que ele nos faltaria. Antes
pelo contrário, Machado de Assis só não é ainda mais reputado como um
dos grandes criadores do medo em prosa devido ao inegável brilho que
alcançou em áreas comparativamente bem mais valorizadas pela crítica
profissional em nosso país. Nem mesmo o fato de um de seus livros mais
aclamados, Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, de 1881, ser narrado por
um autointitulado defunto-autor, fez chamar a atenção da crítica
especializada para o que mais ele teria a contar sobre histórias que dizem
respeito ao além-túmulo.
Pelo menos assim o foi por um bom tempo ao longo do século XX, mas
com frequência cada vez maior, mais e mais acadêmicos (aqueles das
universidades, não necessariamente os que fazem parte da ABL) se
debruçam sobre a produção ligada ao macabro de nosso Bruxo. É o caso do
ensaio O Horror Ameno: Contos de Machado de Assis no Jornal das
Famílias, de 2017, do já mencionado doutor em História Social Lainister de
Oliveira Esteves. Nesse texto, o especialista comenta a fonte de boa parte
dos contos apresentados nestas páginas, um periódico carioca fundado em
1863 e que trazia material voltado principalmente ao público feminino. A
literatura folhetinesca de Machado de Assis, “do grotesco banquete de
canibais à convivência mórbida com esqueletos”, aparecia lado a lado com
moldes de figurinos para senhoras e dicas de tricô e crochê:
Se há alguma lição a ser aprendida é que a ficção, disfarçadamente,
sorrateiramente, exploraria aquilo que poderia parecer vedado e
talvez aí se expresse a última troça do narrador. O horror ameno
traz o universo do pecado, do crime, do mistério, do desejo e do
desconhecido na forma segura da anedota. Inscreve-se nas práticas
cotidianas de leitura, punindo as pequenas perversões para
também lembrar que existem. As insinuações de traição e as
inusitadas possibilidades do amor se articulam em cenários
sinistros, o que assegura a promessa do deleite na fabulação de
uma diferença familiar proporcionada pelo sonho e pelo delírio. No
fim, o flerte moderado com o insólito mantém o controle sobre o
fantástico, o que indica a sedução de uma literatura que fabrica o
perigo controlado e faz do horror um produto atrativo no mercado
literário oitocentista.
Foi graças a essa estratégia de um horror com ar de amenidades que
Machado de Assis se sentiu à vontade para realizar experimentos
deliciosos em alguns desses contos, como no caso de “A Vida Eterna”, no
qual ele faz um jogo de metalinguagem que, a um leitor contemporâneo,
pode parecer um exercício do mais puro pós-modernismo: Machado assina
o texto com o nome do protagonista da história narrada, como se fosse um
caso real endereçado ao editor do jornal. O detalhe é que o conto foi
escrito em 1870, meio século antes, portanto, da Semana de 22, aquela
que lançou as bases do Modernismo no Brasil. Ou seja, não poderia ser
mais pré-pós-moderno este nosso exemplo.
Mas não pense o leitor que todas as narrativas aqui reunidas podem
ser classificadas como textos amenos. Um dos contos que bem
representam este lado maldito de nosso imortal é considerado um dos
mais duros e cruéis a terem saído de sua pena. Foi analisado em outro
ensaio, O Discreto Charme da Monstruosidade: Atração e Repulsa em “A
Causa Secreta”, de Machado de Assis, escrito por Julio França em 2012. O
pesquisador faz questionamentos sobre a motivação não só dos
personagens, mas também de nós, consumidores de histórias de terror:
O conto é uma narrativa exemplar da atração exercida pelo
monstro. O narrador em terceira pessoa nos coloca, a princípio, sob
a perspectiva de Garcia, um jovem médico que descobrirá, passo a
passo, as tendências sádicas de seu amigo, o “capitalista” Fortunato.
O leitor, por sua vez, torna-se cúmplice da paradoxal atração
exercida pela crueldade de um sobre a curiosidade do outro. A
pergunta “por que Garcia se deixa atrair pelos atos de Fortunato?”
vale também para nós, leitores: por que somos seduzidos pelos atos
monstruosos e prosseguimos na leitura?
E deixamos outra dúvida a ser respondida pelo leitor, pois se “A Causa
Secreta” é mesmo um dos contos mais cruéis de Machado de Assis, o que
dizer do seguinte, que fecha este primeiro segmento de nosso livro? “Pai
Contra Mãe”, compilado originalmente no livro Relíquias da Casa Velha, de
1906, pode além de tudo ser considerado uma resposta aos críticos que
acusam o neto de escravos alforriados, nascido na pobreza e criado no
Morro do Livramento, de ter se manifestado poucas vezes em sua obra a
respeito da monstruosidade da escravidão. Trata-se de um dos retratos
mais pungentes e dramáticos do tema, que é capaz de evocar o mais puro
horror sem a necessidade de apelar ao sobrenatural. Bastou a Machado de
Assis apenas falar da realidade.
 A IGREJA
do
DIABO
1884

I
De uma ideia mirífica
Conta um velho manuscrito beneditino que o Diabo, em certo dia, teve a
ideia de fundar uma igreja.[1] Embora os seus lucros fossem contínuos e
grandes, sentia-se humilhado com o papel avulso que exercia desde
séculos, sem organização, sem regras, sem cânones, sem ritual, sem nada.
Vivia, por assim dizer, dos remanescentes divinos, dos descuidos e
obséquios humanos. Nada fixo, nada regular. Por que não teria ele a sua
igreja? Uma igreja do Diabo era o meio eficaz de combater as outras
religiões, e destruí-las de uma vez.
— Vá, pois, uma igreja, concluiu ele. Escritura contra Escritura, breviário
contra breviário. Terei a minha missa, com vinho e pão à farta, as minhas
prédicas, bulas, novenas e todo o demais aparelho eclesiástico. O meu
credo será o núcleo universal dos espíritos, a minha igreja uma tenda de
Abraão. E depois, enquanto as outras religiões se combatem e se dividem,
a minha igreja será única; não acharei diante de mim, nem Maomé, nem
Lutero. Há muitos modos de afirmar; há só um de negar tudo.
Dizendo isto, o Diabo sacudiu a cabeça e estendeu os braços, com um
gesto magnífico e varonil. Em seguida, lembrou-se de ir ter com Deus para
comunicar-lhe a ideia, e desafiá-lo; levantou os olhos, acesos de ódio,
ásperos de vingança, e disse consigo:
 — Vamos, é tempo. E rápido, batendo as asas, com tal estrondo que
abalou todas as províncias do abismo, arrancou da sombra para o infinito
azul.

II
Entre Deus e o diabo
Deus recolhia um ancião, quando o Diabo chegou ao céu. Os serafins que
engrinaldavam o recém-chegado, detiveram-no logo, e o Diabo deixou-se
estar à entrada com os olhos no Senhor.
— Que me queres tu? perguntou este.
— Não venho pelo vosso servo Fausto, respondeu o Diabo rindo, mas
por todos os Faustos do século e dos séculos.
— Explica-te.
— Senhor, a explicação é fácil; mas permiti que vos diga: recolhei
primeiro esse bom velho; dá-lhe o melhor lugar, mandai que as mais
afinadas cítaras e alaúdes o recebam com os mais divinos coros…
— Sabes o que ele fez? perguntou o Senhor, com os olhos cheios de
doçura.
— Não, mas provavelmente é dos últimos que virão ter convosco. Não
tarda muito que o céu fique semelhante a uma casa vazia, por causa do
preço, que é alto. Vou edificar uma hospedaria barata; em duas palavras,
vou fundar uma igreja. Estou cansado da minha desorganização, do meu
reinado casual e adventício. É tempo de obter a vitória final e completa. E
então vim dizer-vos isto, com lealdade, para que me não acuseis de
dissimulação… Boa ideia, não vos parece?
— Vieste dizê-la, não legitimá-la, advertiu o Senhor,
— Tendes razão, acudiu o Diabo; mas o amor-próprio gosta de ouvir o
aplauso dos mestres. Verdade é que neste caso seria o aplauso de um
mestre vencido, e uma tal exigência… Senhor, desço à terra; vou lançar a
minha pedra fundamental.
— Vai.
— Quereis que venha anunciar-vos o remate da obra?
— Não é preciso; basta que me digas desde já por que motivo, cansado
há tanto da tua desorganização, só agora pensaste em fundar uma igreja?
 O Diabo sorriu com certo ar de escárnio e triunfo. Tinha alguma ideia
cruel no espírito, algum reparo picante no alforje da memória, qualquer
coisa que, nesse breve instante da eternidade, o fazia crer superior ao
próprio Deus. Mas recolheu o riso, e disse:
— Só agora concluí uma observação, começada desde alguns séculos, e
é que as virtudes, filhas do céu, são em grande número comparáveis a
rainhas, cujo manto de veludo rematasse em franjas de algodão. Ora, eu
proponho-me a puxá-las por essa franja, e trazê-las todas para minha
igreja; atrás delas virão as de seda pura…
— Velho retórico! murmurou o Senhor.
