And I have seen in the West many a “happy fireside” fitter to make
Miss Martineau’s heart ache than any harim in Grand Cairo.
[p.92] Were it not evident that the spiritualising of sexuality by
sentiment, of propensity by imagination, is universal among the highest
orders of mankind,—c’est l’etoffe de la nature que l’imagination a brodee, says
Voltaire,—I should attribute the origin of “love” to the influence of the
Arabs’ poetry and chivalry upon European ideas rather than to mediaeval
Christianity. Certain “Fathers of the Church,” it must be remembered, did
not believe that women have souls. The Moslems never went so far.
In nomad life, tribes often meet for a time, live together whilst
pasturage lasts, and then separate perhaps for a generation. Under such
circumstances, youths who hold with the Italian that
“Perduto e tutto il tempo
Che in amor non si spende,”
will lose heart to maidens, whom possibly, by the laws of the clan,
they may not marry,[FN#23] and the light o’ love will fly her home. The
fugitives must brave every danger, for revenge, at all times the Badawi’s
idol, now becomes the lodestar of his existence. But the Arab lover
will dare all consequences. “Men have died and the worms have eaten them,
but not for love,” may be true in the West: it is false in the East. This
is attested in every tale where love, and not ambition, is the
groundwork of the narrative.[FN#24] And nothing can be more tender, more
[p.93] pathetic than the use made of these separations and long
absences by the old Arab poets. Whoever peruses the Suspended Poem of
Labid, will find thoughts at once so plaintive and so noble, that even
Dr. Carlyle’s learned verse cannot wholly deface their charm.
The warrior-bard returns from afar. He looks upon the traces of hearth
and home still furrowing the Desert ground. In bitterness of spirit he
checks himself from calling aloud upon his lovers and his friends. He
melts at the remembrance of their departure, and long indulges in the
absorbing theme. Then he strengthens himself by the thought of Nawara’s
inconstancy, how she left him and never thought of him again. He
impatiently dwells upon the charms of the places which detain her,
advocates flight from the changing lover and the false friend, and, in
the exultation with which he feels his swift dromedary start under him
upon her rapid course, he seems to seek and finds some consolation for
women’s perfidy and forgetfulness. Yet he cannot abandon Nawara’s name or
memory.