— Olhai bem. Muitos corpos que ajoelham aos vossos pés, nos templos
do mundo, trazem as anquinhas da sala e da rua, os rostos tingem-se do
mesmo pó, os lenços cheiram aos mesmos cheiros, as pupilas centelham
de curiosidade e devoção entre o livro santo e o bigode do pecado. Vede o
ardor — a indiferença, ao menos — com que esse cavalheiro põe em letras
públicas os benefícios que liberalmente espalha — ou sejam roupas ou
botas, ou moedas, ou quaisquer dessas matérias necessárias à vida… Mas
não quero parecer que me detenho em coisas miúdas; não falo, por
exemplo, da placidez com que este juiz de irmandade, nas procissões,
carrega piedosamente ao peito o vosso amor e uma comenda… Vou a
negócios mais altos…
Nisto os serafins agitaram as asas pesadas de fastio e sono. Miguel e
Gabriel fitaram no Senhor um olhar de súplica, Deus interrompeu o Diabo.
— Tu és vulgar, que é o pior que pode acontecer a um espírito da tua
espécie, replicou-lhe o Senhor. Tudo o que dizes ou digas está dito e redito
pelos moralistas do mundo. É assunto gasto; e se não tens força, nem
originalidade para renovar um assunto gasto, melhor é que te cales e te
retires. Olha; todas as minhas legiões mostram no rosto os sinais vivos do
tédio que lhes dás. Esse mesmo ancião parece enjoado; e sabes tu o que
ele fez?
— Já vos disse que não.
— Depois de uma vida honesta, teve uma morte sublime. Colhido em
um naufrágio, ia salvar-se numa tábua; mas viu um casal de noivos, na flor
da vida, que se debatiam já com a morte; deu-lhes a tábua de salvação e
mergulhou na eternidade. Nenhum público: a água e o céu por cima. Onde
achas aí a franja de algodão?
 — Senhor, eu sou, como sabeis, o espírito que nega.
— Negas esta morte?
— Nego tudo. A misantropia pode tomar aspecto de caridade; deixar a
vida aos outros, para um misantropo, é realmente aborrecê-los…
— Retórico e sutil! exclamou o Senhor. Vai; vai, funda a tua igreja;
chama todas as virtudes, recolhe todas as franjas, convoca todos os
homens… Mas, vai! vai!
Debalde o Diabo tentou proferir alguma coisa mais. Deus impusera-lhe
silêncio; os serafins, a um sinal divino, encheram o céu com as harmonias
de seus cânticos. O Diabo sentiu, de repente, que se achava no ar; dobrou
as asas, e, como um raio, caiu na terra.

III
A boa nova aos homens
Uma vez na terra, o Diabo não perdeu um minuto. Deu-se pressa em enfiar
a cogula beneditina, como hábito de boa fama, e entrou a espalhar uma
doutrina nova e extraordinária, com uma voz que reboava nas entranhas
do século. Ele prometia aos seus discípulos e fiéis as delícias da terra, todas
as glórias, os deleites mais íntimos. Confessava que era o Diabo; mas
confessava-o para retificar a noção que os homens tinham dele e
desmentir as histórias que a seu respeito contavam as velhas beatas.
— Sim, sou o Diabo, repetia ele; não o Diabo das noites sulfúreas, dos
contos soníferos, terror das crianças, mas o Diabo verdadeiro e único, o
próprio gênio da natureza, a que se deu aquele nome para arredá-lo do
coração dos homens. Vede-me gentil a airoso. Sou o vosso verdadeiro pai.
Vamos lá: tomai daquele nome, inventado para meu desdouro, fazei dele
um troféu e um lábaro, e eu vos darei tudo, tudo, tudo, tudo, tudo, tudo…
Era assim que falava, a princípio, para excitar o entusiasmo, espertar os
indiferentes, congregar, em suma, as multidões ao pé de si. E elas vieram; e
logo que vieram, o Diabo passou a definir a doutrina. A doutrina era a que
podia ser na boca de um espírito de negação. Isso quanto à substância,
porque, acerca da forma, era umas vezes sutil, outras cínica e deslavada.
Clamava ele que as virtudes aceitas deviam ser substituídas por outras,
que eram as naturais e legítimas. A soberba, a luxúria, a preguiça foram
reabilitadas, e assim também a avareza, que declarou não ser mais do que
Other documents randomly have
different content
sodomy, see Lib. ii. chap. 4 of Master Thomas Caudish’s
Circumnavigation, and vol. vi. of Pinkerton’s Geography translated by
Walckenaer.
Passing over to America we find that the Sotadic Zone contains the
whole hemisphere from Behring’s Straits to Magellan’s. This
prevalence of “mollities” astonishes the anthropologist, who is apt to
consider pederasty the growth of luxury and the especial product of
great and civilised cities, unnecessary and therefore unknown to
simple savagery where the births of both sexes are about equal and
female infanticide is not practised. In many parts of the New World
this perversion was accompanied by another depravity of taste—
confirmed cannibalism.[411] The forests and campos abounded in
game from the deer to the pheasant-like penelope, and the seas and
rivers produced an unfailing supply of excellent fish and shell-
fish[412]; yet the Brazilian Tupis preferred the meat of man to every
other food.
A glance at Mr. Bancroft[413] proves the abnormal development of
sodomy amongst the savages and barbarians of the New World.
Even his half-frozen Hyperboreans “possess all the passions which
are supposed to develop most freely under a milder temperature” (i.
58). “The voluptuousness and polygamy of the North American
Indians, under a temperature of almost perpetual winter is far
greater than that of the most sensual tropical nations” (Martin’s Brit.
Colonies iii. 524). I can quote only a few of the most remarkable
instances. Of the Koniagas of Kadiak Island and the Thinkleets we
read (i. 81–82), “The most repugnant of all their practices is that of
male concubinage. A Kadiak mother will select her handsomest and
most promising boy, and dress and rear him as a girl, teaching him
only domestic duties, keeping him at women’s work, associating him
with women and girls, in order to render his effeminacy complete.
Arriving at the age of ten or fifteen years, he is married to some
wealthy man who regards such a companion as a great acquisition.
These male concubines are called Achnutschik or Schopans” (the
authorities quoted being Holmberg, Langsdorff, Billing, Choris,
Lisiansky and Marchand). The same is the case in Nutka Sound and
the Aleutian Islands, where “male concubinage obtains throughout,
but not to the same extent as amongst the Koniagas.” The objects of
“unnatural” affection have their beards carefully plucked out as soon
as the face-hair begins to grow, and their chins are tattooed like
those of the women. In California the first missionaries found the
same practice, the youths being called Joya (Bancroft, i. 415 and
authorities Palon, Crespi, Boscana, Mofras, Torquemada, Duflot and
Fages). The Comanches unite incest with sodomy (i. 515). “In New
Mexico according to Arlegui, Ribas, and other authors, male
concubinage prevails to a great extent, these loathsome semblances
of humanity, whom to call beastly were a slander upon beasts, dress
themselves in the clothes and perform the functions of women, the
use of weapons being denied them” (i. 585). Pederasty was
systematically practised by the peoples of Cueba, Careta, and other
parts of Central America. The Caciques and some of the headmen
kept harems of youths who, as soon as destined for the unclean
office, were dressed as women. They went by the name of
Camayoas, and were hated and detested by the goodwives (i. 773–
74). Of the Nahua nations Father Pierre de Gand (alias de Musa)
writes, “Un certain nombre de prêtres n’avaient point de femmes,
sed eorum loco pueros quibus abutebantur. Ce péché était si
commun dans ce pays que, jeunes ou vieux, tous étaient infectés; ils
y étaient si adonnés que mêmes les enfants de six ans s’y livraient”
(Ternaux-Campans, Voyages, Série i. Tom. x. p. 197). Among the
Mayas of Yucatan Las Casas declares that the great prevalence of
“unnatural” lust made parents anxious to see their progeny wedded
as soon as possible (Kingsborough’s Mex. Ant. viii. 135). In Vera Paz
a god, called by some Chin and by others Cavial and Maran, taught
it by committing the act with another god. Some fathers gave their
sons a boy to use as a woman, and if any other approached this
pathic he was treated as an adulterer. In Yucatan images were found
by Bernal Diaz proving the sodomitical propensities of the people
(Bancroft v. 198). De Pauw (Recherches Philosophiques sur les
Américains, London, 1771) has much to say about the subject in
Mexico generally: in the northern provinces men married youths
who, dressed like women, were forbidden to carry arms. According
to Gomara there were at Tamalipas houses of male prostitution; and
from Diaz and others we gather that the pecado nefando was the
rule. Both in Mexico and in Peru it might have caused, if it did not
justify, the cruelties of the Conquistadores. Pederasty was also
general throughout Nicaragua, and the early explorers found it
amongst the indigenes of Panama.
We have authentic details concerning Le Vice in Peru and its
adjacent lands, beginning with Cieza de Leon, who must be read in
the original or in the translated extracts of Purchas (vol. v. 942, etc.),
not in the cruelly castrated form preferred by the Council of the
Hakluyt Society. Speaking of the New Granada Indians he tells us
that “at Old Port (Porto Viejo) and Puna, the Deuill so farre
prevayled in their beastly Deuotions that there were Boyes
consecrated to serue in the Temple; and at the times of their
Sacrifices and Solemne Feasts, the Lords and principal men abused
them to that detestable filthinesse;” i.e. performed their peculiar
worship. Generally in the hill-countries the Devil, under the show of
holiness, had introduced the practice; for every temple or chief
house of adoration kept one or two men or more which were attired
like women, even from the time of their childhood, and spake like
them, imitating them in everything; with these, under pretext of
holiness and religion, their principal men on principal days had
commerce. Speaking of the arrival of the Giants[414] at Point Santa
Elena, Cieza says (chap. lii.), they were detested by the natives,
because in using their women they killed them, and their men also in
another way. All the natives declare that God brought upon them a
punishment proportioned to the enormity of their offence. When
they were engaged together in their accursed intercourse, a fearful
and terrible fire came down from Heaven with a great noise, out of
the midst of which there issued a shining Angel with a glittering
sword, wherewith at one blow they were all killed and the fire
consumed them.[415] There remained a few bones and skulls which
God allowed to bide unconsumed by the fire, as a memorial of this
punishment. In the Hakluyt Society’s bowdlerisation we read of the
Tumbez Islanders being “very vicious, many of them committing the
abominable offence” (p. 24); also, “If by the advice of the Devil any
Indian commit the abominable crime, it is thought little of and they
call him a woman.” In chapters lii. and lviii. we find exceptions. The
Indians of Huancabamba, “although so near the peoples of Puerto
Viejo and Guayaquil, do not commit the abominable sin;” and the
Serranos, or island mountaineers, as sorcerers and magicians inferior
to the coast peoples, were not so much addicted to sodomy.
The Royal Commentaries of the Yncas show that the evil was of a
comparatively modern growth. In the early period of Peruvian history
the people considered the crime “unspeakable:” if a Cuzco Indian,
not of Yncarial blood, angrily addressed the term pederast to
another, he was held infamous for many days. One of the generals
having reported to the Ynca Ccapacc Yupanqui that there were some
sodomites, not in all the valleys, but one here and one there, “nor
was it a habit of all the inhabitants but only of certain persons who
practised it privately,” the ruler ordered that the criminals should be
publicly burnt alive and their houses, crops and trees destroyed:
moreover, to show his abomination, he commanded that the whole
village should so be treated if one man fell into this habit (Lib. iii.
cap. 13). Elsewhere we learn, “There were sodomites in some
provinces, though not openly nor universally, but some particular
men and in secret. In some parts they had them in their temples,
because the Devil persuaded them that the Gods took great delight
in such people, and thus the Devil acted as a traitor to remove the
veil of shame that the Gentiles felt for this crime and to accustom
them to commit it in public and in common.”
During the times of the Conquistadores male concubinage had
become the rule throughout Peru. At Cuzco, we are told by Nuno de
Guzman in 1530, “The last which was taken, and which fought most
couragiously, was a man in the habite of a woman, which confessed
that from a childe he had gotten his liuing by that filthinesse, for
which I caused him to be burned.” V. F. Lopez[416] draws a frightful
picture of pathologic love in Peru. Under the reigns which followed
that of Inti-Kapak (Ccapacc) Amauri, the country was attacked by
invaders of a giant race coming from the sea: they practised
pederasty after a fashion so shameless that the conquered tribes
were compelled to fly (p. 271). Under the pre-Yncarial Amauta, or
priestly dynasty, Peru had lapsed into savagery and the kings of
Cuzco preserved only the name. “Toutes ces hontes et toutes ces
misères provenaient de deux vices infâmes, la bestialité et la
sodomie. Les femmes surtout étaient offensées de voir la nature
frustrée de tous ses droits. Elles pleuraient ensemble en leurs
réunions sur le misérable état dans lequel elles étaient tombées, sur
le mépris avec lequel elles étaient traitées. * * * * Le monde était
renversé, les hommes s’aimaient et étaient jaloux les uns des autres.
* * * Elles cherchaient, mais en vain, les moyens de remédier au
mal; elles employaient des herbes et des recettes diaboliques qui
leur ramenaient bien quelques individus, mais ne pouvaient arrêter
les progrès incessants du vice. Cet état de choses constitua un
véritable moyen âge, qui dura jusqu’à l’établissement du
gouvernement des Incas” (p. 277).
When Sinchi Roko (the xcvth of Montesinos and the xcist of
Garcilazo) became Ynca, he found morals at the lowest ebb. “Ni la
prudence de l’Inca, ni les lois sévères qu’il avait promulguées
n’avaient pu extirper entièrement le péché contre nature. Il reprit
avec une nouvelle violence, et les femmes en furent si jalouses
qu’un grand nombre d’elles tuèrent leurs maris. Les devins et les
sorciers passaient leurs journées à fabriquer, avec certaines herbes,
des compositions magiques qui rendaient fous ceux qui en
mangeaient, et les femmes en faisaient prendre, soit dans les
aliments, soit dans la chicha, à ceux dont elles étaient jalouses” (p.
291).
I have remarked that the Tupi races of the Brazil were infamous for
cannibalism and sodomy; nor could the latter be only racial as
proved by the fact that colonists of pure Lusitanian blood followed in
the path of the savages. Sr. Antonio Augusto da Costa Aguiar[417] is
outspoken upon this point. “A crime which in England leads to the
gallows, and which is the very measure of abject depravity, passes
with impunity amongst us by the participating in it of almost all or of
many (de quasi todos, ou de muitos). Ah! if the wrath of Heaven
were to fall by way of punishing such crimes (delictos), more than
one city of this Empire, more than a dozen, would pass into the
category of the Sodoms and Gomorrahs” (p. 30). Till late years
pederasty in the Brazil was looked upon as a peccadillo; the
European immigrants following the practice of the wild men who
were naked but not, as Columbus said, “clothed in innocence.” One
of Her Majesty’s Consuls used to tell a tale of the hilarity provoked in
a “fashionable” assembly by the open declaration of a young
gentleman that his mulatto-“patient” had suddenly turned upon him,
insisting upon becoming agent. Now, however, under the influences
of improved education and respect for the public opinion of Europe,
pathologic love amongst the Luso-Brazilians has been reduced to the
normal limits.
Outside the Sotadic Zone, I have said, Le Vice is sporadic, not
endemic: yet the physical and moral effect of great cities where
puberty, they say, is induced earlier than in country sites, has been
the same in most lands, causing modesty to decay and pederasty to
flourish. The Badawi Arab is wholly pure of Le Vice; yet San’á the
capital of Al-Yaman and other centres of population have long been
and still are thoroughly infected. History tells us of Zú Shanátir,
tyrant of “Arabia Felix,” in A.D. 478, who used to entice young men
into his palace and cause them after use to be cast out of the
windows: this unkindly ruler was at last poinarded by the youth
Zerash, known from his long ringlets as “Zú Nowás.” The negro race
is mostly untainted by sodomy and tribadism. Yet Joan dos
Sanctos[418] found in Cacongo of West Africa certain “Chibudi, which
are men attyred like women and behaue themselves womanly,
ashamed to be called men; are also married to men, and esteem
that vnnaturale damnation an honor.” Madagascar also delighted in
dancing and singing boys dressed as girls. In the Empire of
Dahomey I noted a corps of prostitutes kept for the use of the
Amazon-soldieresses.
North of the Sotadic Zone we find local but notable instances. Master
Christopher Burrough[419] describes on the western side of the Volga
“a very fine stone castle, called by the name Oueak, and adioyning
to the same a Towne called by the Russes, Sodom, * * * which was
swallowed into the earth by the iustice of God, for the wickednesse
of the people.” Again: although as a rule Christianity has steadily
opposed pathologic love both in writing and preaching, there have
been remarkable exceptions. Perhaps the most curious idea was that
of certain medical writers in the middle ages: “Usus et amplexus
pueri, bene temperatus, salutaris medicina” (Tardieu). Bayle notices
(under “Vayer”) the infamous book of Giovanni della Casa,
Archbishop of Benevento, “De laudibus Sodomiæ,”[420] vulgarly
known as “Capitolo del Forno.” The same writer refers (under “Sixte
iv”) to the report that the Dominican Order, which systematically
decried Le Vice, had presented a request to the Cardinal di Santa
Lucia that sodomy might be lawful during three months per annum,
June to August; and that the Cardinal had underwritten the petition
“Be it done as they demand.” Hence the Fæda Venus of Battista
Mantovano. Bayle rejects the history for a curious reason, venery
being colder in summer than in winter, and quotes the proverb “Aux
mois qui n’ont pas d’ R, peu embrasser et bien boire.” But in the
case of a celibate priesthood such scandals are inevitable: witness
the famous Jesuit epitaph Ci-gît un Jésuite, etc.
In our modern capitals, London, Berlin and Paris for instance, the
Vice seems subject to periodical outbreaks. For many years, also,
England sent her pederasts to Italy, and especially to Naples whence
originated the term “Il vizio Inglese.” It would be invidious to detail
the scandals which of late years have startled the public in London
and Dublin: for these the curious will consult the police reports.
Berlin, despite her strong flavour of Phariseeism, Puritanism and
Chauvinism in religion, manners and morals, is not a whit better
than her neighbours. Dr. Gaspar,[421] a well-known authority on the
subject, adduces many interesting cases especially an old Count
Cajus and his six accomplices. Amongst his many correspondents
one suggested to him that not only Plato and Julius Cæsar but also
Winckelmann and Platen (?) belonged to the Society; and he had
found it flourishing in Palermo, the Louvre, the Scottish Highlands
and St. Petersburg, to name only a few places. Frederick the Great is
said to have addressed these words to his nephew, “Je puis vous
assurer, par mon expérience personnelle, que ce plaisir est peu
agréable à cultiver.” This suggests the popular anecdote of Voltaire
and the Englishman who agreed upon an “experience” and found it
far from satisfactory. A few days afterwards the latter informed the
Sage of Ferney that he had tried it again and provoked the
exclamation, “Once a philospher: twice a sodomite!” The last revival
of the kind in Germany is a society at Frankfort and its
neighbourhood, self-styled Les Cravates Noires in opposition, I
suppose, to Les Cravates Blanches of A. Belot.
Paris is by no means more depraved than Berlin and London; but,
whilst the latter hushes up the scandal, Frenchmen do not: hence
we see a more copious account of it submitted to the public. For
France of the xviith century consult the “Histoire de la Prostitution
chez tous les Peuples du Monde,” and “La France devenue Italienne,”
a treatise which generally follows “L’Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules”
by Bussy, Comte de Rabutin.[422] The head-quarters of male
prostitution were then in the Champ Flory, i.e., Champ de Flore, the
privileged rendezvous of low courtesans. In the xviiith century,
“quand le Français à tête folle,” as Voltaire sings, invented the term
“Péché philosophique,” there was a temporary recrudescence; and,
after the death of Pidauzet de Mairobert (March, 1779), his
“Apologie de la Secte Anandryne” was published in L’Espion Anglais.
In those days the Allée des Veuves in the Champs Elysees had a “fief
reservé des Ebugors”[423]—“veuve” in the language of Sodom being
the maîtresse en titre, the favourite youth.
At the decisive moment of monarchical decomposition Mirabeau[424]
declares that pederasty was reglementée and adds, Le goût des
pédérastes, quoique moins en vogue que du temps de Henri III. (the
French Heliogabalus), sous le règne desquel les hommes se
provoquaient mutuellement[425] sous les portiques du Louvre, fait des
progrès considérables. On sait que cette ville (Paris) est un chef-
d’œuvre de police; en conséquence, il y a des lieux publics autorisés
à cet effet. Les jeunes gens qui se destinent à la profession, sont
soigneusement enclassés; car les systèmes réglementaires
s’étendent jusques-là. On les examine; ceux qui peuvent être agents
et patients, qui sont beaux, vermeils, bien faits, potelés, sont
réservés pour les grands seigneurs, ou se font payer très-cher par
les évêques et les financiers. Ceux qui sont privés de leurs testicules,
ou en termes de l’art (car notre langue est plus chaste que nos
mœurs), qui n’ont pas le poids du tisserand, mais qui donnent et
reçoivent, forment la seconde classe; ils sont encore chers, parceque
les femmes en usent tandis qu’ils servent aux hommes. Ceux qui ne
sont plus susceptibles d’érection tant ils sont usés, quoiqu’ils aient
tous ces organes nécessaires au plaisir, s’inscrivent comme patiens
purs, et composent la troisième classe: mais celle qui préside à ces
plaisirs, vérifie leur impuissance. Pour cet effet, on les place tout nus
sur un matelas ouvert par la moitié inférieure; deux filles les
caressent de leur mieux, pendant qu’une troisième frappe
doucement avec des orties naissantes le siège des désirs vénériens.
Après un quart d’heure de cet essai, on leur introduit dans l’anus un
poivre long rouge qui cause une irritation considérable; on pose sur
les échauboulures produites par les orties, de la moutarde fine de
Caudebec, et l’on passe le gland au camphre. Ceux qui résistent à
ces épreuves et ne donnent aucun signe d’érection, servent comme
patiens à un tiers de paie seulement.[426]
The Restoration and the Empire made the police more vigilant in
matters of politics than of morals. The favourite club, which had its
mot de passe, was in the Rue Doyenne, old quarter St. Thomas des
Louvre; and the house was a hôtel of the xviith century. Two street-
doors, on the right for the male gynæceum and the left for the
female, opened at 4 p.m. in winter and 8 p.m. in summer. A decoy-
lad, charmingly dressed in women’s clothes, with big haunches and
small waist, promenaded outside; and this continued till 1826 when
the police put down the house.
Under Louis Philippe, the conquest of Algiers had evil results,
according to the Marquis de Boissy. He complained without ambages
of mœurs Arabes in French regiments, and declared that the result
of the African wars was an éffrayable débordement pédérastique,
even as the vérole resulted from the Italian campaigns of that age of
passion, the xvith century. From the military the fléau spread to
civilian society and the Vice took such expansion and intensity that it
may be said to have been democratised in cities and large towns; at
least so we gather from the Dossier des Agissements des
Pédérastes. A general gathering of “La Sainte Congrégation des
glorieux Pédérastes” was held in the old Petite Rue des Marais
where, after the theatre, many resorted under pretext of making
water. They ranged themselves along the walls of a vast garden and
exposed their podices: bourgeois, richards and nobles came with full
purses, touched the part which most attracted them and were duly
followed by it. At the Allée des Veuves the crowd was dangerous
from 7 to 8 p.m.: no policeman or ronde de nuit dared venture in it;
cords were stretched from tree to tree and armed guards drove
away strangers amongst whom, they say, was once Victor Hugo.
This nuisance was at length suppressed by the municipal
administration.
The Empire did not improve morals. Balls of sodomites were held at
No. 8 Place de la Madeleine where, on Jan. 2, ’64, some one
hundred and fifty men met, all so well dressed as women that even
the landlord did not recognise them. There was also a club for
sotadic debauchery called the Cent Gardes and the Dragons de
l’Impératrice.[427] They copied the imperial toilette and kept it in the
general wardrobe: hence “faire l’Impératrice” meant to be used
carnally. The site, a splendid hotel in the Alleé des Veuves, was
discovered by the Procureur-Général who registered all the names;
but, as these belonged to not a few senators and dignitaries, the
Emperor wisely quashed proceedings. The club was broken up on
July 16, ’64. During the same year La Petite Revue, edited by M.
Loredan Larchy, son of the General, printed an article, “Les échappés
de Sodome”: it discusses the letter of M. Castagnary to the Progrès
de Lyons and declares that the Vice had been adopted by plusieurs
corps de troupes. For its latest developments as regards the
chantage of the tantes (pathics), the reader will consult the last
issues of Dr. Tardieu’s well-known Études.[428] He declares that the
servant-class is most infected; and that the Vice is commonest
between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.
The pederasty of The Nights may briefly be distributed into three
categories. The first is the funny form, as the unseemly practical
joke of masterful Queen Budúr (vol. iii. 300–306) and the not less
hardi jest of the slave-princess Zumurrud (vol. iv. 226). The second
is in the grimmest and most earnest phase of the perversion, for
instance where Abu Nowas[429] debauches the three youths (vol. v.
64–69); whilst in the third form it is wisely and learnedly discussed,
to be severely blamed, by the Shaykhah or Reverend Woman (vol. v.
154).
To conclude this part of my subject, the éclaircissement des
obscénités. Many readers will regret the absence from The Nights of
that modesty which distinguishes “Amadis de Gaul;” whose author
when leaving a man and a maid together says, “And nothing shall be
here related; for these and suchlike things which are conformable
neither to good conscience nor nature, man ought in reason lightly
to pass over, holding them in slight esteem as they deserve.” Nor
have we less respect for Palmerin of England who after a risqué
scene declares, “Herein is no offence offered to the wise by wanton
speeches, or encouragement to the loose by lascivious matter.” But
these are not oriental ideas and we must e’en take the Eastern as
we find him. He still holds “Naturalia non sunt turpia,” together with
“Mundis omnia munda”; and, as Bacon assures us the mixture of a
lie doth add to pleasure, so the Arab enjoys the startling and lively
contrast of extreme virtue and horrible vice placed in juxtaposition.
Those who have read through these ten volumes will agree with me
that the proportion of offensive matter bears a very small ratio to
the mass of the work. In an age saturated with cant and hypocrisy,
here and there a venal pen will mourn over the “Pornography” of
The Nights, dwell upon the “Ethics of Dirt” and the “Garbage of the
Brothel;” and will lament the “wanton dissemination (!) of ancient
and filthy fiction.” This self-constituted Censor morum reads
Aristophanes and Plato, Horace and Virgil, perhaps even Martial and
Petronius, because “veiled in the decent obscurity of a learned
language;” he allows men Latinè loqui; but he is scandalised at
stumbling-blocks much less important in plain English. To be
consistent he must begin by bowdlerising not only the classics, with
which boys’ and youths’ minds and memories are soaked and
saturated at schools and colleges, but also Boccaccio and Chaucer,
Shakespeare and Rabelais; Burton, Sterne, Swift and a long list of
works which are yearly reprinted and republished without a word of
protest. Lastly, why does not this inconsistent puritan purge the Old
Testament of its allusions to human ordure and the pudenda; to
carnal copulation and impudent whoredom, to adultery and
fornication, to onanism, sodomy and bestiality? But this he will not
do, the whited sepulchre! To the interested critic of the Edinburgh
Review (No. 335 of July, 1886), I return my warmest thanks for his
direct and deliberate falsehoods:—lies are one-legged and short-
lived, and venom evaporates.[430] It appears to me that when I show
to such men, so “respectable” and so impure, a landscape of
magnificent prospects whose vistas are adorned with every charm of
nature and art, they point their unclean noses at a little heap of
muck here and there lying in a field-corner.
 §V
ON THE PROSE-RHYME AND THE POETRY OF
THE NIGHTS.

A.—The Saj’a.

According to promise in my Foreword (p. xiv.), I here proceed to

offer a few observations concerning the Saj’a or rhymed prose and
the Shi’r, or measured sentence, that is, the verse of The Nights. The
former has in composition, metrical or unmetrical, three distinct
forms. Saj’a mutawázi (parallel), the most common, is when the
ending words of sentences agree in measure, assonance and final
letter, in fact our full rhyme: next is Saj’a mutarraf (the affluent),
when the periods, hemistichs or couplets end in words whose
terminal letters correspond, although differing in measure and
number; and thirdly, Saj’a muwázanah (equilibrium) is applied to the
balance which affects words corresponding in measure but differing
in final letters.[431]
Al-Saj’a, the fine style or style fleuri, also termed Al-Badí’a, or
euphuism, is the basis of all Arabic euphony. The whole of the Koran
is written in it; and the same is the case with the Makámát of Al-
Hariri and the prime master-pieces of rhetorical composition: without
it no translation of the Holy Book can be satisfactory or final, and
where it is not the Assemblies become the prose of prose. Thus
universally used the assonance has necessarily been abused, and its
excess has given rise to the saying “Al-Saj’a faj’a”—prose rhyme’s a
pest. English translators have, unwisely I think, agreed in rejecting
it, while Germans have not. Mr. Preston assures us that “rhyming
prose is extremely ungraceful in English and introduces an air of
flippancy”: this was certainly not the case with Friedrich Rückert’s
version of the great original, and I see no reason why it should be so
or become so in our tongue. Torrens (Pref. p. vii.) declares that “the
effect of the irregular sentence with the iteration of a jingling rhyme
is not pleasant in our language:” he therefore systematically neglects
it and gives his style the semblance of being “scamped” with the
object of saving study and trouble. Mr. Payne (ix. 379) deems it an
“excrescence born of the excessive facilities for rhyme afforded by
the language,” and of Eastern delight in antithesis of all kinds
whether of sound or of thought; and, aiming elaborately at grace of
style, he omits it wholly, even in the proverbs.
The weight of authority was against me but my plan compelled me
to disregard it. The dilemma was simply either to use the Saj’a or to
follow Mr. Payne’s method and “arrange the disjecta membra of the
original in their natural order;” that is to remodel the text. Intending
to produce a faithful copy of the Arabic, I was compelled to adopt
the former and still hold it to be the better alternative. Moreover I
question Mr. Payne’s dictum (ix. 383) that “the Seja-form is utterly
foreign to the genius of English prose and that its preservation
would be fatal to all vigour and harmony of style.” The English
translator of Palmerin of England, Anthony Munday, attempted it in
places with great success as I have before noted (vol. viii. 60); and
my late friend Edward Eastwick made artistic use of it in his Gulistan.
Had I rejected the “Cadence of the cooing-dove” because un-
English, I should have adopted the balanced periods of the Anglican
marriage service[432] or the essentially English system of alliteration,
requiring some such artful aid to distinguish from the vulgar
recitative style the elevated and classical tirades in The Nights. My
attempt has found with reviewers more favour than I expected; and
a kindly critic writes of it, “These melodious fragments, these little
eddies of song set like gems in the prose, have a charming effect on
the ear. They come as dulcet surprises and mostly recur in highly-
wrought situations, or they are used to convey a vivid sense of
something exquisite in nature or art. Their introduction seems due to
whim or caprice, but really it arises from a profound study of the
situation, as if the Tale-teller felt suddenly compelled to break into
the rhythmic strain.”
 B.—The Verse.

The Shi’r or metrical part of The Nights is considerable, amounting

to not less than ten thousand lines and these I could not but render
in rhyme or rather in monorhyme. This portion has been a bugbear
to translators. De Sacy noticed the difficulty of the task (p. 283).
Lane held the poetry untranslatable because abounding in the figure
Tajnís, our paronomasia or paragram, of which there are seven
distinct varieties,[433] not to speak of other rhetorical flourishes. He
therefore omitted the greater part of the verse as tedious and,
through the loss of measure and rhyme, “generally intolerable to the
reader.” He proved his position by the bald literalism of the passages
which he rendered in truly prosaic prose and succeeded in changing
the facies and presentment of the work. For the Shi’r, like the Saj’a,
is not introduced arbitrarily; and its unequal distribution throughout
The Nights may be accounted for by rule of art. Some tales, like
Omar bin al-Nu’man and Tawaddud, contain very little because the
theme is historical or realistic; whilst in stories of love and courtship,
as that of Rose-in-hood, the proportion may rise to one-fifth of the
whole. And this is true to nature. Love, as Addison said, makes even
the mechanic (the British mechanic!) poetical, and Joe Hume of
material memory once fought a duel about a fair object of dispute.
Before discussing the verse of The Nights it may be advisable to
enlarge a little upon the prosody of the Arabs. We know nothing of
the origin of their poetry, which is lost in the depths of antiquity, and
the oldest bards of whom we have any remains belong to the
famous epoch of the war Al-Basús, which would place them about
A.D. 500. Moreover, when the Muse of Arabia first shows she is not
only fully developed and mature, she has lost all her first youth, her
beauté du diable, and she is assuming the characteristics of an age
beyond “middle age.” No one can study the earliest poetry without
perceiving that it results from the cultivation of centuries and that it
has already assumed that artificial type and conventional process of
treatment which presages inevitable decay. Its noblest period is
included in the century preceding the Apostolate of Mohammed and
the oldest of that epoch is the prince of Arab songsters, Imr al-Kays,
“The Wandering King.” The Christian Fathers characteristically
termed poetry Vinum Dæmonorum. The stricter Moslems called their
bards “enemies of Allah;” and when the Prophet, who hated verse
and could not even quote it correctly, was asked who was the best
poet of the Peninsula he answered that the “Man of Al-Kays,” i.e. the
worshipper of the Priapus-idol, would usher them all into Hell. Here
he only echoed the general verdict of his countrymen who loved
poetry and, as a rule, despised poets. The earliest complete pieces
of any volume and substance saved from the wreck of old Arabic
literature and familiar in our day are the seven Kasídahs (purpose-
odes or tendence-elegies) which are popularly known as the Gilded
or the Suspended Poems; and in all of these we find, with an
elaboration of material and formal art which can go no further, a
subject-matter of trite imagery and stock ideas which suggest a long
ascending line of model ancestors and predecessors.
Scholars are agreed upon the fact that many of the earliest and best
Arab poets were, as Mohammed boasted himself, unalphabetic[434] or
rather could neither read nor write. They addressed the ear and the
mind, not the eye. They “spoke verse,” learning it by rote and
dictating it to the Ráwi, and this reciter again transmitted it to the
musician whose pipe or zither accompanied the minstrel’s song. In
fact the general practice of writing began only at the end of the first
century after The Flight.
The rude and primitive measure of Arab song, upon which the most
complicated system of metres subsequently arose, was called Al-
Rajaz, literally “the trembling,” because it reminded the highly
imaginative hearer of a pregnant she-camel’s weak and tottering
steps. This was the carol of the camel-driver, the lover’s lay and the
warrior’s chaunt of the heroic ages; and its simple, unconstrained
flow adapted it well for extempore effusions. Its merits and demerits
have been extensively discussed amongst Arab grammarians and
many, noticing that it was not originally divided into hemistichs,
make an essential difference between the Shá’ir who speaks poetry
and the Rájiz who speaks Rajaz. It consisted, to describe it
technically, of iambic dipodia ( ⏑ ‑ ⏑ ‑ ), the first three syllables
being optionally long or short. It can generally be read like our
iambs and, being familiar, is pleasant to the English ear. The dipodia
are repeated either twice or thrice; in the former case Rajaz is held
by some authorities, as Al-Akhfash (Sa’íd ibn Másadah), to be mere
prose. Although Labíd and Antar composed in iambics, the first
Kásídah or regular poem in Rajaz was by Al-Aghlab al-Ajibi temp.
Mohammed: the Alfíyah-grammar of Ibn Málik is in Rajaz Muzdawij,
the hemistichs rhyming and the assonance being confined to the
couplet. Al-Hariri also affects Rajaz in the third and fifth Assemblies.
So far Arabic metre is true to Nature: in impassioned speech the
movement of language is iambic: we say “I will, I will,” not “I will.”
For many generations the Sons of the Desert were satisfied with
Nature’s teaching; the fine perceptions and the nicely trained ear of
the bard needing no aid from art. But in time came the inevitable
prosodist under the formidable name of Abu Abd al-Rahmán al-
Khalíl, i. Ahmad, i. Amrú, i. Tamím al-Faráhidi (of the Faráhid sept),
al-Azdi (of the Azd clan), al-Yahmadi (of the Yahmad tribe), popularly
known as Al-Khalíl ibn Ahmad al-Basri, of Bassorah, where he died
æt. 68, scanning verses they say, in A.H. 170 (= 786–87). Ibn
Khallikán relates (i. 493) on the authority of Hamzah al-Isfaháni how
this “father of Arabic grammar and discoverer of the rules of
prosody” invented the science as he walked past a coppersmith’s
shop on hearing the strokes of a hammer upon a metal basin: “two
objects devoid of any quality which could serve as a proof and an
illustration of anything else than their own form and shape and
incapable of leading to any other knowledge than that of their own
nature.”[435] According to others he was passing through the Fullers’
Bazar at Basrah when his ear was struck by the Dak-dak (‫)دق دق‬
and the Dakak-dakak (‫ )دقق دقق‬of the workmen. In these two
onomatopoetics we trace the expression which characterises the
Arab tongue: all syllables are composed of consonant and vowel, the
latter long or short as Bā and Bă; or of a vowelled consonant
followed by a consonant as Bal, Bau (‫)بو‬.
The grammarian, true to the traditions of his craft which looks for all
poetry to the Badawi,[436] adopted for metrical details the language
of the Desert. The distich, which amongst Arabs is looked upon as
one line, he named “Bayt,” nighting-place, tent or house; and the
hemistich Misrá’ah, the one leaf of a folding door. To this “scenic”
simile all the parts of the verse were more or less adapted. The
metres, our feet, were called “Arkán,” the stakes and stays of the
tent; the syllables were “Usúl” or roots divided into three kinds: the
first or “Sabab” (the tent-rope) is composed of two letters, a
vowelled and a quiescent consonant as “Lam.”[437] The “Watad” or
tent-peg of three letters is of two varieties; the Majmú’, or united, a
foot in which the two first consonants are moved by vowels and the
last is jazmated or made quiescent by apocope as “Lakad;” and the
Mafrúk, or disunited, when the two moved consonants are separated
by one jazmated, as “Kabla.” And lastly the “Fásilah” or intervening
space, applied to the main pole of the tent, consists of four letters.
The metres were called Buhúr or “seas” (plur. of Bahr), also meaning
the space within the tent-walls, the equivoque alluding to pearls and
other treasures of the deep. Al-Khalil, the systematiser, found in
general use only five Dáirah (circles, classes or groups of metre);
and he characterised the harmonious and stately measures, all built
upon the original Rajaz, as Al-Tawíl (the long)[438], Al-Kámil (the
complete), Al-Wáfir (the copious), Al-Basít (the extended) and Al-
Khafíf (the light).[439] These embrace all the Mu’allakát and the
Hamásah, the great Anthology of Abú Tammám; but the crave for
variety and the extension of foreign intercourse had multiplied wants
and Al-Khalil deduced, from the original five Dáirah, fifteen, to which
Al-Akhfash (ob. A.D. 830) added a sixteenth, Al-Khabab. The
Persians extended the number to nineteen: the first four were
peculiarly Arab; the fourteenth, the fifteenth and seventeenth
peculiarly Persian and all the rest were Arab and Persian.[440]
Arabic metre so far resembles that of Greece and Rome that the
value of syllables depends upon the “quantity” or position of their
consonants, not upon accent as in English and the Neo-Latin
tongues. Al-Khalil was doubtless familiar with the classic prosody of
Europe but he rejected it as unsuited to the genius of Arabic and like
a true Eastern Gelehrte he adopted a process devised by himself.
Instead of scansion by pyrrhics and spondees, iambs and trochees,
anapaests and similar simplifications he invented a system of
weights (“wuzún”). Of these there are nine[441] memorial words used
as quantitive signs, all built upon the root “fa’l” which has rendered
such notable service to Arabic and Hebrew[442] grammar and varying
from the simple “fa’ál,” in Persian “fa’úl,” ( ⏓ ‑) to the complicated
“Mutafá’ilun” (⏑⏑‑⏑‑ ), anapaest + iamb. Thus the prosodist
would scan the Shahnámeh of Firdausi as
Fa’úlun, fa’úlun, fa’úlun, fa’úl.

⏑ ‑ ‑ | ⏑ ‑ ‑ | ⏑ ‑ ‑ |⏒ ‑
These weights also show another peculiarity of Arabic verse. In
English we have few if any spondees: the Arabic contains about
three longs to one short; hence its gravity, stateliness and dignity.
But these longs again are peculiar, and sometimes strike the
European ear as shorts, thus adding a difficulty for those who would
represent Oriental metres by western feet, ictus and accent. German
Arabists can register an occasional success in such attempts:
Englishmen none. My late friend Professor Palmer of Cambridge tried
the tour de force of dancing on one leg instead of two and notably
failed: Mr. Lyall also strove to imitate Arabic metre and produced
only prose bewitched.[443] Mr. Payne appears to me to have wasted
trouble in “observing the exterior form of the stanza, the movement
of the rhyme and (as far as possible) the identity in number of the
syllables composing the beits.” There is only one part of his
admirable version concerning which I have heard competent readers
complain; and that is the metrical, because here and there it sounds
strange to their ears.
I have already stated my conviction that there are two and only two
ways of translating Arabic poetry into English. One is to represent it
by good heroic or lyric verse as did Sir William Jones; the other is to
render it after French fashion, by measured and balanced Prose, the
little sister of Poetry. It is thus and thus only that we can preserve
the peculiar cachet of the original. This old-world Oriental song is
spirit-stirring as a “blast of that dread horn,” albeit the words be
thin. It is heady as the “Golden Wine” of Libanus, to the tongue
water and brandy to the brain—the clean contrary of our nineteenth
century effusions. Technically speaking, it can be vehicled only by
the verse of the old English ballad or by the prose of the Book of
Job. And Badawi poetry is a perfect expositor of Badawi life,
especially in the good and gladsome old Pagan days ere Al-Islam,
like the creed which it abolished, overcast the minds of men with its
dull grey pall of realistic superstition. They combined to form a
marvellous picture—those contrasts of splendour and squalor
amongst the sons of the sand. Under airs pure as æther, golden and
ultramarine above and melting over the horizon into a diaphanous
green which suggested a reflection of Kaf, that unseen mountain-
wall of emerald, the so-called Desert changed face twice a year; now
brown and dry as summer-dust; then green as Hope, beautified with
infinite verdure and broad sheetings of rain-water. The vernal and
autumnal shiftings of camp, disruptions of homesteads and partings
of kith and kin, friends and lovers, made the life many-sided as it
was vigorous and noble, the outcome of hardy frames, strong minds
and spirits breathing the very essence of liberty and independence.
The day began with the dawn-drink, “generous wine bought with
shining ore,” poured into the crystal goblet from the leather bottle
swinging before the cooling breeze. The rest was spent in the
practice of weapons; in the favourite arrow-game known as Al-
Maysar, gambling which at least had the merit of feeding the poor;
in racing for which the Badawin had a mania, and in the chase, the
foray and the fray which formed the serious business of his life. And
how picturesque the hunting scenes; the greyhound, like the mare,
of purest blood; the falcon cast at francolin and coney; the gazelle
standing at gaze; the desert ass scudding over the ground-waves;
the wild cows or bovine antelopes browsing with their calves and the
ostrich-chickens flocking round the parent bird! The Musámarah or
night-talk round the camp-fire was enlivened by the lute-girl and the
gleeman, whom the austere Prophet described as “roving distraught
in every vale” and whose motto in Horatian vein was, “To-day we
shall drink, to-morrow be sober; wine this day, that day work.”
Regularly once a year, during the three peaceful months when war
and even blood revenge were held sacrilegious, the tribes met at
Ukádh (Ocaz) and other fairsteads, where they held high festival and
the bards strave in song and prided themselves upon doing honour
to women and to the successful warriors of their tribe. Brief, the
object of Arab life was to be—to be free, to be brave, to be wise;
while the endeavours of other peoples was and is to have—to have
wealth, to have knowledge, to have a name; and while moderns
make their “epitome of life” to be, to do and to suffer. Lastly the
Arab’s end was honourable as his life was stirring: few Badawin had
the crowning misfortune of dying “the straw-death.”
The poetical forms in The Nights are as follows:—The Misrá’ah or
hemistich is half the “Bayt” which, for want of a better word I have
rendered couplet: this, however, though formally separated in MSS.
is looked upon as one line, one verse; hence a word can be divided,
the former part pertaining to the first and the latter to the second
moiety of the distich. As the Arabs ignore blank verse, when we
come upon a rhymeless couplet we know that it is an extract from a
longer composition in monorhyme. The Kit’ah is a fragment, either
an occasional piece or more frequently a portion of a Ghazal (ode) or
Kasídah (elegy), other than the Matlá, the initial Bayt with rhyming
distichs. The Ghazal and Kasídah differ mainly in length: the former
is popularly limited to eighteen couplets: the latter begins at fifteen
and is of indefinite number. Both are built upon monorhyme, which
appears twice in the first couplet and ends all the others, e.g., aa +
ba + ca, etc.; nor may the same assonance be repeated, unless at
least seven couplets intervene. In the best poets, as in the old
classic verse of France, the sense must be completed in one couplet
and not run on to a second; and, as the parts cohere very loosely,
separate quotation can generally be made without injuring their
proper effect. A favourite form is the Rubá’í or quatrain, made
familiar to English ears by Mr. Fitzgerald’s masterly adaptation of
Omar-i-Khayyám: the movement is generally aa + ba; but it also
appears as ab + cb, in which case it is a Kit’ah or fragment. The
Murabbá, tetrastichs or four-fold song, occurs once only in The
Nights (vol. i. 98); it is a succession of double Bayts or of four-lined
stanzas rhyming aa + bc + dc + ec: in strict form the first three
hemistichs rhyme with one another only, independently of the rest of
the poem, and the fourth with that of every other stanza, e.g., aa +
ab + cb + db. The Mukhammas, cinquains or pentastichs (Night
cmlxiv.), represents a stanza of two distichs and a hemistich in
monorhyme, the fifth line being the “bob” or burden: each
succeeding stanza affects a new rhyme, except in the fifth line, e.g.,
aaaab + ccccb + ddddb and so forth. The Muwwál is a simple
popular song in four to six lines; specimens of it are given in the
Egyptian grammar of my friend the late Dr. Wilhelm Spitta.[444] The
Muwashshah, or ornamented verse, has two main divisions: one
applies to our acrostics in which the initials form a word or words;
the other is a kind of Musaddas, or sex-tines, which occurs once only
in The Nights (cmlxxxvii.) It consists of three couplets or six-line
strophes: all the hemistichs of the first are in monorhyme; in the
second and following stanzas the three first hemistichs take a new
rhyme, but the fourth resumes the assonance of the first set and is
followed by the third couplet of No. 1, serving as bob or refrain, e.g.,
aaaaaa + bbbaaa + cccaaa and so forth. It is the most complicated
of all the measures and is held to be of Morisco or Hispano-Moorish
origin.
Mr. Lane (Lex.) lays down, on the lines of Ibn Khallikan (i. 476, etc.)
and other representative literati, as our sole authorities for pure
Arabic, the precedence in following order. First of all ranks the Jáhili
(Ignoramus) of The Ignorance, the Ἀραβίας ἄρειον ἔθνος: these
pagans left hemistichs, couplets, pieces and elegies which once
composed a large corpus and which is now mostly forgotten.
Hammád al-Ráwiyah, the Reciter, a man of Persian descent (ob. A.H.
160 = 777) who first collected the Mu’allakát, once recited by rote in
a séance before Caliph Al-Walid two thousand poems of præ-
Mohammedan bards.[445] After the Jáhili stands the Mukhadram or
Muhadrim, the “Spurious,” because half Pagan half Moslem, who
flourished either immediately before or soon after the preaching of
Mohammed. The Islámi or full-blooded Moslem at the end of the first
century A.H. (= 720) began the process of corruption in language;
and, lastly, he was followed by the Muwallad of the second century
who fused Arabic with non-Arabic and in whom purity of diction
disappeared.
I have noticed (1 § A.) that the versical portion of The Nights may
be distributed into three categories. First are the olden poems which
are held classical by all modern Arabs; then comes the mediæval
poetry, the effusions of that brilliant throng which adorned the
splendid Court of Harun al-Rashid and which ended with Al-Haríri
(ob. A.H. 516); and, lastly, are the various pièces de circonstance
suggested to editors or scribes by the occasion. It is not my object
to enter upon the historical part of the subject: a mere sketch would
have neither value nor interest whilst a finished picture would lead
too far: I must be contented to notice a few of the most famous
names.
Of the præ-islamites we have Ádi bin Zayd al-Ibadi the “celebrated
poet” of Ibn Kkallikán (i. 188); Nábighat (the full-grown) al-Zubyáni
who flourished at the Court of Al-Nu’man in A.D. 580–602, and
whose poem is compared with the “Suspendeds,”[446] and Al-
Mutalammis the “pertinacious” satirist, friend and intimate with
Tarafah of the “Prize Poem.” About Mohammed’s day we find Imr al-
Kays “with whom poetry began,” to end with Zú al-Rummah; Amrú
bin Mádi Karab al-Zubaydi, Labíd; Ka’b ibn Zuhayr, the father one of
the Mu’allakah-poets, and the son author of the Burdah or Mantle-
poem (see vol. iv. 115), and Abbás bin Mirdás who lampooned the
Prophet and had “his tongue cut out” i.e. received a double share of
booty from Ali. In the days of Caliph Omar we have Alkamah bin
Olátha followed by Jamíl bin Ma’mar of the Banu Ozrah (ob. A.H.
82), who loved Azzá. Then came Al-Kuthayyir (the dwarf, ironicè),
the lover of Buthaynah, “who was so lean that birds might be cut to
bits with her bones:” the latter was also a poetess (Ibn Khall. i. 87),
like Hind bint al-Nu’man who made herself so disagreeable to Al-
Hajjáj (ob. A.H. 95). Jarír al-Khatafah, the noblest of the Islami
poets in the first century, is noticed at full length by Ibn Khallikan (i.
294) together with his rival in poetry and debauchery, Abú Firás
Hammám or Homaym bin Ghalib al-Farazdak, the Tamími, the
Ommiade poet “without whose verse half Arabic would be lost[447]:”
he exchanged satires with Jarír and died forty days before him (A.H.
110). Another contemporary, forming the poetical triumvirate of the
period, was the debauched Christian poet Al-Akhtal al-Taghlibi. They
were followed by Al-Ahwas al-Ansári whose witty lampoons banished
him to Dahlak Island in the Red Sea (ob. A.H. 179 = 795); by
Bashshár ibn Burd and by Yúnus ibn Habib (ob. A.H. 182).
The well-known names of the Harun-cycle are Al-Asma’i, rhetorician
and poet, whose epic with Antar for hero is not forgotten (ob. A.H.
216); Isaac of Mosul (Ishak bin Ibrahim of Persian origin); Al-’Utbi
“the Poet” (ob. A.H. 228); Abu al-Abbás al-Rakáshi; Abu al-Atahiyah,
the lover of Otbah; Muslim bin al-Walíd al-Ansari; Abú Tammám of
Tay, compiler of the Hamásah (ob. A.H. 230), “a Muwallad of the
first class” (says Ibn Khallikan i. 392); the famous or infamous Abu
Nowás; Abu Mus’ab (Ahmad ibn Ali) who died in A.H. 242; the
satirist Dibil al-Khuzáí (ob. A.H. 246) and a host of others quos nunc
perscribere longum est. They were followed by Al-Bohtori “the Poet”
(ob. A.H. 286); the royal author Abdullah ibn al-Mu’tazz (ob. A.H.
315); Ibn Abbád the Sahib (ob. A.H. 334); Mansúr al-Halláj the
martyred Sufi; the Sahib ibn Abbad; Abu Faras al-Hamdáni (ob. A.H.
357); Al-Námi (ob. A.H. 399) who had many encounters with that
model Chauvinist Al-Mutanabbi, nicknamed Al-Mutanabbih (the
“wide-awake”), killed A.H. 354; Al-Manázi of Manazjird (ob. A.H.
427); Al-Tughrai author of the Lámiyat al-’Ajam (ob. A.H. 375); Al-
Haríri the model rhetorician (ob. A.H. 516); Al-Hájiri al-Irbili, of
Arbela (ob. A.H. 632); Bahá al-Din al-Sinjari, (ob. A.H. 622); Al-Kátib
or the Scribe (ob. A.H. 656); Abdun al-Andalúsi the Spaniard (our
xiith century) and about the same time Al-Náwaji, author of the
Halbat al-Kumayt or “Race-course of the Bay-horse”—poetical slang
for wine.[448]
Of the third category, the pièces d’occasion, little need be said: I
may refer readers to my notes on the doggrels in vol. ii. 34, 35, 56,
179, 182, 186 and 261; in vol. v. 55 and in vol. viii. 50.
Having a mortal aversion to the details of Arabic prosody I have
persuaded my friend Dr. Steingass, to undertake in the following
pages the subject as far as concerns the poetry of The Nights. He
has been kind enough to collaborate with me from the beginning,
and to his minute lexicographical knowledge I am deeply indebted
for discovering not a few blemishes which would have been “nuts to
the critic.” The learned Arabist’s notes will be highly interesting to
students: mine (§ V.) are intended to give a superficial and popular
idea of the Arab’s verse-mechanism.
“The principle of Arabic Prosody” (called ’Arúz, pattern standard, or
’Ilm al-’Arúz, science of the ’Arúz), in so far resembles that of
classical poetry, as it chiefly rests on metrical weight, not on accent,
or in other words a verse is measured by short and long quantities,
while the accent only regulates its rhythm. In Greek and Latin,
however, the quantity of the syllables depends on their vowels,
which may be either naturally short or long, or become long by
position, i.e. if followed by two or more consonants. We all
remember from our school-days what a fine string of rules had to be
committed to and kept in memory, before we were able to scan a
Latin or Greek verse, without breaking its neck by tripping over false
quantities. In Arabic, on the other hand, the answer to the question,
what is metrically long or short, is exceedingly simple, and flows
with stringent cogency from the nature of the Arabic Alphabet. This,
strictly speaking, knows only consonants (Harf, pl. Hurúf). The
vowels which are required, in order to articulate the consonants,
were at first not represented in writing at all. They had to be
supplied by the reader, and are not improperly called “motions”
(Harakát), because they move or lead on as it were, one letter to
another. They are three in number, a (Fathah), i (Kasrah), u
(Zammah), originally sounded as the corresponding English vowels
in bat, bit and butt respectively, but in certain cases modifying their
pronunciation under the influence of a neighbouring consonant.
When the necessity made itself felt to represent them in writing,
especially for the sake of fixing the correct reading of the Koran,
they were rendered by additional signs, placed above or beneath the
consonant, after which they are pronounced, in a similar way as it is
done in some systems of English shorthand. A consonant followed
by a short vowel is called a “moved letter” (Muharrakah); a
consonant without such vowel is called “resting” or “quiescent”
(Sákinah), and can stand only at the end of a syllable or word.
And now we are able to formulate the one simple rule, which
determines the prosodical quantity in Arabic: any moved letter, as ta,
li, mu, is counted short; any moved letter followed by a quiescent
one, as taf, lun, mus, i.e. any closed syllable beginning and
terminating with a consonant and having a short vowel between,
forms a long quantity. This is certainly a relief in comparison with the
numerous rules of classical Prosody, proved by not a few exceptions,
which for instance in Dr. Smith’s elementary Latin Grammar fill eight
closely printed pages.
Before I proceed to show how from the prosodical unities, the
moved and the quiescent letter, first the metrical elements, then the
feet and lastly the metres are built up, it will be necessary to obviate
a few misunderstandings, to which our mode of transliterating Arabic
into the Roman character might give rise.
The line:
“Love in my heart they lit and went their ways,” (vol. i. 232)

runs in Arabic:
“Akámú al-wajda fí kalbí wa sárú.” (Mac. Ed. i. 179).

Here, according to our ideas, the word akámú would begin with a
short vowel a, and contain two long vowels á and ú; according to
Arabic views neither is the case. The word begins with “Alif,” and its
second syllable ká closes in Alif after Fathah (a), in the same way, as
the third syllable mú closes in the letter Wáw (w) after Zammah (u).
The question, therefore, arises, what is “Alif.” It is the first of the
twenty-eight Arabic letters, and has through the medium of the
Greek Alpha nominally entered into our alphabet, where it now plays
rather a misleading part. Curiously enough, however, Greek itself has
preserved for us the key to the real nature of the letter. In Ἀλφα the
initial a is preceded by the so-called spiritus lenis (᾿), a sign which
must be placed in front or at the top of any vowel beginning a Greek
word, and which represents that slight aspiration or soft breathing
almost involuntarily uttered, when we try to pronounce a vowel by
itself. We need not go far to find how deeply rooted this tendency is
and to what exaggerations it will sometimes lead. Witness the
gentleman, who after mentioning that he had been visiting his
“favourite haunts” on the scenes of his early life, was
sympathetically asked, how the dear old ladies were. This spiritus
lenis is the silent h of the French “homme” and the English “honour,”
corresponding exactly to the Arabic Hamzah, whose mere prop the
Alif is, when it stands at the beginning of a word: a native Arabic
Dictionary does not begin with Báb al-Alif (Gate or Chapter of the
Alif), but with Báb al-Hamzah. What the Greeks call Alpha and have
transmitted to us as a name for the vowel a, is in fact nothing else
but the Arabic Hamzah-Alif (‫)أ‬, moved by Fathah, i.e. bearing the
sign َ for a at the top (‫)َأ‬, just as it might have the sign Zammah (ُ)
‫ُأ‬
superscribed to express u ( ), or the sign Kasrah (ِ) subjoined to
represent i (‫)ِإ‬. In each case the Hamzah-Alif, although scarcely
audible to our ear, is the real letter and might fitly be rendered in
transliteration by the above-mentioned silent h, wherever we make
an Arabic word begin with a vowel not preceded by any other sign.
This latter restriction refers to the sign ’, which in Sir Richard
Burton’s translation of The Nights, as frequently in books published
in this country, is used to represent the Arabic letter ‫ ع‬in whose very
name ’Ayn it occurs. The ’Ayn is “described as produced by a smart
compression of the upper part of the windpipe and forcible emission
of breath,” imparting a guttural tinge to a following or preceding
vowel-sound; but it is by no means a mere guttural vowel, as
Professor Palmer styles it. For Europeans, who do not belong to the
Israelitic dispensation, as well as for Turks and Persians, its exact
pronunciation is most difficult, if not impossible to acquire.
In reading Arabic from transliteration for the purpose of scanning
poetry, we have therefore in the first instance to keep in mind that
no Arabic word or syllable can begin with a vowel. Where our mode
of rendering Arabic in the Roman character would make this appear
to be the case, either Hamzah (silent h), or ’Ayn (represented by the
sign ’) is the real initial, and the only element to be taken in account
as a letter. It follows as a self-evident corollary that wherever a
single consonant stands between two vowels, it never closes the
previous syllable, but always opens the next one. Our word “Akámú,”
for instance, can only be divided into the syllables: A (properly Ha)-
ká-mú, never into Ak-á-mú or Ak-ám-ú.
It has been stated above that the syllable ká is closed by the letter
Alif after Fathah, in the same way as the syllable mú is closed by the
letter Wáw, and I may add now, as the word fí is closed by the letter
Yá (y). To make this perfectly clear, I must repeat that the Arabic
Alphabet, as it was originally written, deals only with consonants.
The signs for the short vowel-sounds were added later for a special
purpose, and are generally not represented even in printed books,
e.g. in the various editions of The Nights, where only quotations
from the Koran or poetical passages are provided with the vowel-
points. But among those consonants there are three, called weak
letters (Hurúf al-’illah), which have a particular organic affinity to
these vowel-sounds: the guttural Hamzah, which is akin to a, the
palatal Yá, which is related to i, and the labial Wáw, which is
homogeneous with u. Where any of the weak letters follows a vowel
of its own class, either at the end of a word or being itself followed
by another consonant, it draws out or lengthens the preceding vowel
and is in this sense called a letter of prolongation (Harf al-Madd).
Thus, bearing in mind that the Hamzah is in reality a silent h, the
syllable ká might be written kah, similarly to the German word “sah,”
where the h is not pronounced either, but imparts a lengthened
sound to the a. In like manner mú and fí are written in Arabic muw
and fiy respectively, and form long quantities not because they
contain a vowel long by nature, but because their initial
“Muharrakah” is followed by a “Sákinah,” exactly as in the previously
mentioned syllables taf, lun, mus.[449] In the Roman transliteration,
Akámú forms a word of five letters, two of which are consonants,
and three vowels; in Arabic it represents the combination
H(a)k(a)hm(u)w, consisting also of five letters but all consonants,
the intervening vowels being expressed in writing either merely by
superadded external signs, or more frequently not at all. Metrically it
represents one short and two long quantities ( ⏑‑‑ ), forming in
Latin a trisyllabic foot, called Bacchíus, and in Arabic a quinqueliteral
“Rukn” (pillar) or “Juz” (part, portion), the technical designation for
which we shall introduce presently.
There is one important remark more to be made with regard to the
Hamzah: at the beginning of a word it is either conjunctive, Hamzat
al-Wasl, or disjunctive, Hamzat al Kat’. The difference is best
illustrated by reference to the French so-called aspirated h, as
compared with the above mentioned silent h. If the latter, as initial
of a noun, is preceded by the article, the article loses its vowel, and,
ignoring the silent h altogether, is read with the following noun
almost as one word: le homme becomes l’homme (pronounced
lomme) as le ami becomes l’ami. This resembles very closely the
Arabic Hamzah Wasl. If, on the other hand, a French word begins
with an aspirated h, as for instance héros, the article does not drop
its vowel before the noun, nor is the h sounded as in the English
word “hero,” but the effect of the aspirate is simply to keep the two
vowel sounds apart, so as to pronounce le éros with a slight hiatus
between, and this is exactly what happens in the case of the Arabic
Hamzah Kat’.
With regard to the Wasl, however, Arabic goes a step further than
French. In the French example, quoted above, we have seen it is the
silent h and the preceding vowel, which are eliminated; in Arabic
both the Hamzah and its own Harakah, i.e. the short vowel following
it, are supplanted by their antecedent. Another example will make
this clear. The most common instance of the Hamzah Wasl is the
article al (for h(a)l = the Hebrew hal), where it is moved by Fathah.
But it has this sound only at the beginning of a sentence or speech,
as in “Al-hamdu” at the head of the Fatihah, or in “Alláhu” at the
beginning of the third Surah. If the two words stand in grammatical
connection, as in the sentence “Praise be to God,” we cannot say
“Al-Hamdu li-Alláhi,” but the junction (Wasl) between the dative
particle li and the noun which it governs must take place. According
to the French principle, this junction would be effected at the cost of
the preceding element and li Alláhi would become l’Alláhí; in Arabic,
on the contrary, the kasrated l of the particle takes the place of the
following fathated Hamzah and we read li ’lláhi instead. Proceeding
in the Fatihah we meet with the verse “Iyyáka na’budu wa iyyáka
nasta’ínu,” Thee do we worship and of Thee do we ask aid. Here the
Hamzah of iyyáka (properly hiyyáka with silent h) is disjunctive, and
therefore its pronunciation remains the same at the beginning and in
the middle of the sentence, or to put it differently, instead of
coalescing with the preceding wa into wa’yyáka, the two words are
kept separate, by the Hamzah reading wa iyyáka, just as it was the
case with the French Le héros.
If the conjunctive Hamzah is preceded by a quiescent letter, this
takes generally Kasrah: “Tálat al-Laylah,” the night was longsome,
would become Tálati ’l-Laylah. If, however, the quiescent letter is
one of prolongation, it mostly drops out altogether, and the Harakah
of the next preceding letter becomes the connecting vowel between
the two words, which in our parlance would mean, that the end-
vowel of the first word is shortened before the elided initial of the
second. Thus “fí al-bayti,” in the house, which in Arabic is written
f(i)y h(a)lb(a)yt(i) and which we transliterate fí ’l-bayti, is in poetry
read fil-bayti, where we must remember, that the syllable fil, in spite
of its short vowel, represents a long quantity, because it consists of
a moved letter followed by a quiescent one. Fíl would be overlong
and could, according to Arabic prosody, stand only in certain cases at